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[maya] froX : an xNormal script exporter for maya

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  • meshiah
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    meshiah polycounter lvl 17
    just wanted throw out a big thanks for this. turned a couple people at work onto it as well. a quick test works great, well see how she does in production. you've already addressed it but just wanted to +1 for baking the tangent space and object at once, but no biggie.. great script dude!!!!
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    Two things that I´ve noticed during my baking session:
    1: can´t save presets if the cage is set to a value below 0.1 - that doesn´t make any sense to me
    2: Unable to load presets; when I hit the load button, the script editor outputs:

    select -r Threshold02 ;
    froxLoadPreset;
    moduleDetectionLogic;
    loadModule -scan;

    but nothing happens
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    1 - It sounds odd indeed, I will look into that.

    2 - How do load your presets ? You need to select it first in you scene (via the outliner preferably) and then use the "load preset" button.
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for your reply!
    I didn´t know that I have to select the preset via outliner, thanks for the hint!
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    You are not the first, sorry.
    I should fix this I guess, and making it more user friendly to use.
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for the information about vertex colours!

    I´d like to see one feature added to this nice tool:

    The ability to override the common attributes in the individual maps attributes;

    for example if I bake out the face ID´s map with a lower texture padding than the other maps (btw: I´m missing the option to set texture padding to 0), a nice little flyout named "overrides" for all maps to be able to access those settings individually while not messing up the interface

    thanks again!
  • DylanDon
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    this plugin is the shit! May I ask how I can set it up so when I export my LP/cage it gets triangulated on export? Or do I have to triangulate it before? Would be nice if I didn't have to.

    Thanks!
    Dylan
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Thousand wrote: »
    I´d like to see one feature added to this nice tool:

    The ability to override the common attributes in the individual maps attributes;

    for example if I bake out the face ID´s map with a lower texture padding than the other maps (btw: I´m missing the option to set texture padding to 0), a nice little flyout named "overrides" for all maps to be able to access those settings individually while not messing up the interface

    thanks again!

    This is not possible during a single launch of xNormal. xN use global settings for every bake process so I can't directly override that. So what you are asking is a way to launch xNormal twice for example, with different settings each time. I don't support that for the moment (and I'm not sure I will support it soon since it will ask to rebuild my script almost from scratch).

    I will fix the padding setting however.

    Meanwhile you can override the setting yourself by editing the xml created by the script, but I guess this will kill the interest of the script itself. :\


    DylanDon wrote: »
    this plugin is the shit! May I ask how I can set it up so when I export my LP/cage it gets triangulated on export? Or do I have to triangulate it before? Would be nice if I didn't have to.

    Thanks!
    Dylan

    It's a feature I tried to implement but I add some problem with it (specially after the export, canceling the triangulation). I don't support an automated triangulation for the moment.

    By the way you shouldn't triangulate the cage after creating it, the bets is to triangulate the LP first, then create the cage, then export both meshes. I don't remember if the SBM format triangulate your mesh however... maybe you can try that as an alternative.
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    Hi Froyok,

    thanks for your reply, I will wait patiently and keep track of xnormal and froXno, there´s a lot of potential there!

    cheers!
  • eskinto
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    This just became my favorite maya script, thanks so much!

    it's a must have, it makes the baking process so damn smooth :)

    Some random feedback or odd things I noticed:
    • Can't save presets with cage sizes below 0.1
    • The Cage size value doesn't update if you input the same value twice in a row (for example to match two different cages. A shortcut is to press + and then - to go back to that same input value)
    • - +- buttons increments are too big, at least for me

    An incredible feature would be if you could batch execute presets to bake several objects in a row.

    For example sometimes you have an exploded mesh and you have to run 4-5 bakes... waiting 20 minutes in between. It would be great if you could load stored presets in a queue, and the script would run them one after the other

    I'm not sure if this possible though, since you need to know if xNormal has finished baking...

    anyway super cool stuff, keep it up! :)
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    eskinto wrote: »
    Some random feedback or odd things I noticed:
    • Can't save presets with cage sizes below 0.1
    • The Cage size value doesn't update if you input the same value twice in a row (for example to match two different cages. A shortcut is to press + and then - to go back to that same input value)
    • - +- buttons increments are too big, at least for me
    Thanks for bringing back these issues, I will try to investigate and fix them as soon as possible.

    Regarding the +/- button steps, what do you prefer ? I'm often working with UDK content, therefore I matched this scale to the buttons.

    eskinto wrote: »
    An incredible feature would be if you could batch execute presets to bake several objects in a row.

    This feature is planned. xNormal can bake multiple xml at once (well, one after one to be exact). I can't provide any ETA unfortunately.
  • Alphavader
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    Alphavader polycounter lvl 11
    thanks for the tool - the new suggestions make sense
    cant wait for the update ;)
  • Ongaku
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    Ongaku polycounter lvl 8
    Amazing tool, thanks for making this !
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    Another suggestion from my side:

    Make Texture padding of 0 available!

    for example if you bake a grid like structure to a plane, you wouldn´t want to use any padding at all

    all in all, this tool makes using xnormal so much easier!
  • Thousand
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    Thousand polycounter lvl 9
    How about this Unity baking Plugin?

    http://www.farfarer.com/blog/2012/06/12/unity3d-tangent-basis-plugin-xnormal/

    Ok, nothing needs to be changed in your tool, it´s about selecting the plugin in XNormal settings
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Texture padding at 0 is planned.
    I can't say when I will be able to update my script however.
  • Lucas Annunziata
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    Lucas Annunziata polycounter lvl 13
    Any chance you'll add translucence map as an option to bake from the plugin?
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    I added it to my ToDo list, but right now I can't do it (I'm finishing a big work). Once I'm available I will update the script.
  • Lucas Annunziata
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    Lucas Annunziata polycounter lvl 13
    Also, it would be awesome to be able to export your textures to a different file path than your meshes. Thanks a lot for this plugin, it has been super helpful.
  • lejo1989
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    I am having trouble when i try to add a custom shelf icon...Ctrl+Shift wont do anything, and now this, add to shelf button wont give me anything same exact problem trying to add DDO to shelf. Please help. Thank you.
  • lejo1989
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    I am having trouble when i try to add a custom shelf icon...Ctrl+Shift wont do anything, and now this, add to shelf button wont give me anything same exact problem trying to add DDO to shelf. Please help. Thank you.
  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    Create a new Mel shelf button and put this code in it.
    source froXno.mel; froXno;
    

    It clearly tells you this on the first page.
  • Cordell Felix
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    Cordell Felix polycounter lvl 9
    Just found out about this today at work from Sean V.
    Sadly, I can't download it because the site is down!
  • Froyok
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Hey guys, from now on I'm stopping the development and the support of this script.
    If you are interested into a tool similar to this one I suggest going over the other one I'm actively developing : http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151048
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