Any tips for merging texture sets?

[Exsulator]

I`m moving between applications in my workflow (sculpt in 3D-coat, paint in Substance Painter).

I have heard that the following is possible, though I`m unsure how exactly. I want to :

1. Import a mesh (originally sculpted in 3D-coat, but textures are generated in Substance Painter)

2. Import multiple texture sets for said mesh
(from Substance Painter: they all belong on the one mesh, but for different "parts", and therefore needs to be merged since it can`t be done that way in Substance Painter)

3. Somehow combine the textures into a single UV-tile (that can later be applied to the mesh inside of e.g. Maya).

4. Export (... the newly combined texture as a single file.)

[Carlosan]

You mean this ?

 

[Exsulator]

19 hours ago, Carlosan said:

You mean this ?

[...]

I`m aware of this tutorial. It won`t work. He needs to combine the UV-maps. I already had a combined UV-map: Now I need the textures to respect each other (if possible?).

For instance, if I in Substance Painter make the tongue of a fish red, export it and import it to 3D coat...

the whole fish will be red, which obviously is a problem. (Substance painter does this when working on models with multiple parts - if the tongue is on it`s own part, it won`t respect the other parts of the fish, treating all the parts like separate models thus overflowing like seen below)

So basically: in this case, the entire diffuse map is completely red, but I only want it affecting the tongue.

Similarly, the diffuse map for the body fills the entire map, leaving no room for the red tongue.

Can 3D coat combine multiple diffuse maps, based on a pre-combined UV-tile?
(sorry for the poor explanation from earlier...)

Edited February 28, 2018 by Exsulator

[digman]

Read your post a couple of times. 

It appears you want to have a separate material for each part of the fish but have only one uv set.

3DC can make this possible and as you gain experience with 3DC will know when and when not to use the feature.

Before you bake your model to the paint room or just the mesh without baking which also can be done from the retopo room do the below:

Preferences: Deselect "Treat Retopo Objects as Paint Objects. Shown in picture.

Your retopo object layers be converted to surface materials and you only now will have one paint object but with several surface materials.  Rename your Paint object as it will be a combination name of  all the retopo object layers. I noticed in your image that Paint objects and Surface materials panels have disappeared again. Use the method from my other post to get them back.

Export this model from 3DC.

Of course you will need a color ID for each material and know how to set it up in SP to use the color id map. Color ID created in 3DC.

Open SP and load the model. In SP you will see each material and can work on them separately.  Shown in picture from SP.

When done just export the model from SP as normal, it will export the uv set correctly now in one go.

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by digman

[digman]

Goes with the above post.

It still looks like SP can not merge texture sets so you get all those extra maps for each material. I do not use SP all the time.

Import your fish model you exported earlier from 3DC. If you do not want any extra layers created because 3DC will read the Mtl file, you can just rename the mtl file first. That is if you exported any texture maps from 3DC in the first place, If you did not, no need to rename the mtl file.

3DC will create a uv set for each surface material.

Now when you import a texture map / normal map etc under the textures menu it will ask for what UV set to apply it too.

When done with your work, go to the UV Room and Select "Unify UV" located in the left tool bar. This function will merge all your uv sets to one uv set.

Switch back to the Paint Room and  click on yes to apply the changes you made in the UV room. 

Now go back to the uv room and delete the unused uv sets. Upper UI on the left that shows the name of your uv set. Use the drop down arrow and delete unused UV sets. 

Unify UV as the very last thing you to in your production pipeline as doing so will remove all but one surface material. They are merged to just one surface material.

Maybe the development team can upgrade the feature to keep the surface materials.

If jumping between SP and 3DC, keep 3DC open and do not merge all your sets till you are really done. Plus you can save the file before merging too so you can continue to work between SP and 3DC another day. 

There is a way to merge the texture sets in SD but I have not watched any tutorials on it.

Jump, hop and pull some hairs out too... the life of using 3D Software, All 3D software...  

Ah for the free life of just using a pencil for art years ago.

Edited March 2, 2018 by digman

[Exsulator]

On 02/03/2018 at 12:34 AM, digman said:

Read your post a couple of times. 

[...]

Thank you, the color ID-map method worked well.

[Exsulator]

On 02/03/2018 at 6:08 AM, digman said:

Goes with the above post.

[...]

Interesting, I will have to test this out