anyone made tiling meshes with mudbox

SHEPEIRO

beta testing 2009 ATM, and ive been wandering if/how anyone has made tiling meshes.

this is particularly for env.work

I have figured out how to make meshes tile using Zbrush using a combination of projection aster warping etc, now i need to compare mudboxes abilities, if anyone has any suggestions i would be all ears.

Farfarer

I'd be very interested in this, too, if anyone has suggestions

EarthQuake

i dont care about any of this, i just want to know how to get in the beta? GIMME DEM BEETAS!!!

SHEPEIRO

i think as a lead, your in a prime position to get 8monkeys testin, give em a bell and get your mits on it.

katzeimsack

EarthQuake wrote: »

i dont care about any of this, i just want to know how to get in the beta? GIMME DEM BEETAS!!!

just contact autodesk, here at splashdamage some people have it

Jonathan

EarthQuake wrote: »

i dont care about any of this, i just want to know how to get in the beta? GIMME DEM BEETAS!!!

W3rd! :poly134:

SHEPEIRO

please more on topic ;-)

is it possible to instance objects within mudbx?

Sayanora

Bumping for posterity.

I've been searching high and low for information regarding this and I've turned up shit. I like mudbox, but I'm tempted to ditch it and start slogging through Zbrush.

SHEPEIRO

yep ive had no luck, there doesnt really seam to be anything in the package for tiling. zbrush does

East

So since there's no need to stay on topic, let's discuss me getting my hands on the Mudbox 2009 beta in other ways than using my fob (which still works) to get into the office and steal your PC, Shep..

Eric Chadwick

Here's kind of a goofy workaround... turn on symmetry, and only paint across the edges. Mirrors the edge though.

SHEPEIRO

East wrote: »

So since there's no need to stay on topic, let's discuss me getting my hands on the Mudbox 2009 beta in other ways than using my fob (which still works) to get into the office and steal your PC, Shep..

ha weve all moved around since we culled the dead meat ;-) you wouldnt be able to find my PC

Eric- tried that in zbrush befor i fiured out how to do it propperly, not the best results, pity as i like mudboxes sculpting tools way more

East

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

ha weve all moved around since we culled the dead meat ;-) you wouldnt be able to find my PC

Aw, you guys are just jealous that our division is having more fun

aesir

Dont you have some beta forums to ask this on?? Not saying Im not interested to hear, its just not many of us have thet beta...

sprunghunt

I've done tiling meshes in mudbox. As Eric mentioned I just used the tangent symmetry mode to draw on a plane. This way what happens on one side happens on the other. It's not perfect helps a lot.

Another way someone suggested to me was to create your meshes on a sphere or a torus and then project this back into a flat texture in max/maya.

ghib

I agree that this is something that really needs to be thought about in mudbox. Creating tiling 32bit disp maps isn't possible in zbrush or mudbox at the moment, but at least zbrush has thought some ways down a route that can give you something that is vaguely workable.

SHEPEIRO

ghib wrote: »

I agree that this is something that really needs to be thought about in mudbox. Creating tiling 32bit disp maps isn't possible in zbrush or mudbox at the moment, but at least zbrush has thought some ways down a route that can give you something that is vaguely workable.

it is, or at least i can create pervectly tiling meshes, no need for bringing displacement maps into other packages

ghib

Do you not find though that zbrush will always have bad seams regardless of whether you have your tool set to paint in Z only or not?

Also dropping your mesh to the canvas then using the grab Mrgb tool is no good as it will always create a dodgy seam that is impossible goo to fix. even with blur or smudge.

As for mudbox. sculpting with symmetry on is a far from ideal workflow.

Farfarer

I'm certain it's possible in zBrush, pretty sure I've seen it done before. Just that zBrush is a total ballache and if it can somehow be done in Muddy I'd prefer to do it there :P

Chunkey

I recently made the switch over to zbrush and used the mirror trick to sort out a seam- it wasn't perfect but close enough so that it didn't stand out a mile. And if you think ahead enough, it might be a case of doing it so around the seam it's fairly simple and then tweak the normals in max but it takes a bit more time to do right.

SHEPEIRO

I have a technique for making perfectly tiling meshes in zbrush, which is slightly longwinded but very good, been using to make cliff faces, cliff tops etc which tile in one direction, it is very powerfull for this, you just have to work around some issues, like dont use the edge of the mesh to tile across, that way you are fine.

chunkey, you can use the wrap feature in the brush as long as your mesh is roughly flat and a squared number in scale (ie 64 32 128 etc) this works a treat, until you forget and do some smoothing or sommit forgeting that you need to tag it for every brush

edit- if there is enough call for it i wil write a tutorial,.

cman2k

Please do share sheperio! I've been trying to figure this out myself this weekend.....

Eric Chadwick

I second the call for a tut.

PixelGoat

Tutorial would be awesome, im trying to figure out a way to make just that atm =D

DInusty

ill write one tonight for ya for zbrush it will be posted in here.

Sayanora

I've been searching around the MB 2009 trial threads and there isn't any indication that a wrap mode for brushes has been added : (

*Edit*

To clarify what I just said. I was referring only to mudbox. I've seen the zbrush solution and god do I wish mb had incorporated that into the new release.

DInusty

it has ill make one tonight. its there i use it sometimes. as far as mudbox is concerned its not there yet

SHEPEIRO

ill be interested in your soloution Frozan, then ill do mine and compare ;-)

cman2k

Hey guys, a good friend linked me to this tonight, pretty useful. Dunno if it negates your tuts, i'm always open to any additional or alternate workflows you guys are willing to share.

thanks for everyones help

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Wrap_mode

DInusty

thats the one. ill be showing a bit more detailed tut tomorrow night

DInusty

probably spelling errors but just trying to get it out there.

http://www.shatteredmesh.com/Share/Tutorial/tile.html

SHEPEIRO

think i can go one better, will show sommit shortly

DInusty

lol alright, wasnt about that but just showin the tool. u have a better way of doing in? im excited about this

SHEPEIRO

;-) no worries im gonna cover different ground with this one

http://osart3d.wordpress.com/tutorial-creating-perfectly-tiling-meshes-in-zbrush-for-use-in-videogame-environments/

tell me what you think, plus spelling corrections wuld be ace ;-)

Eric Chadwick

Hey that's cool! I've done the same basic idea, but all in Max (example). Cool to see a different approach!

A couple typos I saw...
"especially usefull for cliff faces and rough stone surfaces."
"- Load the tool in and start drawing them on the canvas, daw them in empty space but dont go over the edge of the document."
"- Repeat util canvas is filled making sure no gaps are left."
"- Click on “alpha” on the right hand side of sreen and “grab doc”, this wil give you a height map"
"- Makingsure the alpha is in the alpha slot open the displacement dropdown in the tool menu"

SHEPEIRO

chers for that, i think this is a pretty dam pwerfull technique, i may do a follow up tut, for making more interesting peices, like transition peices from one fully tilling peice to another, if the demand is strong enough mind, takes a while

DInusty

i would like to see that. ur tutorial was great by the way.

cman2k

Totally awesome tuts guys. We got a short&sweet intro tut that's very user-friendly, and a more in-depth one with lots of great little tips & tricks.

Rock on & thanks again for sharing, I'm certain these will be very useful to lots of people.

A-Train

Frozan: If it's at all possible. Could you add more to your tutorial (I enjoyed it) but at the part when it ends at (4) you state: "you can now at this point take this mesh and bake it on to a single square poly and have a tileable texture"

I'd really like to see this process visually.

SHEPEIRO: If at all possible (if you are still working on your tutorial, and it's obviously awesome) that you could show the zbrush user interface in your tutorial. I realize that it's a lot to ask, but I find that was a really cool thing Frozan did in his tutorial. It helped me understand what to do, as any confusion was erased by seeing the interface and menu's so the user knows exactly what to click or slide. Zbrush has a fair bit of complexity to it's user interface. I've used it before, but it has been a while as I've been using mudbox a lot more for my work flow for tileable textures. I'm always interested in learning different methods. Especially the one's that you two are touching on (displacement/sculpted meshes where the low poly geo's represent the forms). I've mainly been working on concrete walls and the like (flat surfaced tileable meshes).

Here is an example of something that confuses me a bit, and would be more clear with visual aids.

"- Subdivide with “smt” off to roughly 1 mill or above for a 512* or 4 mill for a 1024
- Go into edit mode
- Import the doubled up map
- Making sure the alpha is in the alpha slot open the displacement dropdown in the tool menu
- Type in a value into intensity (I used ten, seems to give you roughly the same height as the document you made the heightmap in) and press the “apply displacement” button
- Export the tool as an obj at the top level and at the bottom level"

Popeye9

Came across this for mudbox dont know if it helps.

http://www.dashdotslash.net/Mudbox2k9/MudboxTileableTextures/MudboxTileableTextures.htm

MoP

Geordie video tutorials! Ace!

rooster

aye, he's talking about tiling diffuse and bump mind

SHEPEIRO

A-train - i didnt want to make the tut about the basics otherwise it would have been far too long, and would have smothered what i actually wanted to get across.

thanks for the vid tut on mudbox, shame its still a bit limited in scope.

Michael Knubben

MoP: Yeah, those put a smile on my face, for sure
Not an accent you immediately link with technology, haha.