Low poly painting

[StereoMike]

1. Major Pain:

Sorry, I know this is an old topic, but since I ran into this wall again today, I felt the urge to post another request.

My example:

I modeled a car seat in low poly (so the polys are alright and shouldn't change in any case).

I let 3DB do the UVing.

I activate low poly view and start drawing.

That worked well with the fabric pattern and all until I had to apply some text-logo.

The letters were distorted and I can scrap finishing it with 3DB cause it won't let me paint on my low poly model. When I deactivate 'low poly view' it of course looks good, but in the application where the model is seen, there's no 'smoothie button' it would look like that distorted version...

I weren't able to sort that out with the baking tool (anyway, it shouldn't be necessary to bake it to have a straight line on a low poly model)

2. Minor Pain

Would be nice if 3DB could remember my working folders. I have (like many others) my applications on one disk and the application data on another drive with more space. I have to 'walk' to my project folders each time.

3. small nitpick

I don't know much about the installer, but could you let the installer check if 3db is already installed (registry entry?) and use that folder as default? We get many betas, so it just makes it a bit more comfortable

Thanks,

mike

[StereoMike]

And what makes the pain even greater: If I had used my own UVs, I'd be able to just apply 3DB's textures to it. But since I get always a mess with Lightwave uv's in 3DB (although there are no overlapping clusters) I must use 3DB UVs and thus have to export the low poly model...which is smoothed... (not the original geometry anymore)

I get a headache...

(sorry for my rant - I have a a lot of work to do and I'm frustrated right now cause things doesn't work out as hoped)

[Roger_K]

And what makes the pain even greater: If I had used my own UVs, I'd be able to just apply 3DB's textures to it. But since I get always a mess with Lightwave uv's in 3DB (although there are no overlapping clusters) I must use 3DB UVs and thus have to export the low poly model...which is smoothed... (not the original geometry anymore)

I get a headache...

(sorry for my rant - I have a a lot of work to do and I'm frustrated right now cause things doesn't work out as hoped)

What i found usefull was to sub d the mesh without smoothing turn off the shading and paint the diffuse texture like that. but then as you said this distortion is very un intuitive

[Andrew Shpagin]

1. Major Pain:

Sorry, I know this is an old topic, but since I ran into this wall again today, I felt the urge to post another request.

My example:

I modeled a car seat in low poly (so the polys are alright and shouldn't change in any case).

I let 3DB do the UVing.

I activate low poly view and start drawing.

That worked well with the fabric pattern and all until I had to apply some text-logo.

The letters were distorted and I can scrap finishing it with 3DB cause it won't let me paint on my low poly model. When I deactivate 'low poly view' it of course looks good, but in the application where the model is seen, there's no 'smoothie button' it would look like that distorted version...

I weren't able to sort that out with the baking tool (anyway, it shouldn't be necessary to bake it to have a straight line on a low poly model)

2. Minor Pain

Would be nice if 3DB could remember my working folders. I have (like many others) my applications on one disk and the application data on another drive with more space. I have to 'walk' to my project folders each time.

3. small nitpick

I don't know much about the installer, but could you let the installer check if 3db is already installed (registry entry?) and use that folder as default? We get many betas, so it just makes it a bit more comfortable

Thanks,

mike

I was away for some time, just seen your post. To avoid the problem you can try (one of them)

1) use texture baking toot and project high poly model onto your low poly medel and get non-distorted textures

2) load model without smoothing

3) Use uv-set smoothing option during the import

I think (1) is the best.

[Andrew Shpagin]

And what makes the pain even greater: If I had used my own UVs, I'd be able to just apply 3DB's textures to it. But since I get always a mess with Lightwave uv's in 3DB (although there are no overlapping clusters) I must use 3DB UVs and thus have to export the low poly model...which is smoothed... (not the original geometry anymore)

I get a headache...

(sorry for my rant - I have a a lot of work to do and I'm frustrated right now cause things doesn't work out as hoped)

Baking tool is intended to solve such problems.

[StereoMike]

I'm sorry that I am so stupid, but I can't get the baking tool to work. I only get a flat grey file.

It doesn't matter if I use the current "low poly" (gives just small dark spot on an otherwise grey plane) or if I use the original low poly file (flat grey).

I found the explanations in the manual, but it is about getting the normal map out. I guess getting only colors out must be even simpler, but not for me...

I tried diferent settings and it never did something useful for me. I bit enlightenment could help me probably?

btw, the whole 'I want to paint on low poly mesh' issue is nearly solved:

As others pointed out, when you import the model and

Deactivate any smoothing options

Then 3db actually has the real and unaltered low poly model in place.

_The only thing that looks awful then is the viewport shader_! You can see all the edges (although in many cases it should look smooth in the meaning of: connected poly should be treated as a continuous surface)

What has yet to be integrated is that the model is smoothed in the viewport. And of course occlusion calculation should take that smoothed surface for baking the occ-pass (right now the occ-pass is as edgy as the model).

If you could add a button 'smooth shading' to the import requester, that activates gouroud shading or something on the model (without altering the actual geometry) so you get smooth occ passes and all, now that would be the final solution to that

And when 'smooth shading' is activated, one could set the 'edginess' with the auto-smooth /angle dialogue (see below)

mike

[Roger_K]

If you could add a button 'smooth shading' to the import requester, that activates gouroud shading or something on the model (without altering the actual geometry) so you get smooth occ passes and all, now that would be the final solution to that

And when 'smooth shading' is activated, one could set the 'edginess' with the auto-smooth /angle dialogue (see below)

I dont think that would work as it is the mesh is subdivided but no smoothing is done. so when you see the mesh in the viewport it is infact Gouraud shaded its the fact that the faces are divided without smoothing that it looks so faceted.

on further checking the baking tools look like the way to go

[StereoMike]

Roger:

I don't know what 3D package you normally use, but in any package I know you can assign any surface some smoothing, i.e. certain polys are treated as a continuous smooth surface. That way a disc with 8 sides would look round (from the side; from top it would still look like a 'Stop' sign).

It has nothing to do with subdividing the geometry...

I think that would work well

Baking everything is very non-intuitive. 3DB has almost everything in place to paint lowpoly objects, it just needs an option to smooth the normals on import.

mike

[Andrew Shpagin]

In general both of you are right. 3DB really subdivides any surface, but not always smoothes the surface (in dependence on options). If you paint over non-smoothed surface you can get correct normal map anyway. So, in general it is possible to make some low-poly view mode where model will be shaded using thet normal map. So, some day it will be done.

About non smooth AO - you can use smoothing stages in occlusion tool to decrease the effect of plane faces. Also you can use smooth layer to get smoother result.

[StereoMike]

So, some day it will be done.

I'll praise the day when it arrives!

About non smooth AO - you can use smoothing stages in occlusion tool to decrease the effect of plane faces. Also you can use smooth layer to get smoother result.

That works to a degree where it looks like it was done to a smooth surface? No facets? I'll check that out.

Thanks for your help,

mike