Technical Talk

Topic	Replies	Latest Post
mutli-material still used? rewrting some import/export stuff for luxinia and wondered if max's mutli-materials (or if a equivalent in maya exists) are actually still used at all?	17 Last	DrillerKiller May 2009
Wacom Intuos - to buy or not to buy So I got rid of my lame Graphire some time ago, and I now find myself looking for a new tablet. Can get an Intuos 1 A5 for roughly $85. Yay or nay? :shifty:	28 Last	man_o_mule May 2009
Biped Help (3dsmax9) Hey, Just to start off with i am no Character artist or Animator! infact im all about Environment art heh but i am trying to do every aspect in a small project of mine. Ok i will try and explain my…	2 Last	Razorb May 2009
SSD vs Velociraptor Getting some cash back from the government and I'm putting together a new workstation for at home. Going with the Intel i920 with the Asus P6T and some 1600 Tri-Channel ram. Wondering if anyone has a…	6 Last	michi.be May 2009
Max pelt glitch I'm having a problem in max when pelt mapping that I've never seen before. It only appears to happen on boxes or meshes derived from boxes which I find very odd. When the pelt map function to unwrap …	2 Last	MoP May 2009
Multi-convert Maya-files to 3d max I've got a lot of simple objects from Maya (mb files), and I would like to convert them into 3d max files. Is it possibble to do it pretty easy and quick way ?	2 Last	Gerbeiter May 2009
SUB D question and quads There was a thread a little while back that explained how to take a cylindrical mesh at its ends and turn them into proper quads for Zbrush. Does anyone know the thread or can re-explain the process …	4 Last	Reverenddevil May 2009
Manually editing cages (Maya 2009) I recently posted some issues I had with baking normal maps and figured out how to use (I know, sad) and edit cages within Maya 2009. How much freedom is there in editing a cage, though? Is it okay …	7 Last	Isaiah Sherman May 2009
knees and elbow "crook, pit":) hey, i am working on this bunny at the moment and i have a question about modelling the arms and legs that you might be able to answer. my problem is that the mesh at the knees and elbows interleave…	9 Last	Bunnysuit May 2009
Hard Surface Normal Maps So I'm trying to create some normal maps for some hard surface objects. Like a table for instance. I want a normal map so that I can get the look of nice smooth edges on my low poly so that the ligh…	3 Last	butt_sahib May 2009
Muliple Uvs in 3ds max I'm working on a character in 3ds max 9, and i'm trying to unwrap the character using multiple uvs (one for the head, and another for the body etc.). Just to make things more complicated, I'm also p…	2 Last	vj_box May 2009
Crazy Maya Normal Map Issue Hey guys, I'm working on my first huge baking project right now. Not only is this the first time I've done Normal maps, but it was also the first time I've used Zbrush so I've had an extremely stres…	10 Last	Isaiah Sherman May 2009
Noob question: Quads or Tris? I have noticed that every "professional" modeler do their low poly models in quads only, and I understand why as Zbrush etc. really mess up a triangulated mesh when subdividing. On the contrary most…	3 Last	Mark Dygert May 2009
Anatomy blueprints I've been looking around for some good male/female blueprints to start on some character modeling. I usually go to [url]http://www.suurland.com/[/url] for all my blueprint needs so I'm not used to …	4 Last	Zwebbie May 2009
How to create 2 uv sets in max Yo, I am trying to set up an object in max with 2 uv sets. I plan to use the second uv set for a light map in the quest 3d engine. In short, i already figured out how to do all the uv sets, ao maps…	2 Last	raul May 2009
Chuggnuts UV tools, setting up hot keys? I'm jumping into setting up some hot keys for my UV Tools, and was wondering if anyone has experience doing this? I could use some pointers on a hot key for 'align UV' tool! I'll post here again whe…	2 Last	renderhjs Apr 2009
Baked normals in different engines. So I've been having a problem in unreal with smoothing errors. It looks like it's displaying my normal map properly, much like the max viewport does for me. The big triangular smoothing artifacts tha…	26 Last	glib Apr 2009
MEL local procedures? Hey, I'm a MEL noob, so maybe someone can help me. I've got this script with two procedures. One is global, and it creates the window with my fields and buttons the other one is the action that runs…	8 Last	animatr Apr 2009
Some questions about ZBrush and co Hello, Currently I use Cinema4D to make my models, BodyPaint to unwrap the textures and Photoshop to paint them. All is fine. However I want to try to use normal maps for per pixel lightning in my …	3 Last	Aranoth Apr 2009
UE3 question I was wondering if anyone knows of any UE3 tutorials that relate to light streams? I am lighting a cave environment and would like light streaming in from the top with dust particles moving around in…	1 Last	Ben Apuna Apr 2009
Texture Files : Maya VS Photoshop... the WAR!!!! Maya fuck!!!!! I prefer to say that at the beginning mouahahaha! It's not the first time but I'm tired. When I work on a texture with photoshop and want to save it, sometimes it appears that : "can…	8 Last	sama.van Apr 2009
Single or Multiple textures and shaders I am making a building with windows. I constructed the walls of the building out of modular square tiles that I can clone to extend the building vertically or horizontally. Right now I basically ha…	2 Last	jocose Apr 2009
3d max, baking lightmap - 3 questions 1. Can Max bake lightmap to 1 file from many separated objects? 2. Can Max take into consideration smoothing groups during baking? 3. If not 'Render to texture' from 3d max - what program do you use …	4 Last	OBlastradiusO Apr 2009
MAX going confetti on me Ok, so I guess old Max has finally gone round the bend proper - I was UVing along quite happily with the latest TexTools when suddenly the UV window BG went white, vertices became unselectable and ev…	18 Last	Farfarer Apr 2009
shadow creature shader On my current project i want to make some enemies that resemble the shadow creatures in Ico. I have no idea really where to start on the shader for this. The target engine is UT3. Anyone have any sug…	17 Last	Vailias Apr 2009
unreals buggy mouse Hey guys i'm havin a problem when i test my levels. whenever i go in to test all my buttons are working well. but as soon as i try to move my mouse it goes f'ing crazy and starts moving ridiculously …	0 Last	Thefirston Apr 2009
UTIII - Remove the content, keep the editor - possible? I'm running all of my game art apps off a 30GB partition on my Macbook Pro and would like to get Unreal Editor installed. However UT3 takes up a whopping 9GB, and I need to trim this down so I'm not …	7 Last	Mark Dygert Apr 2009
Baking map - AO, lightmap, shadowmap - what is a difference.. between this 3 maps?	8 Last	SHEPEIRO Apr 2009
Triangulated Mesh Mess to Polyies from Nurbs. I asked this in the Max plugin thread. But this might be more general and/or lost to someone who might otherwise see it if posted as own thread. I have to take some medium high rez meshes. 10000-20…	7 Last	ArtsyFartsy Apr 2009
phpmyadmin error driving me insane! Hey guys, Im looking for some technical genius who can solve my problem. I am currently trying to transfer my website from my localhost using xampp to my web server. Basically i need to export the…	1 Last	frubes Apr 2009
Creating an AO pass from a scene with displacement shaders I'm using mental ray and 3dsMax2009. I want to create an Ambient Occlusion pass of a scene that I have created. The scene has a lot of materials with displacement maps which prevents me from just go…	3 Last	JordanW Apr 2009
textures from photos i create textures from photos. i have taken over 200 reference photos to work with, and i posted some first results here: [url]http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=930491&postcount=2060[/url] s…	4 Last	omegalith Apr 2009
Joint Placement? Hi, I've been modeling characters for years but I still can't get correct join placement on my models. How many models should the typical humanoid model have, and where should they be placed? What di…	3 Last	Mark Dygert Apr 2009
zAppLink with PSCS2? Whenever I try to use zAppLink with Photoshop CS2, it either crashes Photoshop, or it opens the psd but the Layers palette doesn't work (no layers showing, not even a background layer) and if I try t…	7 Last	Blaizer Apr 2009
Inexpensive / open source game engines Just wondering if i can get some input as to the pro's and con's of any inexpensive/free game engines any of you have worked with. Me and a few other graduates from a 3 year animation program are lo…	47 Last	Xoliul Apr 2009
Closed Crysis Sandbox Editor - MASTER THREAD	0 Last	Cody Apr 2009
Questions for the pros Ok, so basically since ive been in school, they`ve pushed on us "low poly" for games, while baking in the high poly model. What exactly is low poly in todays standards though? That seems to be a ques…	10 Last	malcolm Apr 2009
Thirding/Tileable Texture Help + C&C Hi guys, thanks for stopping by. This is my first time trying to implement thirding and tileable textures on my model and I'm having quite a bit of difficulty. Also, this is the most complex model I …	3 Last	mdeforge Apr 2009
3d max - How can I see 2nd UV set in 'Edit UVWs' At first - sorry for my english. I have an object, and unwraped UVs for it (for diffuse texture) on 1st map channel. I choose again 'Unwrap UVW' and change map channel on 2nd, then click 'Edit UVW'…	3 Last	[HP] Apr 2009
helpneeded.. maxscript question (uv) hi i eventually started to lern maxscript .. a model file import/export script for a very old microprose fligtsimulator sooo .. i mainly have trouble to understand the way maxscript calls "things"…	16 Last	rollin Apr 2009
How do I use the other texture maps to make my model look better Well All I know how to use is the diffuse map, and I don't know what the other maps do, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me or show me examples of how to use them, and what there used for...	2 Last	Mark Dygert Apr 2009
Zbrush sculpting I have a square plane and want to know how I can sculpt on its surface so that I only ever go a certain depth into the plane no matter how many strokes I apply. Basically I want to create a relief on…	9 Last	[Deleted User] Apr 2009
bind modifier for C4d working on child meshes? I have the following hierarchy in C4d, seems fairly logical and I can get single meshes deforming just fine; [IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/pu9n6.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/10f2hs9.png[/IMG…	2 Last	hawken Apr 2009
Poly Normal Problems. I am currently running Max 2008. Today I made a box, with the default light setup and did a 'Normals > Flip Normals'. I usually do this to start a room and begin pushing out hallways and whatnot. Tod…	0 Last	Incomitatum Apr 2009
Pixel Boogie Tutorial? I found a cool little tutorial the other day and can't for the life of me find it now.. :D It was something to make your textures pop, by making copies of your layer, and moving them 1 pixel, up do…	5 Last	[HP] Apr 2009
System crash Waddup yalls, This isn't necessarily graphics related, but might have to do w/ my video card, not sure. I've been getting random crashes after bootup where everything on screen freezes with a brief…	8 Last	demoncage Apr 2009
Tutorial: Speed modeling tips for 3dsmax This tutorial was originally on The Area. Its really hard to search through the area, and I had a few requests to see it again, so here is the youtube (aka crappy compression) version. Part 1 [ame=…	28 Last	GoSsS Apr 2009
Extracting Normals - High Poly Hard surface [COLOR=#77828C]Hi, Im currently trying to figure out the workflow for creating game normal maps for hard surface objects. Ive build a low poly mesh and a high poly mesh. The high poly mesh is bu…	5 Last	cbellimer Apr 2009
File Conversion? or straight import (.ma into max) well, im working on a project with aa guy in my 3d class, and he uses maya, and i use max.. he made a model of himself in .ma format, and im putting it into one of my scenes in max.. i was going to …	5 Last	Dante1217 Apr 2009
Terrain Texturing Tips I'm currently throwing together a little scene (3D Max) for fun, just roughing it out at the moment and feeling my way forward, learning as I go, but i've hit a bit of a roadblock, what is the best w…	7 Last	Joshua Stubbles Apr 2009