How do I get all these maps into one?

JustColorado

So I got this enemy type character that I morphed up in DAZ Studio.



I exported him into 3ds and I want to try optimizing him. Before I start to retopologize him, I want to do something about the texture maps. There are 5 big texture maps in the folder. One with the limbs, one with the torso, one with the head, one for the eyes, and another for the eyelashes. I would like to get all of this into one 1024x1024 map. I will do a separate map for the clothes.

When I try to unwrap this guy:



I see all the seams are exactly where they should be. Everything works fine in the viewport and render, but the Unwrap UVW modifier shows chaos. All 5 maps on top of each other and I don't know how to untangle the mess without making a worse mess out of it. I want to get all of those 5 maps into one. How do I do this?

Any help is greatly appreciated
Thanks
Colorado

respawnrt

It looks like the head, eyes etc have their own uv maps, so in order to make all of that in one texture map you need to arange the uv islands by...hand.You can use pack normalize(with rescale and rotate) for a quick arrangement, and than manually arrange the uv islands yourself starting from there.

JustColorado

Thanks. Yes exactly like you said. There are 5 texture files. And there must be 5 UV maps. But the UV maps are all on top of each other in my Edit UVW window. If they were separated, I think I can manage scaling and merging the 5 files to 1. I just don't know how to separate the UV maps without totally messing everything up. What is "Pack Normalize" ?

respawnrt

Ah so you wanna keep the textures too hmm, don't know any easy way for this other than make your own uv map by hand and bake the diffuse from the imported model untouched to your modified model uvmapped by you(the quality of the texture will degrade of course).The pack normalize is just a script in max 2012 which aranges the uv islands to have the same texel res.

Eric Chadwick

Go to the Tools menu and choose Channel Info. Select the 1:Map channel, Copy, Add, choose the new channel, Paste. This makes a copy of the UVs, so you can edit them without destroying the original UVs.

Add an Unwrap modifier, change it to UV channel 2. Choose "keep existing" when you get the warning. Rearrange the UVs how you want them.

Go to Render to Texture. Set the Mapping Coordinates to "Use Existing", and the Channel to 2. Add whatever elements you want to bake (I'm assuming Diffuse only?). In the Baked Material section, turn on "Render To Files Only". And bake it. This will transfer the diffuse mapping from UV1 (all overlapped) to UV2 (no overlaps).

Should work. Don't have Max open at the moment.

Bek

Not a max user but don't you just (in the uv editor window) click where it says All IDs and change what material ID you're viewing? I assume the model has multiple material id's for each seperate texture, that's why it works in the viewport but you're looking at all the UV sets at once.

Eric Chadwick

That's great for editing each material's UV independently, but it sounds like he wants to combine them all into one UV.

JustColorado

I tried to follow what Eric said, but couldn't get it to work. It sounds like his method would be quicker than the way I am doing it now. However he got me started about the Map Channels, and I went ahead and started selecting things by Material ID. That worked pretty good after I detached the edges. Here is what I have now.



I should be able to sort things out from here and get it all into one 1024x1024 map. I will post again when I have it ready. But there must be an easier way, if anybody knows one please enlighten the noob

Colorado

Eric Chadwick

Which step didn't work?

Also, if you're moving things around in UV channel 1, then you've lost the UVs for the existing textures. You need to copy the UVs into a new 2nd UV channel, before you start re-packing them.

BTW, there isn't an easier way. As far as I know. You need to create a new UV set on the model, and transfer the maps from the old UV set into the new one. Baking with Render To Texture is one way to transfer them.

JustColorado

Maybe it worked, I just couldn't figure out what to do. When I pressed [add] the window for "channel info" closed. When I added a new unwrap, I couldn't see what I copied and added. When I pasted I couldn't find the map of what I pasted. I saw the paste in the modifier stack but I couldn't view the UV map. Probably all my fault for not knowing what I am doing. How long should it take the way you suggested? I spent about 2 hours rearranging things. Maybe if I was a little better I could get it done faster, but it was pretty tedious. Here is what I have so far:



Aside from some seams I need to touch up I can hardly notice the difference with the smaller map. I noticed one of the maps for the eyelashes is an alpha map. Is there any way to stick that into the diffuse map or will I need another map for that?

I am going to sleep. I will see how far I can get tomorrow with optimizing him down.

Eric Chadwick

Well first of all you're using a Daz Studio model, instead of your own. That's cool if its a learning exercise, but it should never go in your portfolio.

For packing and rearranging, you shouldn't manually pack all the maps together in Photoshop, then move the UVs to match that. That's why you get seams. The baking method avoids this, and is faster.

Read up in the Help about UV mapping, specifically how UV channels work. Will save you a lot of time in the long run.

JustColorado

Yes, this Daz Model is just for practice. I am not planning on making a portfolio. I am just trying to learn how things are done in the gaming industry. I really want to take a shot at opening a gaming studio. But it is a whole new world for me. I want to learn and practice it all before I am comfortable taking the plunge.

This forum is awesome BTW! Everyone here has been so helpful. And there are so many great projects people are working on. I have learned more here than anywhere else. There is a lot of misinformation and wrong tutorials on other sites.

So yes, I want to learn about the baking method you mentioned. Where can I read about it. When you say, "Read up in the Help about UV mapping" do you mean the help that comes up when I hit the [F1] button in 3ds. Or is this something in this forum that you were referring to?

Eric Chadwick

Yep, the F1 help.

Autodesk also has online versions of the 3ds Max help, but only 2011+ versions.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=9861583

Eric Chadwick

For example, this is a good place to start. This is Max 2011 help, looks like you're using 2010 but they're similar.
http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/13/ENU/Autodesk%203ds%20Max%202011%20Help/files/WS73099cc142f487557579ab9211cd73fdb9e4def.htm