How much does it change the modelling ? Can we use 1 smoothing group like in synced workflow ? (i know 1 sg isn't best option but want to know).
More or less(accuracy may vary a little from engine to engine). Previously if you wanted to use a 1SG workflow you would need do A. have an engine that was synced to a certain baker and B. only use that baker to generate your content.
With handplane you can bake pretty much wherever you want, however you want.
How does change the creation of low poly ? You don't need supporting loops anymore to remove skewed detail ? Sorry if it is already answered but Ir really can't find anything about mesh creation changes.
The thing with supporting loops etc is this: You'll still need to add them, but now you can remove them after baking(as long as your uvs stay the same) your object space map and then transfer your tangent space maps with that optimized mesh.
This was something you could always to with object space maps, but now you can do it with tangent space as well. Previously if you tried to do this with TS map you would introduce smoothing errors as you would be changing your lowpoly mesh normals, and a tangent space bake is reliant on your mesh normals.
The thing with supporting loops etc is this: You'll still need to add them, but now you can remove them after baking(as long as your uvs stay the same) your object space map and then transfer your tangent space maps with that optimized mesh.
No shit! Had not thought about that.. gotta try this asap!
The thing with supporting loops etc is this: You'll still need to add them, but now you can remove them after baking(as long as your uvs stay the same) your object space map and then transfer your tangent space maps with that optimized mesh.
So, with this tool, low-poly support loops could be used as just part of a workflow like psd's are to textures?
Great idea Alec! Although, I don't imagine that putting the turbosmooth over your mesh set to smoothing groups will work with all low poly meshes, especially in the case of splitting smoothing groups along your UV seams, for example with certain hectic hardsurface-type meshes. In that case, would you just add a edit poly and use the cut/knife tool to add support loops before baking? If so, without a modifier stack capable app, I don't think this would be easy to do in a non-destructive, simple fashion. I wonder how the likes of Perna feels about this slightly esoteric interoperability kink for studio workflows. I mean, any rebake or form tweak that needs to be done by another artist would have to be done with some very specific knowledge and tools.
Temporary support loops for fixing skewed projections is an awesome idea though, and will definitely be useful for some personal projects or special cases.
Does the maya plugin just automate the process of converting and plugging in the maya tangent space output? (Not a maya user) If so, a Max plugin would also be pretty sweet.
Also, could you show some examples or elaborate on the LOD baking?
Usually for fixing ray projection errors, like a screw or something being skewed I will just cut in one vertex right in the middle of that detail. This fixes the issue in most cases.
Now it gets debatable as to whether taking the time to remove this sort of detail later(or creating a copy to add this to and then reverting) will really save you much time or be a noticeable hit to your vert count, at least now with handplane you have a reliable way of doing it with tangent space maps.
For waviness you can slice in an extra edge loop similar to what you would do to retain a hard edge with traditional sub-d work. Though when it comes to waviness, generally if you've got enough sides to your cylinders to look good from the intended viewing distance, you're not going to have much issues with waviness. If you've got a really low number of sides you're probably not going to view the asset/part of asset up close, so the chances you would notice that sort of waviness go way down.
Doing sub-d via smoothing groups is going to be quick with simple objects, but time consuming for more complex objects. So selectively slive in loops and cutting in verts might be faster there.
All of this stuff in general is things that I personally try to avoid, because you will need to redo it if you are forced to change your uvs or something. But its cool that you can actually do it now because it was previously a workflow that was only available for object space maps. I actually wrote up some stuff describing similar workflow a few years back when we were using object space maps heavily at 8ml, I'll see if I can dig it up.
Scroll down a bit. It covers: A. Slicing in supporting geo and B. Cutting in details after you've done your bake, both of which should be possible with handplane.
Been a while since I've used object space, I've used some mirroring in a model and when I convert from object space to tangent it appears that I've done something stupid judging on the colours and seams that appear.
Showster, could you email me your max scene along with your object space bake so I can take a look? There have been a couple of instances of this sort of thing happening and it would be good to figure out exactly what is causing it.
As far as mirroring goes, some object space implementations support it. Regardless, mirroring is automatically accounted for in the conversion to tangent space so it shouldn't matter beyond previewing your object space bakes.
Object-space normal maps can't be mirrored, can they?
Object space normal maps can not be mirrored(unless you have a shader that supports it) but when baked down to tangent space, mirroring will work fine. Just remember to offset your mirrored uvs like you normally would else you might get issues.
Thanks for this, works really great but i get some error at the edges, is it something i have done wrong?
And this is a bit image heavy but i thought it would be good to upload full res.
I "think" I've found my problem. I didn't move the mirrored uv's out of the way when I made the object space map. I've now moved them over to the next UV tile in the Unwrap UVW Editor rebaked and hand plane has no problems .
I can still send files if you want, but it appears to work fine now
Alec - Hey Alec, this question may have gotten buried so I'll just ask again
In the output section, there is the "Target Engine" drop down window, with an option that has caught me and a co-workers eye. The "Input Tangent and Binormal" option sounds like we could input custom info into this so it could work for any engine (such as our proprietary engine). I know Handplane isn't meant for commercial use yet, but is this feature implemented yet or being worked on for a commercial release?... either way this sounds TASTY!
I "think" I've found my problem. I didn't move the mirrored uv's out of the way when I made the object space map. I've now moved them over to the next UV tile in the Unwrap UVW Editor rebaked and hand plane has no problems .
I can still send files if you want, but it appears to work fine now
All the best and awesome tool!
Greg
Please do. The tool needs to be flexible enough that people don't run into these sorts of problems.
JasonLavoie:
That will use the normals and tangents packaged into the fbx file for the conversion. This is useful if you have an engine that reads this information. However, a larger point I want to make is that pipelines that rely on importing data are extremely unflexible. You have a very limited production chain and can run into issue where a normal map created by an artist in one tool will no longer work if that asset has been modified by an artist using a different 3d app.
Also, importing tangents and normals is not the entire puzzle. The interpolation of tangents across a triangle needs to be the same and this can't be imported/exported with the model.
Now that it's working I tried the tool and its friggin' awesome. Had no problems but only did a little bit of testing. Will report dem errors if i see any
The thing with supporting loops etc is this: You'll still need to add them, but now you can remove them after baking(as long as your uvs stay the same) your object space map and then transfer your tangent space maps with that optimized mesh.
Thanks a ton for the steady stream of information! You're teh uber l33t guru.
Its a 1024 map and it did had 2 in padding and i tried 16 . I did also bake a 2048 map but its still there. Handplane seems to remove the padding, probably doing it with the unwrap and it seems like the normal map is inside of the unwrap like a pixel or so on some spots and outside in some others.
Hi Everyone,
I have done some more testing of this build and for now I wouldn't use the maya tangent space outputs. Maya output appears to have been broken when build was put together. I will update the first post in the thread to reflect this.
Hey guys,
Good news here , is also nice to see initiatives like that, I've been try this now and I don't know where I go wrong, I'm trying differents settings but that's what I've got
This is a screen from unity with normal map fixed
here's the problem
I'm getting a security warning that the files aren't save. Norton security deletes them. Any idea why this happening? running lates Norton 2013 + updates Thanks.
Hi decorix,
What is the message from norton exactly? I'm guessing the cause is their WS.Reputation.1 error. The reputation error basically rejects software from unknown sources.
Hi decorix,
What is the message from norton exactly? I'm guessing the cause is their WS.Reputation.1 error. The reputation error basically rejects software from unknown sources.
So wish I could have the -work in an instant- result
This tool really seems awesome, however once I've inputed the FBX and my xnormal created object space map (or maya created one) it does a very quick load once I press render. It's over in a split second and it just gives me an empty normal map :S (a map with a solid 128,128,256 color)
Not sure what info I'd need to relay to troubleshoot it.
Aye that fixed nothing popping up! Downloaded the newest version of the FBX plugin (FBX 2013.3 Maya 2011 64-bit) for Maya and now things showed up. However they seem to have artifacts here and there
My test models UV-layout might now be the best at the moment, might need to replan them or get a better test model. Those edges that ended up sort of good around the grove on the anvils sides were definitively a lot better than I usually get straight from Xnormal!
Object space from Xnormal on the left, Handplane output on the right.
that output looks y/z inverted or channel flipped in some way. Email me your lowpoly, object space map, and ideally your maya/max scene file and I will take a look.
You can also try hitting "more options" and then using the flip y/z button. If it still looks off try flipping some channels. We are trying to come up with a good solution to this since it is confusing but it isn't possible to know the y/z orientation of the source model.
Flipped the y/z, immediately awestruck. The UV edges are almost entirely gone! Now that's something one have struggled with. Only thing left now is the artifacts that seem to appear :S But I'll go ahead and gather the files and mail them over incase it's still needed. This program might just save my sanity
Hi breakfast. The maya output is broken at the moment. The maya h3d plugins appear to be triggering this bug as well. Luke is working on a new build that will fix this along with a few other bugs and with some of the additional requested features.
Hi breakfast. The maya output is broken at the moment. The maya h3d plugins appear to be triggering this bug as well. Luke is working on a new build that will fix this along with a few other bugs and with some of the additional requested features.
Ahh thanks, looking forward to the fix. What is the best alternative to use within Maya for the time being?
I would wait to use handplane for anything maya based but the closest option should be importing a maya fbx with the "input tangent and binormal" output option (and make sure tangents and binormals are included in the fbx file).
I tested this with Blender -> xNormal -> Handplane -> UDK, and the results are amazing! However, Handplane seems to average the normals for the entire mesh, regardless of sharp edges (Blender's equivalent of smoothing groups). In most cases, this isn't that big of a deal, but of course sometimes it is required to have a few sharp edges. If you were able to add smoothing group (sharp edges) support for Blender FBX export, this would be one of my primary tools for sure!
Edit: I forgot to mention this. I can open Handplane one time, and it works fine. However, if I close it and try to open it again, it tells me 'The license file is not valid.' I can't open it again unless I copy the entire handplane folder to a new location, and then it works again. Once.
Nice tool! having a few differences and errors between the handplane conversion and a straight bake in xnormal
using 3DMax and importing into Unreal. 1 smoothing group on the whole object
It adds smoothing errors to some points, such as the top and the connection points of the sides, as well as the detail bump on the top. You can see these on the normal map
All my settings are default (if i click flip y/z up, it messes the bake up). I choose maya as my Input object space since you mentioned if you are using xnormal to choose this option.
A little confused, why do you import normals on your mesh for a Xnormal generated tangent map, but not on a handplane object space converted tangent map?
Our tool replicates how unreal works in terms of tangents and normals. If you import tangents and normals from the model you are no longer using matching data. There are a bunch of workflow advantages to not passing that kind of data around but more importantly unreal's skeletal mesh system doesn't of the imported information so the xnormal workflow isn't compatible. Skeletal meshes in unreal cover anything that is rigged so that includes weapons, vehicles, characters...
Replies
More or less(accuracy may vary a little from engine to engine). Previously if you wanted to use a 1SG workflow you would need do A. have an engine that was synced to a certain baker and B. only use that baker to generate your content.
With handplane you can bake pretty much wherever you want, however you want.
The thing with supporting loops etc is this: You'll still need to add them, but now you can remove them after baking(as long as your uvs stay the same) your object space map and then transfer your tangent space maps with that optimized mesh.
This was something you could always to with object space maps, but now you can do it with tangent space as well. Previously if you tried to do this with TS map you would introduce smoothing errors as you would be changing your lowpoly mesh normals, and a tangent space bake is reliant on your mesh normals.
Intel i7 950
nvidia 580gtx
12gb of ram
Let me know if you need more info.
No shit! Had not thought about that.. gotta try this asap!
[ame="
So, with this tool, low-poly support loops could be used as just part of a workflow like psd's are to textures?
Temporary support loops for fixing skewed projections is an awesome idea though, and will definitely be useful for some personal projects or special cases.
Does the maya plugin just automate the process of converting and plugging in the maya tangent space output? (Not a maya user) If so, a Max plugin would also be pretty sweet.
Also, could you show some examples or elaborate on the LOD baking?
Now it gets debatable as to whether taking the time to remove this sort of detail later(or creating a copy to add this to and then reverting) will really save you much time or be a noticeable hit to your vert count, at least now with handplane you have a reliable way of doing it with tangent space maps.
For waviness you can slice in an extra edge loop similar to what you would do to retain a hard edge with traditional sub-d work. Though when it comes to waviness, generally if you've got enough sides to your cylinders to look good from the intended viewing distance, you're not going to have much issues with waviness. If you've got a really low number of sides you're probably not going to view the asset/part of asset up close, so the chances you would notice that sort of waviness go way down.
Doing sub-d via smoothing groups is going to be quick with simple objects, but time consuming for more complex objects. So selectively slive in loops and cutting in verts might be faster there.
All of this stuff in general is things that I personally try to avoid, because you will need to redo it if you are forced to change your uvs or something. But its cool that you can actually do it now because it was previously a workflow that was only available for object space maps. I actually wrote up some stuff describing similar workflow a few years back when we were using object space maps heavily at 8ml, I'll see if I can dig it up.
Edit: Here we go: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=817681&postcount=91 Warning, some of the shit in this post is as old as the internet and I take no responsibility for its accuracy, lololol.
Scroll down a bit. It covers: A. Slicing in supporting geo and B. Cutting in details after you've done your bake, both of which should be possible with handplane.
Been a while since I've used object space, I've used some mirroring in a model and when I convert from object space to tangent it appears that I've done something stupid judging on the colours and seams that appear.
Any suggestions?
Cheers
Greg
Best of luck with it
As far as mirroring goes, some object space implementations support it. Regardless, mirroring is automatically accounted for in the conversion to tangent space so it shouldn't matter beyond previewing your object space bakes.
alecmoody@gmail.com
Tried it out on several model en settings (Max Maya Xnormal. but i didn't get a result even close to yours.
This is my result:
Maya OS bake
Handplane TS results
Maya
unity
So Alec i did send you some files to test with. hope you have time for them.
Thanks
Object space normal maps can not be mirrored(unless you have a shader that supports it) but when baked down to tangent space, mirroring will work fine. Just remember to offset your mirrored uvs like you normally would else you might get issues.
And this is a bit image heavy but i thought it would be good to upload full res.
Also, you should bake your object space map with some amount of padding.
Had the Same error, enabling compatibility mode: Win XP (SP3) in the properties fixed it for me
I "think" I've found my problem. I didn't move the mirrored uv's out of the way when I made the object space map. I've now moved them over to the next UV tile in the Unwrap UVW Editor rebaked and hand plane has no problems
I can still send files if you want, but it appears to work fine now
All the best and awesome tool!
Greg
In the output section, there is the "Target Engine" drop down window, with an option that has caught me and a co-workers eye. The "Input Tangent and Binormal" option sounds like we could input custom info into this so it could work for any engine (such as our proprietary engine). I know Handplane isn't meant for commercial use yet, but is this feature implemented yet or being worked on for a commercial release?... either way this sounds TASTY!
Thanks Alec!
Please do. The tool needs to be flexible enough that people don't run into these sorts of problems.
JasonLavoie:
That will use the normals and tangents packaged into the fbx file for the conversion. This is useful if you have an engine that reads this information. However, a larger point I want to make is that pipelines that rely on importing data are extremely unflexible. You have a very limited production chain and can run into issue where a normal map created by an artist in one tool will no longer work if that asset has been modified by an artist using a different 3d app.
Also, importing tangents and normals is not the entire puzzle. The interpolation of tangents across a triangle needs to be the same and this can't be imported/exported with the model.
Yeah I encountered the error on Win 7 64-bit.
Now that it's working I tried the tool and its friggin' awesome. Had no problems but only did a little bit of testing. Will report dem errors if i see any
This is great!
Thanks a ton for the steady stream of information! You're teh uber l33t guru.
^_^
I have done some more testing of this build and for now I wouldn't use the maya tangent space outputs. Maya output appears to have been broken when build was put together. I will update the first post in the thread to reflect this.
Good news here , is also nice to see initiatives like that, I've been try this now and I don't know where I go wrong, I'm trying differents settings but that's what I've got
This is a screen from unity with normal map fixed
here's the problem
So if anyone want make this or wanna give me punch here's my files - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11836224/HandPlane_testZE/HandPlane_testZE.rar
make yourself free to do this.
hit "more options" and flip y/z. If you baked in xnormal set the object space source as maya
but I am glad that i am not the only one with it hehehe
Thanks again now it all work perfectly + i learned something new
Bertmac
I'm getting a security warning that the files aren't save. Norton security deletes them. Any idea why this happening? running lates Norton 2013 + updates Thanks.
What is the message from norton exactly? I'm guessing the cause is their WS.Reputation.1 error. The reputation error basically rejects software from unknown sources.
If that is the error you can read about it and how to bypass is here:
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/06/25/how-to-bypass-symantecs-ws-reputation-1-system/
Thanks for the fast reply. yes, indeed its WS.Reputation.1 error.
thanks for the info and link to solve this issue.
X normals normal map default
First try with HandPlane
This tool really seems awesome, however once I've inputed the FBX and my xnormal created object space map (or maya created one) it does a very quick load once I press render. It's over in a split second and it just gives me an empty normal map :S (a map with a solid 128,128,256 color)
Not sure what info I'd need to relay to troubleshoot it.
My test models UV-layout might now be the best at the moment, might need to replan them or get a better test model. Those edges that ended up sort of good around the grove on the anvils sides were definitively a lot better than I usually get straight from Xnormal!
Object space from Xnormal on the left, Handplane output on the right.
alecmoody@gmail.com
You can also try hitting "more options" and then using the flip y/z button. If it still looks off try flipping some channels. We are trying to come up with a good solution to this since it is confusing but it isn't possible to know the y/z orientation of the source model.
OSNM was baked in Maya and converted to Maya 2012. When I convert it to Unity it comes out fine, no faceting.
Ahh thanks, looking forward to the fix. What is the best alternative to use within Maya for the time being?
Edit: I forgot to mention this. I can open Handplane one time, and it works fine. However, if I close it and try to open it again, it tells me 'The license file is not valid.' I can't open it again unless I copy the entire handplane folder to a new location, and then it works again. Once.
using 3DMax and importing into Unreal. 1 smoothing group on the whole object
It adds smoothing errors to some points, such as the top and the connection points of the sides, as well as the detail bump on the top. You can see these on the normal map
All my settings are default (if i click flip y/z up, it messes the bake up). I choose maya as my Input object space since you mentioned if you are using xnormal to choose this option.
what do your unreal object import settings look like?
Make sure that import tangents, explicit normals, and remove degenerates are all unchecked.
A little confused, why do you import normals on your mesh for a Xnormal generated tangent map, but not on a handplane object space converted tangent map?