'marching ants' error after retopology

[Sandro Borg]

I've just manually retopologized a voxel model,and when I've converted to ptex/microverts/per pixel i keep finding these errors which I can only describe as 'marching ants'.

Unfortunately these also show up as errors when I export to Lightwave.

Please can anyone shed any light as to what is causing this,as I've spent ages trying to get the retopology right,only to be spoilt by these errors.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[digman]

First, what version of 3DCoat you are using? Also can you show a screen cap of your retopo work showing the areas that have the errors.

One thing you can do right now in the Paint room is turn on wirefire and the low polygon view. (View menu)

Zoom in to a problem area and then go back to the retopo room without changing your view and see if you can see something that might cause that error.

[Sandro Borg]

hi digman,

thanks for your response.

I am using the latest version of 3dCoat,3.5.09 CUDA DX64.

I've done what you suggested,and as you can see from the screengrab i've included,a couple of edges are missing ,though this is not apparent on the model when I export into Lightwave modeler.

The missing edges are on the mirrored half of the model.

There were a couple polygons on the foot which I managed to fix,but nothing on the thigh was showing up.

Thanks for you suggestions,I'll see if I can fix it.

Bear with me cos I'm still fairly new to 3DCoat,this is the first model I've completed with manual retopology,so it's to be expected.

Cheers.

[michalis]

though this is not apparent on the model when I export into Lightwave modeler.

I thought so, you can simply edit these areas in MV mode. First in sculpt room (smooth tool) then in paint room (displacement mode, smoothing again)

[digman]

First welcome to 3DCoat.

The missing edges in the paint room and sculpt room is just a long standing bug. They are there you just do not see them. I was hoping to see a picture of your retopo mesh from the retopo room with it's uv seams showing the problem areas. I do see a few problems with your mesh.

You have poles, where 5 polygons meet to create one point. This causes problems and more so at joints and along uv seam lines.I would reworked the mesh to get rid of them, Sometimes we just end up with a few poles but try to place them in areas that would not cause rendering problems. Hide them under hair,clothing or in the least seen areas if possible. Extreme Co-planer polygons (a polygon crossing two axis planes) around where joints meet and at uv seams causes rendering problems in 3DCoat too. This can happen easy on very low polygon models.Good start on retopoing. Manual retopoing is great and very powerful feature in 3DCoat.

[Sandro Borg]

thanks guys,

that gives me plenty to go on with.

michalis,what is MV mode? is that microvertex?

I will give it a go smoothing in sculpt mode.

Digman,i've included a screengrab of the retopo mode,can't seem to get it looking low poly.

anyway see what you think.

I also re-did it using ptex,see the blue version.much better but still errors at the top of the foot.

Not bad though.

Once I get over this hurdle,I'll start crankin' them out

Also,I will bear in mind the issue with the poles next time I'm doing retopo,hopefully will make a big difference.

Trying to keep it very low poly obviously don't help either ,but this is essential to me in order to create animated models in Lightwave.I will get there though.

I'm lovin' using 3dCoat workflow, voxel sculpting is a dream,retopo and uv editing are amazing,and the paint mode...well,let's just say i'll be spending a lot more timein the paint room soon once i get round this problem.

Thank you both for taking the time to help out,your advice is very much appreciated.

I hope once I get better at this I'll be able to help out too.

Cheers.