Edit already saved/collapsed vertex paint? 3dsMax12

odium

I've been trying to get this working for ages, but meh, its just not happening...

Anyway, I've made a terrain, painted it for vertex painting with the standard 0/1, black white set up. Worked a treat. I exported the vertex paint to a texture and collapsed the scene. I saved it to a .max.

All fine and dandy.

Now, when I open the .max up again, I have my model, still vertex painted, still rendering correctly. However, when I apply a new vertex paint modifier to the stack, it doesn't work as intended... It will let me paint on the model, but it won't let me edit the existing vertex paint data stored there? For example, I cant paint on the mesh, and remove what I've done, but the original vertex paint remains no matter what I do...

This is... Quite odd, and I can't quite figure out the solution, which I'm sure is a simple box some place.

Any help would be amazing, before I go bald at least. Cheers guys.

Eric Chadwick

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=870536&postcount=5

odium

I saw that, but when I do that, it does what I said above... I must be doing something wrong here

Eric Chadwick

That's weird, it works for me. Maybe you have the original color in another map channel? If you go to Tools > Channel Info, do you only have a single vertex color channel, and is it 0:vc ? When you add the Vertex Paint modifier, is it set to Vertex Color?

Mark Dygert

Oh wow, I haven't used vertex paint in a while but I'm getting the same thing.

After collapsing I can't erase (bucket or brush), I can paint over the top of it but its like the original paint is on a lower layer I can't touch.

Only one channel in Map Channel Info, but clearing the channel does wipe it clean.

No extra layers.

Toggling "Ignore Underlying Color" does turn off the old paint, which after collapsing appears to be gone.

It does this in Vertex Color and Map Channels.

Eric Chadwick

What exactly are you trying to do with the old colors? I can use the blur brush, use the Adjust Color dialog (HSV, levels, etc.). Erasing does show me the original colors, but TBH that's what I want to happen. If I want to kill the old colors completely in one area, I just paint over top. What specifically are you trying to do?

Mark Dygert

In the past that is what I would do, just paint over it because that is just how I operate normally. So it could have behaved this way all long but still it seems like you should be able to collapse the stack, reapply vertex paint and have it behave the same as when you first applied it.

Eric Chadwick

Only thing different is eraser doesn't go to white. This is much better IMO, erase and you get the old colors. Just paint white if you want white.

Mark Dygert

Yep, if you want to Eraser paint bucket fill you can do several things:
You can clear the channel
Check on "ignore underlying color"
Add a new layer and fill it with color then collapse?
So there are some options there.

I could see it being sort of problematic if you are using more than 2 colors, like if you are trying to touch up a colored light bake and each time you erased it would bring back some of the previous color. There might be some complex blending going on that might be effected... maybe...

Personally I would rather have it just create a new blank layer by default rather than lock the colors, but there are enough ways to work around it that I don't think its that big of an issue.

odium

Yeah I guess what I needed it for is:

I made vertex paint on mesh, collapsed, saved, didn't matter.

Noticed it wasn't finished, so loaded it back up.

Vertex colours are still there, but no vertex paint modifier.

Add vertex paint modifier.

I can paint over the mesh, however, it wont paint over the original vertex paint data. As this is a black and white mesh, I can now paint black over the white, and white over THAT black... But can't change the original vertex paint at all, not matter where I paint or what I do.

Theres my issue, at least Sorry for the delay, my PC has been playing up lol, only just fixed it.

Eric Chadwick

It doesn't matter what the original looks like. You can do whatever you want on top. If you paint over that, or blur it, or do Levels or whatever, then collapse the stack... the result becomes the new "original". After you kill the modifier it's just one set of color data.

odium

But it does matter, because no matter what I do, blur it, paint it, erase it etc... nothing cahnges that original vertex paint data. It stays static the entire time. Might be easier with a video, but the internet is playing up big time here...

cupsster

try to export new vertex colors to texture then bake vertex colors from that exported texture and tell me if it helps.. (don't have that version of max here right now to test)

Eric Chadwick

Wait... you can't cover the original with new vertex color?

It's kind of like Photoshop's Background layer, if Photoshop prevented you from editing the Background. You can duplicate it as a new layer (Condense To Single Layer button), and do blurs and Levels on that. This completely covers the old Background/original. You can also paint new colors. Erasing will show the original Background. If you Collapse the stack in Max, that's similar to Flatten in PS. Everything now becomes the new Background/original.

odium

Sorry, had some PC issues, lol. I made a video to show whats going on, where am I going wrong? Cheers guys:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIalSfL1EM8"]Vertex Paint Problem...? - YouTube[/ame]

Justin Meisse

once you collapse the vertex paint modifier it isn't recognized as a layer anymore - collapsing the stack isn't simply like collapsing layers in photoshop, it's like collapsing the layers and then locking it. You can't use erase or blur on it. If you need to erase paint white over it instead.

I believe cupsster's method is the only way to retrieve the vert color info, I've never tried it myself.

odium

But thats kind of the problem, lol, because I need to edit that already saved vertex paint

I do have it extracted as a texture, so maybe it would be easier to just load that up and convert to to a vertex paint?

Eric Chadwick

It won't erase the old paint, so don't use the eraser. You don't need the eraser! Use the paint brush instead. That's the only editing you need... paint with white to "erase" or with black if you want to add info. I saw no problems in your video about using the paint brush.

odium

Well I'll be a funkies junkle...

Thats got it, I can pait over the black... Bloody hell lol. Awesome. Cheers sir.

Eric Chadwick

Yay!