setting up UV's for high poly baking

gartht3d

Hi again folks.

I've just finished the Briefcase tutorial on 3dmotive and also have been learning Ddo. In the Briefcase tutorial, Alec uses uv splits on all surfaces that require a different smoothing group. For example a cube requires different smoothing groups on all faces so it will also require uv splits on all of these faces. I'm thinking there's going to be some issues with texturing. Especially in Ddo, seeing it uses presets based on the UV's of an asset to create edge highlights and details.

What I would like to know, is what you guys think is the best way to create UV's for baking.
And also whether anyone has any experience with baking high poly, hard edge assets from 3ds Max and then texturing them in Ddo.

And one more thing, is there any benefit in using Maya for this process?

Thanks

gartht3d

ok so I've just discovered the handplane tool as well as the sticky for this similar issue.
One question remains for me though, if you have seen the chainsaw tutorial for quixels ddo (its free on their site), how the hell does he get such a nice bake from xnormal so easily? His shells don't exactly follow Alecs rules from what I can see but it shades perfectly in maya and in the viewport for ddo. Anyone?

Thanks again

Chase

How does the chainsaw example get unwrapped? Can you post your low poly?

gartht3d

Chase wrote: »

How does the chainsaw example get unwrapped? Can you post your low poly?

he didn't show how it was unwrapped

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hncqbwkGbM4"]Complete dDo Breakdown - YouTube[/ame]

I have no issues with normal shading using Alecs' techniques but I am worried that ddo might not work with uv splits on edges that need to be stitched so that ddo can create it's edge highlights/wear/cracks etc without a seam.

passerby

just try it out why are you worried, ddo uses curveature information to do its edge highlight and damage effects.

so just model, uv it in a sane way, than run the script for textures borders to hard edges, and bake.

and maybe try and bake a good curveature map out too with your object and tangent space normals and ao.

the more baked data you can give ddo the better.

gartht3d

passerby wrote: »

just try it out why are you worried, ddo uses curveature information to do its edge highlight and damage effects.

so just model, uv it in a sane way, than run the script for textures borders to hard edges, and bake.

and maybe try and bake a good curveature map out too with your object and tangent space normals and ao.

the more baked data you can give ddo the better.

It's for production and I don't wanna have to purchase ddo and find it doesn't work with this flow. Ill give the free version a whirl at home. Thanks for the info:)

gartht3d

'so just model, uv it in a sane way, than run the script for textures borders to hard edges, and bake'

What script is this? Not sure. I'm using max.

joeriv

You can use "TexTools" for it.

Also the UV splits are generally not a huge problem for texturing.
And if you need a UV split somewhere because of smoothing, but you don't want to split it in the UV's (for example something that is really close in the players view) you can always add a chamfer instead of a UV split. (and don't have a SG split).


Optional:
If you really want to avoid more gradients (so that the normal map has to compensate less) it could be worth it to do it in maya, the hard/soft edge system gives some advantages.

for example the normal way you UV a cube, if you do that in max all the faces are gonna be in 1 smoothing group (harsh gradients in your normal map), if you do it in maya, you will still get some hard edges where the edges aren't stitched together. (less gradients in your normal map)

gartht3d

joeriv wrote: »

You can use "TexTools" for it.

Also the UV splits are generally not a huge problem for texturing.
And if you need a UV split somewhere because of smoothing, but you don't want to split it in the UV's (for example something that is really close in the players view) you can always add a chamfer instead of a UV split. (and don't have a SG split).


Optional:
If you really want to avoid more gradients (so that the normal map has to compensate less) it could be worth it to do it in maya, the hard/soft edge system gives some advantages.

for example the normal way you UV a cube, if you do that in max all the faces are gonna be in 1 smoothing group (harsh gradients in your normal map), if you do it in maya, you will still get some hard edges where the edges aren't stitched together. (less gradients in your normal map)

thanks for this reply, good info. So use supporting edges etc on more visible parts of a mesh? I guess it wont be much different performance-wise than a split in the uv.

cheers

passerby

can also just edit the vertex normals around the faces that are getting bad gradients too.

I got a Maya script for doing so.

gartht3d

passerby wrote: »

can also just edit the vertex normals around the faces that are getting bad gradients too.

I got a Maya script for doing so.

That sounds interesting!
I got perfect results by forcing a cage and using handplane. Also, downgrading back to 3ds max 2012. 2013 and 2014 both display whack normals in the viewport even when using the xoliul shader.

Respect:)