Regarding triangulated meshes and smoothing group problems with IPackThat.
I did some tests with different fbx settings and a mesh with weird smoothing groups to check if there is something wrong with the fbx sdk implementation.
So far i could not see any problems with the tool integration. The problem can be a problem with fbx settings for import and export in the 3D apps.
here the test layout and result ( used 3ds Max 2014 x64 )
Editable Poly
Export Smoothings Groups / Preserve Edge Orientation FALSE
IPackThat visualize as Polygons
reimported is Editable Polygon, not triangulated, Smoothing Groups match
Export Smoothings Groups / Preserve Edge Orientation TRUE
IPackThat visualize as Triangulated Mesh
reimported is Editable Mesh, not triangulated, Smoothing Groups match
Editable Mesh
Export Smoothings Groups / Preserve Edge Orientation FALSE
IPackThat visualize as Triangulated Mesh
reimported is Editable Mesh, not triangulated, Smoothing Groups match
Export Smoothings Groups / Preserve Edge Orientation TRUE
IPackThat visualize as Triangulated Mesh
reimported is Editable Mesh, not triangulated, Smoothing Groups match
i did those test with different meshes and the results where allways valid. There was one case when FBX got some problems. This is happening if the mesh contains wrong polygons. Imagine a Quad with 8 verts. every corner the verts are doubled on the same position. FBX is doing weird things then.
Same problems happening with OBJ file. If you export as OBJ there is an option if you want to export as Triangle, Quad or Polygon. If the mesh contains only triangles are will work. If it contains quads and you set to triangle it will triangulate the mesh on export (sometimes with weird results). If the mesh contains N-Gons and you set to export quads, it will try to create quads and/or triangles (bad things will happen). If you set to Polygon it will work again.
If you still found problems send me details about export settings and import settings and send the mesh if possible to support@ipackthat.com
Hey awesome stuff. Quick question regarding the Steam commercial/non-commercial comment. After early access, how does the commercial license then work?
Hey awesome stuff. Quick question regarding the Steam commercial/non-commercial comment. After early access, how does the commercial license then work?
there isn't a real difference between those versions. Both got the same features. Its like the pricing model substance painter is using as well.
To qualify as independent, the entity in question in any case has to satisfy the "SMEs" criteria of the European Union.
a commercial license is necessary for any other entity.
tweaking some final stuff currently and checking plenty of meshes to be sure no final bug got in before leaving early access.
Also documented the batch operation feature. check IPackThat Batch Operation
So far it looks good that i leave early access shortly
small update again with some small features and a bugfix i got informed about the last days.
When nothing is comin about bugs i will leave early access at monday.
here are the fixed and added features
optimized precision
fixed obj file crash if no face normal's where found
fixed obj file crash if more than 50 points per polygon where found
fixed crash if entire UV-Area of all points is larger than 100 units
entire point set will be scaled down automatically to fit the 100 unit size
Import Options Dialog is shown always ( before only on some conditions )
ContainsBakeOffsets enabled now in batch config file
added Skip UV Channel to ImportSettings to skip a entire UV-Set from importing
added Skip Self-Overlap detection to prevent self overlap detection
together with Split by mesh you still can do overlap detection between meshes or disable it completely
changed AllignGrid to AlignGrid ( fixed inside batch XML too, updated PDF batch documentation as well )
added missing MaxParallelThreads to PDF batch documentation
fixed import settings on batch import with obj files ( no or wrong import settings where taken
Hey Snoelk, thanks for getting the rotation bugs sorted. I'm now officially a paying customer.
Couple feature requests:
1. Scale smaller shells up to fill wasted space, or let me tag shells that will scale larger to fill space so on my second pack I can fine tune things and then repack for a different result.
2. Hot keys for rotate shells ctrl+left or right arrow keys
3. Ability to save rotation steps increment, I have to keep switching it to
90degrees each time I open the app.
4. Ability to only allow shells to rotate 90degrees, my shells keep rotating slightly.
Hey never mind about 4, looks like I can add all shells to one group to get this behavior.
And for 3 today when I launced the program it did remember my rotation steps increment?
One more request, could you put the scene stats window on all tabs, it's a bit annoying to have to click general each time you quickly modify a pack to see if you got a better % result.
1. Scale smaller shells up to fill wasted space, or let me tag shells that will scale larger to fill space so on my second pack I can fine tune things and then repack for a different result.
already on backlog. one of the first features i will start to add after leaving early access.
4. Ability to only allow shells to rotate 90degrees, my shells keep rotating slightly.
should normaly work if you disable find smallest bounds. that way the shells won't rotate to find that roattion where the smallest bounding box is smallest
One more request, could you put the scene stats window on all tabs, it's a bit annoying to have to click general each time you quickly modify a pack to see if you got a better % result.
mhhh well i could remove the gloab stats from those panels and add them as overlay text inside the viewport like the fps and cpu counter. would this be ok ?
Yeah that would be great, would just like to see the scene stats at all times for iterating packs quickly.
Each time I load the tool it seems to forget the global settings I've saved. Perhaps I've saved the mesh settings which differ from the global settings? Is there a way to rest the mesh setting so the global settings are used?
mhh yes this could be a problem, right now you could only delete the xml file.
should be same root where the mesh file is loaded ( same name but with xml as extension ).
will think about a solution to ignore the mesh settings and favour the global ones.
Has anyone had trouble with the selection box being offset when using a tablet? This is on a win8 machine w/ a low end wacom tablet. Seems to get more out of sync as you get further from the upper left corner.
It looks cool, but I've been using Headus for years and it already has auto packing and groups. Can anyone who has extensive experience using both Headus and IPackThat comment on how the two autopacking solutions compare? Frankly I've never been satisfied with Headus' autopacking or it's rectangular groups feature. I always just end up packing manually for better control.
At the moment i have the feeling that for characters you just need to avoid autopacking solutions since the low amount of uvislands just make it hard for these tools to do a better job than you can. for mechanical stuff its great though (unless you use it as a 50% there kind of thing where you use the autopack as a base)
i think the grouping in ipackthat is more sophisticated than the rectangular group packs headus does , i`m pretty sure it takes the contour of the combined uvshells for packing instead of just a square around it.
Has anyone had trouble with the selection box being offset when using a tablet? This is on a win8 machine w/ a low end wacom tablet. Seems to get more out of sync as you get further from the upper left corner.
we checked this with our wacom tablets and all works as expected. is there some problems with the driver and windows? basiclly the input from wacom tablets are handled inside like mouse input, so mouse inout should be off too then.
we checked this with our wacom tablets and all works as expected. is there some problems with the driver and windows? basiclly the input from wacom tablets are handled inside like mouse input, so mouse inout should be off too then.
Realized I forgot to mention this was on a laptop. I don't have a mouse on that computer, but I didn't try it on the trackpad -- when I'm next there I'll see if I can repro with more info.
I agree with you for the most part, but by the time I use iPackThat I'm at the stage where the high and low poly models are done and the test bakes have been completed and I'm happy with it. The iPackThat step is a quick little round trip to optimize the UVs before heading into Substance for the real texturing pass... It's in a nice position in the pipeline, in other words. You only have to do it once.
I'm tempted by this software. But I have a question. I know you can manually group islands, but for complex meshes this sounds extremely tedious. Is there a way (or any possibility to add in the future) the ability to group by material ID?
I'm tempted by this software. But I have a question. I know you can manually group islands, but for complex meshes this sounds extremely tedious. Is there a way (or any possibility to add in the future) the ability to group by material ID?
Will be added shortly. Together with those new shortcuts and group colors in the context menu
I usually scale down all of my islands a lot and put shells to be packed together in loose areas in 3ds max. Then, when I get into ipackthat, I can easily drag-select and add to a cluster.
Edit: Heh I guess more people are doing this than I thought.
beefaroni: That's what I do as well, excited about splitting by material though, that has been one feature I have mentioned a few times to Snoelk
dustinbrown: I agree with you, trying to keep your pipeline to as little programs as possible.
That's why I hope there will be good scripts/plugins for it in the future.
I'm doing the same thing, in Maya I move all my shells out of bounds into groups that way I can quickly drag select them and assign them to a group in ipackthat, that would be really great if we could just use material assignment in .fbx
a small drawback while try to leave early access. As giveaway for all who bought the tool during early access i give away the commercial upgrade version for free. Because of that i can't leave early access that easy. Have to get in contact with steam to make the transition.
The tool itself is finished so far and ready to leave early access. There are still feature request that will be handled after leaving early access.
in the meantime i uploaded a new update with some nice features people asked on Polycount
added shortcuts for move, rotate and scale via keyboard input
shift + arrow keys move
ctrl +up/down scale
ctrl left/right rotate
added shortcuts for handling groups
1 0 select by group index
ctrl + 1 0 add group to selection (toggle the group selection)
shift + 1 0 add selection to group
shift + g add selection to new group
shift + c clear group from selection
added shortcuts for cycle cluster selection
arrow up select first cluster
arrow down select last cluster
arrow left cycle backwards
arrow right cycle forward
enhanced group color generation to avoid default polygon fill color or colors from existing groups
added mesh-file as new executing argument (usable for scripts or with the open with explorer extension)
IpackThat.exe d:\foobar\thefoomesh.fbx
split by material id's on import is now working
if a UV chunk contains multiple material id's, only the material id from the first polygon is used. To avoid this, split the UV chunk by material id ( the tool will not split or alter the UV point amount. Just the UV point locations)
After getting the update today the program no longer launches.
Launching from steam presents me with the ipackthat loading screen then it will disappear and nothing happens. It says the app is still running under processes, but it won't load the interface anymore.
I've tried restarting my computer, but that didn't help, still won't run.
first of all sorry for the troubles.
will try to solve this as quick as possible.
In the meantime i uploaded the last working version as beta branch.
open context on the ipackthat entry in steam and select properties.
in the new window goto section betas.
there is a drop down for the specific beta branch.
select previousversion and hit close.
that way the last version is loaded inside your steam.
you already can start ipackthat without running the steam client.
just open the properties again and goto section local files.
press the button browse local files.
now the explorer is opening with inside the path of the tool.
just create a desktop shortcut to IPackThat.exe.
the tool won't startup steam.
that why you have a login if you run for the first time.
it will remember that its valid (without contacting steam again) and just start.
I just started playing with the demo and had a question about groups
Im trying keep some organization to the auto pack process by grouping my uv shells based on the eventual textured material types metals, plastics, rubbers, etc.
Im running into an issue where each group seems to only want to pack itself in a perfect square, and then those squares get packed together. This is leaving me with large empty areas. Is it possible to get the groups to form into shapes other than squares? Possibly longer thinner shapes, or more puzzle like shapes to better fill in the wasted space?
Hi Snoelk,
I've finally checked the demo, loved the tool and bought it instantly!
After installing it I'm now getting the activation window asking for my Steam password. I know this has already been asked in this thread and I see that you're very busy fixing and adding stuff to the software, but I was wondering if and how soon are you planning on adding the OpenID support?
I'm not too paranoid and I know you're most likely not going to use those login credentials in any harmful way, but not giving away passwords to third-party apps/sites is a rule I try to follow and I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do.
I would appreciate just a general time-frame if you haven't planned this yet.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Replies
You fixed my problem! Now I can pack my "problem" mesh!
Thank you very much for update!
I did some tests with different fbx settings and a mesh with weird smoothing groups to check if there is something wrong with the fbx sdk implementation.
So far i could not see any problems with the tool integration. The problem can be a problem with fbx settings for import and export in the 3D apps.
here the test layout and result ( used 3ds Max 2014 x64 )
i did those test with different meshes and the results where allways valid. There was one case when FBX got some problems. This is happening if the mesh contains wrong polygons. Imagine a Quad with 8 verts. every corner the verts are doubled on the same position. FBX is doing weird things then.
Same problems happening with OBJ file. If you export as OBJ there is an option if you want to export as Triangle, Quad or Polygon. If the mesh contains only triangles are will work. If it contains quads and you set to triangle it will triangulate the mesh on export (sometimes with weird results). If the mesh contains N-Gons and you set to export quads, it will try to create quads and/or triangles (bad things will happen). If you set to Polygon it will work again.
If you still found problems send me details about export settings and import settings and send the mesh if possible to support@ipackthat.com
tweaking some final stuff currently and checking plenty of meshes to be sure no final bug got in before leaving early access.
Also documented the batch operation feature. check IPackThat Batch Operation
So far it looks good that i leave early access shortly
cheers
:nerd:
small update again with some small features and a bugfix i got informed about the last days.
When nothing is comin about bugs i will leave early access at monday.
here are the fixed and added features
thats all for now
just a reminder
bugs & feature requests support@ipackthat.com
non steam bulk licenses license@ipackthat.com
Couple feature requests:
1. Scale smaller shells up to fill wasted space, or let me tag shells that will scale larger to fill space so on my second pack I can fine tune things and then repack for a different result.
2. Hot keys for rotate shells ctrl+left or right arrow keys
3. Ability to save rotation steps increment, I have to keep switching it to
90degrees each time I open the app.
4. Ability to only allow shells to rotate 90degrees, my shells keep rotating slightly.
And for 3 today when I launced the program it did remember my rotation steps increment?
One more request, could you put the scene stats window on all tabs, it's a bit annoying to have to click general each time you quickly modify a pack to see if you got a better % result.
Each time I load the tool it seems to forget the global settings I've saved. Perhaps I've saved the mesh settings which differ from the global settings? Is there a way to rest the mesh setting so the global settings are used?
should be same root where the mesh file is loaded ( same name but with xml as extension ).
will think about a solution to ignore the mesh settings and favour the global ones.
1 for group 1
2 for group 2 etc pp
I would like to buy but im not sureeeee about the price
Can we handle out a special Bonus for Polycount Members?
When the scale shells to fill un-used space is implemented I feel like this software will be a must have. Right now it's still pretty awesome though.
Thanks man!
I'm deadly serious when I say I will never hand pack a UV map again. iPackThat has removed that entire task from my pipeline.
At the moment i have the feeling that for characters you just need to avoid autopacking solutions since the low amount of uvislands just make it hard for these tools to do a better job than you can. for mechanical stuff its great though (unless you use it as a 50% there kind of thing where you use the autopack as a base)
i think the grouping in ipackthat is more sophisticated than the rectangular group packs headus does , i`m pretty sure it takes the contour of the combined uvshells for packing instead of just a square around it.
Its the newest Version.
Fixed
I only welded some vertices at 0,1 and then exported as OBJ.
Have to pospone the release day until tomorrow. Got some other things right now that need my attention. Don't want to rush and do mistakes ^^
thats all for now. sorry for the delay.
Realized I forgot to mention this was on a laptop. I don't have a mouse on that computer, but I didn't try it on the trackpad -- when I'm next there I'll see if I can repro with more info.
Will be added shortly. Together with those new shortcuts and group colors in the context menu
Edit: Heh I guess more people are doing this than I thought.
dustinbrown: I agree with you, trying to keep your pipeline to as little programs as possible.
That's why I hope there will be good scripts/plugins for it in the future.
Beefaroni: Good idea!
I plan on buying this and will give it an honest go. I will have some feedback for sure when I'm finished.
a small drawback while try to leave early access. As giveaway for all who bought the tool during early access i give away the commercial upgrade version for free. Because of that i can't leave early access that easy. Have to get in contact with steam to make the transition.
The tool itself is finished so far and ready to leave early access. There are still feature request that will be handled after leaving early access.
in the meantime i uploaded a new update with some nice features people asked on Polycount
sorry for the delay
happy weekend
Launching from steam presents me with the ipackthat loading screen then it will disappear and nothing happens. It says the app is still running under processes, but it won't load the interface anymore.
I've tried restarting my computer, but that didn't help, still won't run.
Which OS you are using? Win7, vista or win 10?
will try to solve this as quick as possible.
In the meantime i uploaded the last working version as beta branch.
- open context on the ipackthat entry in steam and select properties.
- in the new window goto section betas.
- there is a drop down for the specific beta branch.
- select previousversion and hit close.
that way the last version is loaded inside your steam.you already can start ipackthat without running the steam client.
- just open the properties again and goto section local files.
- press the button browse local files.
- now the explorer is opening with inside the path of the tool.
- just create a desktop shortcut to IPackThat.exe.
the tool won't startup steam.that why you have a login if you run for the first time.
it will remember that its valid (without contacting steam again) and just start.
sorry again for the troubles
can someone check if the new test branch solves the problem?
found the problem finaly. was a test thingy with drive d: i forgot to delete arghh
uploading new version in some minutes
************ Update ************
Im trying keep some organization to the auto pack process by grouping my uv shells based on the eventual textured material types metals, plastics, rubbers, etc.
Im running into an issue where each group seems to only want to pack itself in a perfect square, and then those squares get packed together. This is leaving me with large empty areas. Is it possible to get the groups to form into shapes other than squares? Possibly longer thinner shapes, or more puzzle like shapes to better fill in the wasted space?
Also new hotkeys are awesome, so much easier to make groups and edit them, trying out the group by material id now.
I've finally checked the demo, loved the tool and bought it instantly!
After installing it I'm now getting the activation window asking for my Steam password. I know this has already been asked in this thread and I see that you're very busy fixing and adding stuff to the software, but I was wondering if and how soon are you planning on adding the OpenID support?
I'm not too paranoid and I know you're most likely not going to use those login credentials in any harmful way, but not giving away passwords to third-party apps/sites is a rule I try to follow and I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do.
I would appreciate just a general time-frame if you haven't planned this yet.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
mesh: https://mega.co.nz/#!wRhSDQYZ!4UFAB8UCzdxyI_3qYvPLlKi1RmY1yZ4oGJOaeAdRM2M (only for testing purposes, please do not use, do not sell)