Toon Youngster (working title)

[bantu]

Hi Lovely 3DC community!

I bought 3DC yesterday with the intention of making it my main pipeline element for character design in the future. I believe I made a good decision. BUT I do have issues with it (for example nothing happens in paint mode when I do a brush stroke, allthough the model has good UVs and such) /I'm working on winXP 64 bit and directX/ but this won't make me give up on anything, I'm just saying I might need your help in the future.

Please excuse the maya screenshot, I'm doint the 3DC part of the work at home, later on...

cheers.

[LJB]

Nice Shapes, I look forward to a bit more. I wonder how are you importing the mesh?

[Javis]

Hi! Topology looks good.

Could you supply a sample file for us to look at, regarding the painting not working?

[bantu]

Hi! Topology looks good.

Could you supply a sample file for us to look at, regarding the painting not working?

I'd love to and will, if you tell me where to upload. good news is: I've taken the model home and worked on it painting wise, and hooray: I can paint! (I have 32bit winXP at home and 64bit XP at work, both directx, but at work I didn't see my strokes. No, transparency wasn't set to 0% and i was looking at the model in flat shade mode, so I should have seen color info, but nothing happened. At home all went well, except for I couldn't undo :S . a bit weird, but I was just trying to get a feel for painting so I could live with it.

I can upload both files tho:

my .3b file that I did at home is 77megs (undo issue), and I only have an obj to offer regarding the painting not working on my work PC (64bit win).

anyways I had a blast painting, and am convinced that I'll be having lots of fun with 3DC once I get a grip. So here is my concept texture version 001 for this character. Thanks for the input so far! The topology is sort of okay until you check out the lips. Yuck. But I know what the best tool is for retopo

[bantu]

side view of the Fella (maybe a track and field athlete?! who knows...

[Javis]

Hi!

You could use dropbox.com for uploading files. Works like a champ.

You can email it directly to Andrew to: support AT 3d-coat DOT com

Or if you don't mind users taking a peak to give a hand you can put the url up here too.

[bantu]

Hi Geo!

Thanks for all the help. I've emailed Andrew a dropbox link (I didn't find your email, so I couldn't send it to you). The newest chapter of funny happenings is: I opened the file (that I worked on at home (win XP 32bit)) on my Office PC (win XP 64bit) and wasn't able to paint repeatedly, despite being able to paint at home...

funny-funny,

hmmm.

EDIT:

Okay I guess my painting problem must have been a simple USER ERROR! Shame on me! Sorry guys! I'm new to texturing (I'm an animator by day 3Dcoater by night

[Javis]

Ahhh , good to hear! And no worries, we are all just human after all. I am really glad to hear it is working for you.

[Javis]

PS - What kind of animation do you generally do, and what package do you animate in, and also what package do you like to animate in?

[bantu]

Hey!

Sorry for the late reply! I prefer animating in maya, and I spend most of my time there. I hope to get this guy rigged, and animated right after finishing texturing. I have so many unfinished models just waiting to get texured, and I must say that I'm lousy at texturing, that's why 3DC was a natural choice for me, since it's easy to use for texturing noobs like me ...

I experienced another issue along the way (I do texturing,and rigging tests before I do EVERYTHING all over again from scratch) maybe someone knows the solution: I divided this dude into several UV islands even the face is all split up,and when I import the model and apply the painted texture in maya a very thin 1 pixel line is visible in the render exactly where the seams meet up. Even worse if I add the normal map: it totally falls apart. I get the idea of using the minimum amount of seperate UV islands (less seams), but I just can't stand distorted textures, that's why i split up the model into more UV islands with the least amount of distortion. Hope there's a workaround for this, cause I still love this software and would like to use it for making sweet non distorted textures...

[bantu]

Here are some new screenshots of this characters progress. I used 3DC for trying out different textures, none on this model at the moment . I used the retopo tool for doing the eyebrows and adjusting seemingly good, but not REALLY good topology on the mouth, and eye areas, still not there...I UV-d everything in 3DC. That's brilliant. I think I have a solution for my texture artifact problem by the seams (it may have something to do with padding settings, we'll see...

cheers.

Adam

[JensD]

Looking forward to see this guy textured and animated.

cheers

JensD

[Javis]

Here are some new screenshots of this characters progress. I used 3DC for trying out different textures, none on this model at the moment . I used the retopo tool for doing the eyebrows and adjusting seemingly good, but not REALLY good topology on the mouth, and eye areas, still not there...I UV-d everything in 3DC. That's brilliant. I think I have a solution for my texture artifact problem by the seams (it may have something to do with padding settings, we'll see...

cheers.

Adam

Ahh, yeah try out the padding. If you can't get it solved would you mind sending Andrew the content again to scope out? Usually the padding setting does help a bit.

[Grandmaster B]

Tips to prevent texture seams (and normal map problems):

1. The texture size may be too small, for your character you should have at least 512x512. You can change the resolution in "Edit->Mesh and Texture Resolution".

2. The UV islands do not have enough space around them or there are overlapping faces in the uv map (mirrored UVs are no problem). And always use big paddings or do "Fill in empty parts of texture" if asked.

3. Another problem can be if you subdivide the model and the UVs are smoothed too, now if you use the UV map with the non-subdived (low-poly) model the edges do not line up anymore. The import option "UV-set smoothing" may cause this, thats why the options "Smooth but keep edges" and "Smooth but keep corners" are there.

4. Normal maps may still have visible seams - IF you just preview them as diffuse textures (in another app), these seams are there on purpose and they will disappear in normal map shading or rendering. But dont forget to set the "Normal maps export" option in the "Edit->Preferences" dialog to "Maya" - in your case. Else the normals point in the wrong direction in Maya.

[bantu]

Tips to prevent texture seams (and normal map problems):

1. The texture size may be too small, for your character you should have at least 512x512. You can change the resolution in "Edit->Mesh and Texture Resolution".

2. The UV islands do not have enough space around them or there are overlapping faces in the uv map (mirrored UVs are no problem). And always use big paddings or do "Fill in empty parts of texture" if asked.

3. Another problem can be if you subdivide the model and the UVs are smoothed too, now if you use the UV map with the non-subdived (low-poly) model the edges do not line up anymore. The import option "UV-set smoothing" may cause this, thats why the options "Smooth but keep edges" and "Smooth but keep corners" are there.

4. Normal maps may still have visible seams - IF you just preview them as diffuse textures (in another app), these seams are there on purpose and they will disappear in normal map shading or rendering. But dont forget to set the "Normal maps export" option in the "Edit->Preferences" dialog to "Maya" - in your case. Else the normals point in the wrong direction in Maya.

Thanks dude! appreciated!