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Mudbox Bogging Down...

polycounter lvl 6
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cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
System Spec's:

3.4ghz intel i7 cpu
gtx 760 geforce
32gb of ram
128gb SSD drive ( primary ) - samsung 840 pro
2tb toshiba ( mass media storage drive )


I am currently baking a 3k polygon crate assets onto a 6 polygon cube.
for transfer paint details. from ptex to uv. It is using 95% of my cpu and 90%+ of my ram and bogging down on the extraction process...

I am really confused. Anyone know why it is using so much resources and taking 30 minutes for such a simple detail task?

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  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    i saw this also a while ago... there is something wrong for sure...
    could be a ptex issue... ptex is hard to multithread...
    i assume its taking ages to get the data from the ptex source and the cpu is waiting for new data...

    i would report a bug...
    more reoports for the same bugs gets more attention...
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks oglu, glad to know I am not the only one. I guess just avoid ptex all together is all I can do until they fix it? Is a shame cause ptex is pretty nice
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    if you like to use ptex why do you need to bake to uvs.?
  • Pedro Amorim
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Yes, I am even having trouble now with the uv to uv baking.
    Its is ridiculous and even when I bake it is coming out wrong.
    I am sure the end result is my fault some how but the render
    problem seems to be an issue software or software setting side.

    Pictures coming soon :(
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    So I created this in about 15 minutes. A simple crate, cause been having issues with baking multiple objects onto a single object with the same geometry.

    LCXBaEH.jpg

    I created a single side as I didn't feel like doing the same thing sixe times with worry about bleed on edges to the other sides of the crate, happens even when you use falloff.

    After several tries of trying to adjust the baking scan levels I keep getting errors.

    c7g4Pq5.jpg

    Figure a1 + a2 : shows where I screenshot the model from front view and project painted. But it looks just as flat as it is, and it messes up my bump maps, cause I can't just print screen and paste them.

    Figure b1: shows the 5th or 6th trying to bakethe higher topo to the lower topo model.

    Figure b2: shows the current best result, still very wrong though if you look at the cross beam has baked the inside outside of the border planks.

    Figure b3: is the high topo face model arranged in box shape.

    PTRFVa5.jpg

    Left you see the high topo model geometry, right you see the low topo. For mudbox I added extra geometry to help with subdivisions during paint to avoid stretch of faces.

    2VtnJPD.jpg

    Left you will see the baked down version that still has glitches on the corners. The reasonf or doing it the way i am doing is that the extra geo from high topo model helps give it that extra depth in the normal mapping. If I project paint as I did in the right it is blurry and very flat.



    I am really kinda screwed in mudbox on anything I am making atm until I can figure this out. So really hoping you oglu or someone here knows how to fix this.

    I still have no idea why in the world it is using 22gb of ram on a bake down off a that is so simple.

    Super crippling when an asset that should take 30 minutes has taken a full 8 hour work day and still isn't game asset ready :(


    Any help you guys can give is seriously seriously appreciated, this is super embarrassing to be having such a hard time on a crate.

    Ps. the normal map on top of that box is still screwed up but better than all the rest... just noticed
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    Im not as expert as Oglu.

    But from what I can tell, you have geometry that overlap each other? mudbox doesnt like that very much since theres no control cage for baking normals. Is there any reason why you must bake the normals inside mudbox? if not go with Xnormals.

    If you insist on using Mudbox for baking. You can try baking the problematic parts separately by exploding the mesh.

    Sometimes I export the lowest subd lvl out to Maya/Max to explode the mesh and then import as a layer. hope that makes sense.

    I have experimented with ptex to uv workflow within Mudbox, and I have to say its quite frustrating, since I get too many errors and artifacts. I end up spending too much time fixing things instead. Until Mudbox has a better baking algorithm or controls, I'd stick to uvs.
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Ah I see. Yeah I probably could explode that one piece, and I can design the future ones to be explode-able as well. Shame I bought Mudbox to be my solve all to texturing, lol.

    Thank you onionhead.

    I would try baking like this in 3D coat but currently having virtual memory issues, which is killing me when it comes to retopology of my characters.

    Not sure how one has virtual memory all used up with 32gb of memory on a 2mill poly model, importing it with correct settings. I set my virtual memory to 3x what my ram is as per microsoft technical faq, and no change, so contacted 3d coat's support.

    Until the meantime maybe Oglu has a solution for baking this type of thing in mudbox?
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    onionhead is right... mud dont like intersecting objects... you could try to use a realy small search distance and explode the mesh... but i would give xnormal or turtle a try...
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Guys I present to you.... drum roll.... THE CRATE OF HELL!!!

    rXPjwqs.jpg

    OK so lets be honest I am more proud of the fact I spent over 13 hours dealing with the various bugs, and learning some new quirky facts about mudbox and her... issues, than I am the actual crate.

    The lessons learned from this headache, were much more valuable than the finished asset, and I appreciate the patience onionhead and oglu gave me. Mudbox as much as a love her is such a b**** sometimes, lol.

    Thank you guys very much both of you.
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    are those dark areas ment to be there..?
    this looks more like shading issues... i would do some hard edges on this one...
    or detach the inner planks... and dont forget to seperate the uvs on where you created the hard edges... ;D

    and if you really like to bake in mudbox you have to import the object via fbx to preserve the hard edges on the lowpoly...
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    lol the "The Crate of hell".
    Yeh try what Oglu suggest, it will help.
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Good morning, so yeah if you are talking about the shadow in the upper left. The answer is no, if you are talking about around the borders I hand painted a little in on top of the ambient so that is fine.
    In unity it behaves much better (correctly) with the shading, and acts appropriately.

    Mud box hates shading anything low poly. I import using .fbx and mudbox still freaks out till I subdivide it a couple times.

    With the uv map it isn't final just the quickest version after finally getting it out of mudbox in one piece, lol.
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    no im talking about your normalmap... there is to much shading goin on...
    more than a normalmap could handle... you need those hard edges to get a cleaner look...
    if mudbox isnt importing the hard edges you area using the wrong settings for the fbx export...
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    Ah, yeah I didn't know that. Doh! Thank you oglu.

    On topic of creases and corners. When I am texturing, even using fall off with a brush it bleeds over around the corner. I thought I would be clever and texture each side with a different layer and go back and erase with a stencil the parts where it goes over the edge and stretches. The problem is even with a stencil there is some bleed, and once again it overlaps, thus erasing the good face of my painting.

    How do I combat stretch and bleed onto other sides of my model while painting one face next to a sharp angle?
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    in the falloff section in the brush settings... turn on angle based masking...
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    oglu wrote: »
    in the falloff section in the brush settings... turn on angle based masking...

    So I had it turned on. The problem turned out that I didn't set the range low enough which was causing the "bleed" I thought I saw, which wasn't really bleed I just had the range tolerance to high. Derp!

    I swear I am not trying to play the 20 questions game. But when I was working on my model I re-opened it to find that where I had textured previously was blank. The layers and textures were still in Mudbox, but were blank on the model.

    I noticed at x subdivision or lower the textures would appear, and x subdivisions or higher it would disappear and not load/ go back to blank.

    I tried deleting all corrupted subdivisions and remaking them and that didn't solve the issue, is there any way to fix it so you can work at the higher subdvision levels you were at previously?

    cheers!
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    sounds like some of your uvs are to close to the uv space border... mubox needs space to bleed...

    sometimes it moves uv shells into the next uv space in higher levels if they are to close to the border... try to scale the uvs down..
  • cody.rauh
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    cody.rauh polycounter lvl 6
    This was happening on a model using ptex.
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