ANSWERED: Issue with 3DO and Toolbag 2.

Hayden Zammit

I think I'm going to use DDO to texture this gun I'm working on, having a few issues with the renderer though.

I'm targeting the asset for Toolbag 2, but I want to use DDO's renderer when in Photoshop to preview it, but my normals look all different in 3do. They look fine in Toolbag 2.

I'm using Maya to bake my maps.

Here's what I get in 3Do:



And here's what I get in Marmoset:

MisterSande

I have a similar problem. In 3DSMax/Toolbag the normals look fine but in 3DO the shading is completely off.

Hayden Zammit

I have a similar problem. In 3DSMax/Toolbag the normals look fine but in 3DO the shading is completely off.

Yeah, I can't figure it out either. I'm no expert, but I think it's because they both use different normal systems. Toolbag and Maya's seem to match perfectly, while 3Do seems to use something different.

Sorta makes Quixel less useful for me. Hopefully one of the Quixel devs can chime in.

RobeOmega

3DO never seems to do this for me.

Is this the normals from the model itself before a normal map is added or is it from the texture itself.

If it is with the normal map itself I had a problem similar to this when I was not using TGA images with 3DO. One simple way to find fix this is open your normal map in Photoshop and have it as the tabbed in window and go on 3DOs file browser and select the link picture next to the normal map and it should work.

Devil_Inside

What file format are you using for your mesh?

RobeOmega

As far as I know only OBJ works well with 3DO. I could be mistaken though.

EarthQuake

dDo is Unity based, which means Unity tangent space, you could bake an OS map and use handplane to convert a unity-tangents normal map for previewing in dDo, that might help a bit.

I assume in TB2 you have your tangent space set to Maya?

Devil_Inside

I don't think he's using a normal map, though

Hayden Zammit

I don't think he's using a normal map, though

Yeah, I am using a normal map.

dDo is Unity based, which means Unity tangent space, you could bake an OS map and use handplane to convert a unity-tangents normal map for previewing in dDo, that might help a bit.

I assume in TB2 you have your tangent space set to Maya?

Ah, right. I thought Unity used the same tangent space as Maya. Is there no baker that bakes the same tangent space as unity then? If not, I'll do what you said and use handplane with an object space map.

I had the tangent space set to Marmoset in TB2, actually. Changed it to Maya and it looks no different. Not sure if this is the right workflow, but I locked normals and triangulated before exporting this from Maya, and in TB2 it looks identical to Maya.

Hayden Zammit

Alright, I tried the Object space normal map converted to unity with handplane. Still getting pretty bad results.

I must be doing something wrong. Plenty of people seem to get good looking stuff in Quixel and 3do.

Bek

To be honest I would just use 3do for colour ID selections and do your viewing in TB2. It's pretty difficult to get matching results between 3do and tb2 anyway, so you're going to have a lot more difficulties than this.

But if you insist on getting 3do working: Have you triangulated the mesh before bake, and is 3do being given the same mesh with the same triangulated you used to bake?

Hayden Zammit

Bek - Yeah, I might just go that route and not worry about using the 3do viewer. Seems easiest.

Eric Ramberg

Hi Hayden!

Would you mind uploading the file so that I can have a look?

Hayden Zammit

Sure, here's the model and normal map.

https://www.mediafire.com/?41x6c3dtet8c303

Ignore the holes along the side: they're just something I was testing. The issue is all at the front end of the model.
The model just has auto unwrapped UVs as I was doing test bakes. I usually lock normals and triangulate that and get it looking perfect in Marmoset without the smoothing errors.

Billy Lundevall

This looks like a problem I have seen before on a friends project, in his case it had something to do with the .OBJ file he exported from 3DS max. If I exported the file from Maya with the correct edges soft and/or hard it worked fine in 3DO.

I do however not know why it occurs in the first place. I have also had problems with smoothing groups in .FBX files exported from certain versions of 3DS max during the making of our GDC trailer.

If you are using 3DS max, try exporting it from another version or try exporting it from another 3D application and see if that works.


I will inspect the file myself shortly.

Hayden Zammit

Billy - this was exported from Maya as an OBJ.

Billy Lundevall

Alright, well this most definitely is a normal related problem. I can see that all the edges on the mesh are soft edges when I import it in Maya, however I can also see that this was the case when you baked the normal map and thus it should compensate for it.

I think this is simply a case of your model not having enough geometry to support the shading you want. The shading error seen in 3DO is visible in Mayas viewport as well, it's just less obvious, Mayas viewports have a tendency to be way more forgiving then other vewports and renderers.

Hayden Zammit

Ah right. Okay, so it's me doing things wrong on my end. I'll have to fix it. Thanks.