Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 6, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 Hi I have a small thing that irks me. I have a finished sculpt that I'm now starting to paint, after a lot of exports from 3D Coat and imports to Blender I found all the holes and unfinished edges, so I have a nice, closed mesh now. BUT: The mesh looks very good in the retopo room. It still looks good (Kind of, I can't see the mesh there) in the paint room. But after having exported the mesh as obj and the import to blender, I see a lot of vertices have been moved around. The big picture is still good, but some details now look quite strange as some vertices have been shifted by a small degree. Whats the cause? How can I prevent it? I'm pretty sure it happens during the export... did I miss an export option? Should I export the mesh as something different then an obj? Thanks for the help, if needed a can do some print screens tomorrow. Gian-Reto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Markus F. Posted December 6, 2011 Member Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 hi Gian-Reto. Did you export the mesh over the Paintroom, under file/export/export model? There is an option for displacement "coarse sharpen mesh", it deforms the lowpoly mesh so that it is representing more the shapes of the highpolymodel. Maybe it's another problem, so hopefully someone can help you who is more familar with 3d-coat/blender. regards Markus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 6, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 First you can see the wireframe mesh in the paint room but not the vertices. View menu / Wireframe. You can also select to see the low polygon version of the wireframe. You can directly export the retopo mesh with the uv set from the retopo room under the "Retopo Menu" Your texture maps in the paint room would still work as the uv sets are the same. Yes screens would be helpful. Some more detailed information is always helpfull, like merging methods and any other workflow information you think would help to figure out what is happening. I use blender only a tiny bit but do have it installed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 7, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 7, 2011 Thanks to your hints I got the culprit... it was an option I didn't deselect during export. Question: If deselect the two displacement options.... isn't it still possible to do displacement in tools like blender? Just with subdiv and the normalmap? Thanks again for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 7, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 7, 2011 You can test this method also for exporting a displacement map for blender. After merging into the paint room. Top menu/ textures/ export/ displacement map of visiable layers Then just export the low polygon retopo model from the file menu in the paint room, choose none of the selections except to export the model. I have always had good results when using the above method. The other way from the file menu is valid but for me, I export my normal maps, displacement maps and texture maps using the selections under the Texture menu. It just my workflow thats all... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 7, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 7, 2011 Another question: I found a bug in my UV Set (a seam I placed wrong, which caused one UV-Part to be placed unto itself... yet I started painting on the old UV Set. Can I correct this mistake and use a new UV Set without all my painting progress being lost? Anything? like creating a new baked mesh and reproject my layers unto this mesh? Thanks for the help Gian-Reto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 8, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 In the Retopo room export your obj with the fixed uv set, (under the retopo menu/ export) In the paint room import your fixed uv set. Textures/ Import Uv. You choose the obj model you exported but only the uv map will be imported replacing the old one. Picture shows simple example. Left is old uv set, Right is new uv set with the textures projected onto the new uv map. If you havd added any normal map or displacement depth in the paint room since merging then those tend to show the seams but for paint textures it is seamless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 8, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 Okay... I might try that. Or I just bite the bullet and start over, 2 hours lost, but all good practice While I'm at it, another question: can I use this to "import" bake occlusion maps for different raytracing distances for the same model with the exactly same topology? I found out that a value of 8 looks cleaner, but a value of 10 gives me more occlusion and a more dramatic look. Now I'd like to add different baked occlusion layers to my model to compare them and pick the one which suits the artistic style I am going for the best. Any way to do this? I know there is an option for creating ambient occlusion under the "texture" menu, but it seems to be a very different function (creating wonderful cast shadows all over my model instead of simple ambient occlusion ... this version gives you no option to set the raytracing distance, but to set the amount of lightsources ) than the one used during the merge. Can I call this ambient occlusion function somehow separate from the merge? Or do I need to do the merge multiple times, extract the ambient occlusion layer and import this back to my original model? Thanks again for any help. I hope my questions are not totally stupid Gian-Reto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 8, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 Darn it... lost my previous information. After you merged for each occlusion raytrace distance setting into to the paint room, you are asking for a way to save each map. I believe this is what you are asking... You will have to do this one at time: Merge/ "export (save) the occulsion map" and then rinse and repeat. This you suggested already... Use the export/diffuse map in the textures menu. Before exporting turn off all textures layers except the occlusion map layer. Once you have all your occlusion maps saved. The create a new layer for each one of them in the paint room using the modulate2X blending mode. (3DCoat's normal blending mode for occlusion maps). Also keep them in the top layers. Import each occlusion diffuse map to their own layer. Use the eye icon to turn off the ones you do not want see for the moment. You can use the other blending modes to create special (different looking) occlusion maps. Maybe like a combination of a few occulsion map layers. Test as much as you want... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 8, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 Okay, I thought that this should work... I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks for the help Gian-Reto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 9, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 Well, somehow this doesn't works for me 1. Try: delete all the layers in the paint room and run the merge again. Problem: The Baked Occlusion Layers is screwed up (incomplete) 2. Try: go back to earlier save before Merge. Problem: UV Layout not done yet. If I create a new UV Layout and run the Merge, export the baked occlusion layer and re-import, The UV Layouts seems to be different. If I export the UV Layout from my current save and try to reimport it to the earlier save, 3D Coat complains that the UV Layout doesn't match the meshes topology. Hm, sounds like I ran out of options. Any ideas? gian-Reto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member michalis Posted December 9, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 About displacement maps export in blender, I just remind you that it will work only under Microvertex mode. Never under PPP. Another method is to export the retopo mesh and a high def one, directly from voxels room. Import both in blender, subdivide the retopo one and use shrinkwrap modifier. Then, you can bake normal or disp maps there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 9, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 Did you delete the model in the paint under the "objects" tab before remerging. Do not delete layer "0". I don't think it is possible to delete it but it's just good to mention anyway. I'm not sure what the problem is as I have never had a problem remerging a retopo model for PPP with a new ambient occlusion layer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 9, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 Did you delete the model in the paint under the "objects" tab before remerging. Do not delete layer "0". I don't think it is possible to delete it but it's just good to mention anyway. I'm not sure what the problem is as I have never had a problem remerging a retopo model for PPP with a new ambient occlusion layer. Oh, I think you just found my problem. I just deleted the Layers, not the Object. Will try again. Other question: At some points Im getting errors in my merged normal map, even though the UV Layout seems fine, neither Color nor Baked Occlusion layers are affected. Its weird, doesn't follow seams or polygons, are rather small, and just look like the normal map got messed up on small parts of the topology (but its a normal part, like a small part of a finger, without any comples topology)... can I somehow find out where these Problems originate from? If the thing mentioned above works, I could then just rebake the normal map again, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted December 9, 2011 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 Yes, you can rebake, Just remember the rule of thumb when remerging Sometimes I just forget to do the below myself when I in a hurry... Check to make sure you have deleted the layers all but "0" Check to make sure you have deleted the object. Only way I know of checking is zooming in on the problem areas in the paintroom, then stwitching the retopo room, the view will stay the same. Then look at the retopo mesh and try see if you can figure out what the problem could be in that area. Check for slightly overlapging polygons. There is a setting in the merging dialog panel for PPP to weld vertices that on the same point in space also. Pictures would help on seeing the these kind of problem areas when you post about them... thanks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Gian-Reto Posted December 10, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted December 10, 2011 Yes, you can rebake, Just remember the rule of thumb when remerging Sometimes I just forget to do the below myself when I in a hurry... Check to make sure you have deleted the layers all but "0" Check to make sure you have deleted the object. Only way I know of checking is zooming in on the problem areas in the paintroom, then stwitching the retopo room, the view will stay the same. Then look at the retopo mesh and try see if you can figure out what the problem could be in that area. Check for slightly overlapging polygons. There is a setting in the merging dialog panel for PPP to weld vertices that on the same point in space also. Pictures would help on seeing the these kind of problem areas when you post about them... thanks... That did the trick. Deleting the object that is.... Attached you see pictures of the problem with the heightmap I mean. First one is with the heightmap visible, second one is with the heightmap hidden. Third one is taken from the retopo room. There is one Ploy just at the border of the problem area which is light red instead of dark red in the uv layout window. Why is that? I tried to delete this poly and recreate it, still the different color in the UV Layout. There are also 2 points on the model that seem tho share the same pixel in the UV map.... if you paint one the other gets the same color. Any chance that an UV Layout mistake like that could be fixed without losing painting progress? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.