3DC to Max using Skin Wrap

[lowedennis]

I finally got to the stage whereby I'm jumping through the hoops of character animation in Max.

As this is the first time I've dabbled with Skin and Skin Wrap modifier I'm beginning to run out of ideas of where my problem lies.

Here is the model as I would like it to look

I've been through the process of making a low res copy and attached the skin modifier and using biped to do the animation - done.

I then attached the skin wrap modifier to the high res and is driven by the low res, then fiddled it to look acceptable but the texture now has lost it's specular quality and generally looks dull.

I've used these settings for the normal map plus an added bump map

My biggest worry is when I come out of 'figure mode' on the biped and see that all the mapping has gone to pot.

I've fiddled with all the mapping modes from tangent, XYZ, screen and world but nothing hits the spot.

Is there a modofier that I need in my workflow that I'm not aware of that corrects this?

Maybe I've rendered out the wrong normal maps?

[digman]

I'm not a Max user, we do have several here that hopefully can fully answer your questions but here are a few areas to check out in 3DCoat.

Since I'm not sure how you saved your normal map out of 3DCoat here is some information to chew on. Hopefully it might provide some help but not being a Max using I really don't know...

Edit: The texture baking image you see is setup for a displacement map not a normal map,just showing you the areas you can try and adjust if you have not done so already.

[lowedennis]

I'm not a Max user, we do have several here that hopefully can fully answer your questions but here are a few areas to check out in 3DCoat.

Since I'm not sure how you saved your normal map out of 3DCoat here is some information to chew on. Hopefully it might provide some help but not being a Max using I really don't know...

Edit: The texture baking image you see is setup for a displacement map not a normal map,just showing you the areas you can try and adjust if you have not done so already.

Thank you digman for those pointers, I'll experiment with them. my stomach told me something was wrong as the renders were not quite reacting to the light sources I was using.

[lowedennis]

After a bit of playing your suggestions were very welcomed digman, I changed the preferences in 3DC

and baked texture with these prefs

and found that the World Space normal map worked the best (so far) so now here is the latest render test

but used as a world normal map seemed to loose the specularity so moving it to the 'Screen' mode seemed to retrieve the specular map again

at least it's a 1000% better and I'm still fiddling

[moska]

hi

im not Max user but heres my thoghts:

thats a question of normal maps of course and seems fixed but i guess for animated meshes youll always need tangent type so i dont know if it will work.in Unity for instance spec will be alpha of color map and height(or displace?)will be alfa of normal.then im very confused by that spec in alpha normal that 3dc does.never heard about before and woud like to know whats for?

[lowedennis]

hi

im not Max user but heres my thoghts:

thats a question of normal maps of course and seems fixed but i guess for animated meshes youll always need tangent type so i dont know if it will work.in Unity for instance spec will be alpha of color map and height(or displace?)will be alfa of normal.then im very confused by that spec in alpha normal that 3dc does.never heard about before and woud like to know whats for?

I read that tangent maps were the ones to use as well (especially when the mesh is animated) and they were the first that I tried but for some reason they just didn't work and broke up.

It seems that I have more success with world maps.

I don't pretend to completely understand this whole normal map process and find myself just trying to get the result by eye.

The normal map creation process in 3DC really confuses me as there are very different ways to create and lots of traps to fall down (especially a newcomer like me)

Thanks for your comments moska.