Technical Talk

Topic	Replies	Latest Post
Re-ormalisation - 1 map, 4 applications and 4 results, Which is correct? Hey all, I was re-normalising a normal map today and noticed that you can get different results depending on which program you use to normalise with. I rendered the Base map in Blender 2.57b and th…	8 Last	metalliandy Jun 2011
Can you bake a mental ray shader to a texture? Can you bake a mental ray shader to a texture? Basically I want to create a really fancy MR shader, then throw some ambient GI lighting in and bake out texture map from this to use as a diffuse pas…	5 Last	elec²ron Jun 2011
Self-Illumination and Ambient textures Can anyone explain the difference between Self-Illumination and Ambient for me? In 3dsMax's default material settings there are slots for Self-Illumination and Ambient textures (and a global Ambient …	1 Last	qartar Jun 2011
Question on Zbrush extrusion Hello I was trying to make a sort of sxtrusion on Zbrush but when I extrude a masked part on a curved and detailed already face it gets standing out with the same curvature of the base mesh under and…	13 Last	cryrid Jun 2011
Zbrush tutorial on nromals and retopology extraction? Hello :) I have made some tuts on the modeling in zbrush and I have made a statue model with the details etc , now I would like ot make of it an ingame model so I would need some tutorials on retopol…	1 Last	SpeCter Jun 2011
Curve Snapping to Polygon model - Maya Hey guys, I made a helix/spring curve to make some wraps around a handle. Right now I'm snapping all the points of the curve to the polygon model by hand, is there a way to do this automatically wit…	4 Last	fatihG_ Jun 2011
Modular building and actor count I have been seeing a bunch of people building modular buildings and large structures out of a bunch of smaller pieces and assembling them inside a game engine. I understand that is offer a high level…	8 Last	Mark Dygert Jun 2011
Meshlab/ pro optimizer or do it yourself low poly Hi i am about to do my lowpoly on a airplane mesh that i made the high poly is about 30 000 and i was wondering what the cumunity as to say about those tools, i normaly do all my lowpoly by hand and …	6 Last	knak47 Jun 2011
Best shader for viewport hair planes (3dsmax) I'm still getting lots of rendering issues with layered hair planes in the viewport. I've tried SM 2.0 and 3.0, one object, detached planes. Can anyone recommend a shader and/or some setting in Max …	10 Last	Ace-Angel Jun 2011
A little rigging help!? Hi guys! I'm working on a character for my game, and I bumped into the same problem I always seem to be getting with my characters, which is the shoulder joint... Now I've tried reading up on this, …	10 Last	Wrath Jun 2011
3ds max Apex plugin and UDK... OH WOES! has anyone had any luck importing a .apx file into UDK that was created using 3dsmax? i can export from max just fine, but UDK refuses to import it... it doesn't throw up any error, or anything, it l…	3 Last	Ace-Angel Jun 2011
UDK custom characters HELP ME! Been trying to find a really good tutorial on importing custom characters and setting up the rigs for them. Me and a friend are working on an indie project over the summer and bringing in custom char…	3 Last	[iWi] Jun 2011
Need help pulling layers from texture bakes. [IMG]http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/2639/rocksnormals.jpg[/IMG] So say I have a texture like the one pictured above. It's essentially one type of material on top of another. In this case, rock…	5 Last	cupsster Jun 2011
Clothes Topology I understand when doing the figure of anything kind, it is advised to create topology that goes with the flow of the muscles. What I would like to know is when creating the clothed figure, do you sti…	5 Last	Serenity4art Jun 2011
Mudbox paint help Hi When i try to paint a paint layer on my mesh it dosent just paint a one color that i whant but a rainbow sryle cirle thing. This is the pic. [url]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/82152023…	0 Last	imelikvark Jun 2011
Max version of modos "curve extrude"? [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/499159/p90grips.gif[/img] [QUOTE=EarthQuake;1344443] B. Extrude the shape of the curve, giving an appropriate level of detail(number of segments) to the curves so they …	10 Last	Ace-Angel Jun 2011
Issue with Maya Greetings Polycount; I am having an issue with removing edges from the mesh in Maya2011. It allows you to remove the edges from the mesh that I am working on perfectly but when it comes to continui…	3 Last	DrunkShaman Jun 2011
Metal Texturing Hey everyone, I am in the process of texturing a model, and I need to make a metal texture. I have a bunch of metal texture pictures, but I want to do this one from scratch so i can have more control…	8 Last	megalmn2000 Jun 2011
display multiple textures in Maya UV editor I have an object that I divided into parts and baked out the normals and Ambient Occlusion maps for. I assigned everything to each piece, but now I need to display all of my textures at the same tim…	4 Last	malcolm Jun 2011
Having Problems With TF2 Hat Lighting [B][U]UPDATE[/U][/B]: Okay so, I believe I know what the problem is. For some reason, the model for the hat is ungodly far away from the origin point when viewed by itself in the Model Viewer. Howev…	9 Last	TheBoxman Jun 2011
Question about textures Okay a client dropped the ball and I have to redo the textures to an arm of a character. [B]The question:[/B] is I already unwrapped and textured the arm, the problem is it was in parts so left side…	8 Last	cman2k Jun 2011
How to apply a lightmap in 3ds max? I'm having a difficult time applying a baked out lightmap to my scene in 3ds Max 2011. Basically, I have a plane with a concrete tile on it. I want to apply my lightmap on top of it and multiply lik…	1 Last	cman2k Jun 2011
Floating Geometry How To Hi all, though I am not new to 3Ds Max, I never had any need for hi poly stuff, or more complex normal maps as I was only doing quick arch viz and stuff (majoring in architecture not 3d stuff). Howev…	8 Last	Mark Dygert Jun 2011
Paneling on Hard Surface Objects: Is this a good way to go about doing it? I am working on a helicopter that has numerous panels all throughout the body of the plane. At the moment I am cloning topology from the original base mesh and using that to float paneling on top …	9 Last	Ace-Angel Jun 2011
Double Transformations Problem Hi guys, I'm learning rigging in Maya and have run into a problem and hope someone can help. After getting to the point where I am now weighting my mesh, I decided I had better add my rig to a glob…	3 Last	rumbox Jun 2011
Maya to XNA I am currently trying to practice exporting characters with their animations as an fbx to use in xna. The animation looks fine in Maya but when loaded through xna it explodes. does anyone know why th…	3 Last	theStoff Jun 2011
Edit individual mipmaps? What should a person use to get at and edit individual mipmaps? What I have tried/results at once: If I load a DDS in PS and keep the mipmaps, it makes a whole image double wide (texture, plus anot…	2 Last	mortalhuman Jun 2011
Zbrush/Sculpting: Your Topology Philsophy I'm trying to improve my sculpting abilities. While I am "just diving in" and seeing what works best for me. I still haven't done enough work yet on complex surfaces to understand exactly how impor…	4 Last	AnimeAngel Jun 2011
Zbrush and seamless geometry Hi all, I'm trying to make some tile-able pieces and I'd like to use ZBrush to detail them. However, the fact that they need to tile seamlessly is giving me a lot of frustration, as I'm not very flu…	18 Last	wannabeartist Jun 2011
Help Requested: 3ds Max Camera Mysteriously Locked Down Hello all, I was working on an animation in 3ds Max 2012, with the camera moving happily on my command, until all of a sudden the camera movement is mysteriously locked down. I'm not sure what I mig…	2 Last	Big Rocket Jun 2011
Problems Loading Skin Envelopes I have completed a female character in 3D Max, and skinned her to a biped. I have a male character with almost identical mesh and want to apply the female character's skin settings to him, so I don…	0 Last	draws4money Jun 2011
3ds max 2012: Larger saved file thumbnails? Is it possible to increase the size of the thumbnail displayed when scrolling through the open file dialogue box in max? I use windows 7 64bit and although the current thumbnail is usually adequate I…	0 Last	scourgewarper Jun 2011
Lightmaps: tech pros and cons Coming from and artists standpoint I am aware of the visual pros of using lightmaps. Not specific to UDK, but overall, I would like to understand the pros and cons when it comes to the technical sid…	52 Last	Noors Jun 2011
Yet another thread about problematic normal maps Hey there, thanks for checking my problem. I'm using Max2010, Xioliul shader (tried 3point too), maps baked in xNormal Everything is smoothed, only cap is divided by hard edges. And problem is self…	5 Last	EarthQuake Jun 2011
3ds Max 2012 Iray Artifacts/Grains Hi, I'm a student with 7 months experience now using 3ds Max 2012 (free student edition). I thought Iray was awesome, awesome enough that I now have an Nvidia Geforce 560ti 2GB. Though, I'm having pr…	0 Last	superdeluxeultra Jun 2011
Light map over-exposed look in Max I'm having trouble in creating a over-exposed look in Max. In another word, to make part of the diffuse texture brighter than its own. I tried the following: make material 100 self-illuminating us…	3 Last	realm13 Jun 2011
3DS Max 2012 - Don't want to see polys that have normals facing away from me Apologies for the long title. Does anyone know how you switch off seeing polys that are facing away from you? I'm trying to work on an indoor scene, but it's a PITA having the inside scene be unvie…	2 Last	Huw_Dawson Jun 2011
Animate Self Illuminate in 3D Studio Max Hello, this is my first post on the forum. I've been leisurely doing 3d Graphics since 97/98 somewhere around there. I've always been a computer junkie, but this is my first post ever on a forum…	8 Last	david.l.flores Jun 2011
3ds max: Saving floating toolbars layout Max usually saves the position of any toolbars you have opened and positioned but is there a way to save the position of the layers and transform toolbox without having to individualy open them each …	5 Last	Artifice Jun 2011
eyeon fusion crash problems hi everyone, I'm wondering if any of you could help me. i'm working on a matte paint in eyeon fusion, at least, i'm trying too, as the program crashes every single time I do whatever. and I mean ever…	1 Last	ghib Jun 2011
[Maya] Animating a flag with bones Hi, I had no idea where to put this, so I thought this would be the best place. I want to have an efficient way to animate a flag with bones so I can import the animation into a game enigine. The ri…	5 Last	Mark Dygert Jun 2011
3ds Max 2012 Unwrap UVW Deselect Problem Anybody else having problems getting out of the Unwrap UVW modifier? ctrl-b doesn't seem to be doing the trick, and neither does clicking the Select Object icon. If I have a modifier below it I can c…	3 Last	Steen Jun 2011
Zbrush Normal Map Smear issues I'm a student that is currently having the most horrid trouble in the world with normal mapping. I feel as if I have really tried everything, but simply can't get the job done as far as normal maps g…	3 Last	4leaf May 2011
Helping Zbrush to shoot my normal map correctly? What are some tips for getting ZBrush to shoot ears, or other tricky meshes, properly? I thought I was in the clear by making sure my low res mesh was detailed enough to match the high res, but appar…	4 Last	mdeforge May 2011
Opinions on new prospective rig. I am having a new machine put together to do my 3d work/rendering on, and I wanted to get some opinions on the parts I plan to combine (voltron) style to make this magnificent engine of creation. Pl…	4 Last	Urbonov May 2011
Combining multiple AO maps in Photoshop I'm using Photoshop CS5, Maps were baked out of xNormal. I can view that the AO map isn't lined up properly both in my Maya View port (2011) and Marmoset 1.02 I had no issues doing this with my nor…	7 Last	user38 May 2011
[MaxScript] Grab Viewport with alpha channel The script that grab the active viewport and include an alpha channel was requested in [URL="http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=98&t=978902"]cgtalk forum[/URL]. So, this is my attempt. Not…	13 Last	leslievdb May 2011
Shader that blends AO in 2nd UV channel? Is there a shader in MAX that allows me to blend my AO in the 2nd UV channel and see it in the viewport? Please help! Thanks!! :D	3 Last	cman2k May 2011
Quick rigging question Hey guys, Could anyone explain how to quickly set up an easily keyable squash deformer in Maya? I'm just trying to add some S and S to a ball bouncing, but I can't get figure out how the squash def…	13 Last	Tom Ellis May 2011
Tablet PC for 3Ds Max? I'm sure this has been asked before but I cannot seem to get this idea out of my head. Can you use a Tablet PC to model in 3Ds Max 2009? And by model I mean off course use you're finger or digital p…	10 Last	aaronramsey17 May 2011