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retopo and use original UVs


schnurpel
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Hello everyone,

I try to learn the auto-retopology workflow but after struggling now for many hours and searching through the forum I'm kind of stuck now. I have a model with a bad topology but with nice UVs/textures. I managed to get new topology via the auto-retopo wizzard. But when I export this model (retopo > export) I get a nice .obj ... but without any UVs :-(

Is it possible to use the auto-retopo funktion while keeping the old UVs ? Or is it possible to transfer the old UVs to the new retopo-mesh ? How do I have to export the final mesh in order to keep the old UVs ?

Probably this is a silly question but I couldn't find any hint in the tutorials or the manual.

Would be really great if some could give me a hint.

cheers,

Frank

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Any retopo, auto or otherwise is creating a new mesh, so it's not going to have the UVs that were attached to the old mesh. I don't think there is a way to transfer the UVs because the mesh would be different. The UVs tools in 3DC are pretty quick and easy to use though. It's especially helpful to hold shift while marking seems, as it will mark the entire edge loop, not just the edge you click.

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For example you could merge the object from the retopo-room to the paint-room (Main-Menu 'Retopo - merge to per pixel with NM'), create a new material with your texture-file and paint the texture on the object. Now, when you export the object from the paint room, you will get a new texture-file that is conform to your new UV. Or maybe you need to render the object first in your rendering-software from specific positions and use theses files as materials in the paint-room. I do this when I have some nice procedural textures from Ligthwave and I need to export my character into .obj-format.

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Thanks a lot for your quick help !

I already doubted that keeping the original UVs while changing the topology completely is somehow manageable. However in this special case it would be very tedious and timeconsuming to configure a new UV set and the corresponding textures. I have read that Maya can transfer UVs from one mesh to another with different topo quiet well. Maybe someone in the Maya forum can help me out. Otherwise I will go the way through making new UVs from scratch.

Thanks again for your answers - this auto-retopo is really a great thing !

cheers,

Frank

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For example you could merge the object from the retopo-room to the paint-room (Main-Menu 'Retopo - merge to per pixel with NM'), create a new material with your texture-file and paint the texture on the object. Now, when you export the object from the paint room, you will get a new texture-file that is conform to your new UV. Or maybe you need to render the object first in your rendering-software from specific positions and use theses files as materials in the paint-room. I do this when I have some nice procedural textures from Ligthwave and I need to export my character into .obj-format.

thanks for your tips, "wolfiboy". I know, rendering the old model in different positions and mapping these pics on my new retopo'd model would be a way and it's likely that I have to do so, but I was curious whether there is any way without doing any re-texturing work.

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thanks for your tips, "wolfiboy". I know, rendering the old model in different positions and mapping these pics on my new retopo'd model would be a way and it's likely that I have to do so, but I was curious whether there is any way without doing any re-texturing work.

Just UV your new mesh (even use Ptex to do it if you don't want to touch UV's again), and then export that out to your chosen directory. Then Import the bad mesh, that has the good UV's and textures. Go to the Texture Baking tool (from the Retopo menu), and at the top of the dialogue, point to your target file/mesh. You will want to select the output paths below for your Color, Depth (Normal or Displacement files), and Specularity.

Once it does the baking, you can now go to the file menu > import (your new mesh) > Texture > Import (which ever texture maps you want to bring in). It should be good to go.

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Just UV your new mesh (even use Ptex to do it if you don't want to touch UV's again), and then export that out to your chosen directory. Then Import the bad mesh, that has the good UV's and textures. Go to the Texture Baking tool (from the Retopo menu), and at the top of the dialogue, point to your target file/mesh. You will want to select the output paths below for your Color, Depth (Normal or Displacement files), and Specularity.

Once it does the baking, you can now go to the file menu > import (your new mesh) > Texture > Import (which ever texture maps you want to bring in). It should be good to go.

Hey, that sounds like a very good solution ... even for a complete 3Dcoat-newbee like me :-)

Although I still don't know much about "Ptex" I will go through the manual, follow your description and will post my results later.

thanks a lot !

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Hey, that sounds like a very good solution ... even for a complete 3Dcoat-newbee like me :-)

Although I still don't know much about "Ptex" I will go through the manual, follow your description and will post my results later.

thanks a lot !

This might help walk you through the steps. I apologize for the background noise. My desktop fans are a bit loud for recording and when I tried to apply noise reduction it just made it worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-oaVeKJCQ

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This might help walk you through the steps. I apologize for the background noise. My desktop fans are a bit loud for recording and when I tried to apply noise reduction it just made it worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-oaVeKJCQ

Wooah - that worked like a charm ! :-) I set the UVs for the new retopo'd mesh inside Cinema4D with box projection, exported that and baked the color- and normalmap from the original model via 3Dcoat on the new mesh. This way I got excellent new UVs by retopology and could "recycle" the old textures.

Your first post would have been helpful enough - but your nice video tutorial left really no more questions.

What a time-saver you are ! Thanks again for all your efforts !

Cheers,

Frank

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Wooah - that worked like a charm ! :-) I set the UVs for the new retopo'd mesh inside Cinema4D with box projection, exported that and baked the color- and normalmap from the original model via 3Dcoat on the new mesh. This way I got excellent new UVs by retopology and could "recycle" the old textures.

Your first post would have been helpful enough - but your nice video tutorial left really no more questions.

What a time-saver you are ! Thanks again for all your efforts !

Cheers,

Frank

Glad to help. Have you shown your Before and After in the Gallery?

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