Answered: First Time Using DDO and there's got to be an easier workflow
polycounter lvl 6
I watched the NDO/DDO (Quixel 2.0)primer, and felt that I could get into DDO pretty easily (even though I've had the old suite and never used DDO before, only used it for NDO). So, My objective was to make Letter Blocks, like the ones you had as kids. I made a new Multimaterial layer for each Letter and zipped it after I was done before moving on. That took a little bit. Cool, now I am done...
My assumption was that I could then easily just click on DDO and it would transfer everything just fine over to the new project...that didn't happen. I had to reselect my normal map each time. That's fine. What wasn't fine, was the settings not being saved from the last project.
I had to manually change the "manual" resolution I had previously set. Obviously without looking up "auto" it is just taking the resolution of whatever was being imported. That's fine. That makes sense. But what doesn't make sense, is my manual settings not being saved. It's just a minor annoyance, but obviously I had to do this 26 times.
Oh, and I looked all over but could NOT find a default files for output setting. I had to manually save my Metal/Roughness out as PNGs because Unreal Engine 4 could not take the Metal/Roughness PSDs, which I am assuming has something to do with the greyscale mapping, it's the only difference between those two and Albedo/Diffuse/Color and Normal maps. But I didn't want to waste too much time trying to troubleshoot that. I just sucked it up and manually saved them out as PNGs.
Things I would like to see in the near future:
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
Oh, and I used UE4 (RMA Packed) export settings.
My assumption was that I could then easily just click on DDO and it would transfer everything just fine over to the new project...that didn't happen. I had to reselect my normal map each time. That's fine. What wasn't fine, was the settings not being saved from the last project.
I had to manually change the "manual" resolution I had previously set. Obviously without looking up "auto" it is just taking the resolution of whatever was being imported. That's fine. That makes sense. But what doesn't make sense, is my manual settings not being saved. It's just a minor annoyance, but obviously I had to do this 26 times.
Oh, and I looked all over but could NOT find a default files for output setting. I had to manually save my Metal/Roughness out as PNGs because Unreal Engine 4 could not take the Metal/Roughness PSDs, which I am assuming has something to do with the greyscale mapping, it's the only difference between those two and Albedo/Diffuse/Color and Normal maps. But I didn't want to waste too much time trying to troubleshoot that. I just sucked it up and manually saved them out as PNGs.
Things I would like to see in the near future:
- Default settings for all projects that are saved for every future project. OR
- Just save the last settings if Manual (AUTO is not checked) is used.
- Default File Export settings (on top of the PSDs)
- An actual NDO to DDO to UE4 workflow tutorial (not the one Tor Frick put up, that didn't go over everything it should have). Doesn't have to be 100% noob friendly, but can't be silly that new users can't pick it up.
- An obvious way to distribute the tiling of textures. I could not find info on this, but it does seem most of the default smart materials were set at 512 (because they worked perfectly at that res) and when done in 4k (just because I could), the tiling was way crazy on that.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
Oh, and I used UE4 (RMA Packed) export settings.
Replies
You can't transfer nDo to dDo seamlessly - you'll have to run the dDo project creator, load your mesh, input maps, and then create your project. Make sure your resolution matches the resolution of the input files. Auto will do this for you.
What are you referring to by "manual settings"? This is somewhat unclear. The same goes for what you mean by "default files for output setting" - you shouldn't have to do anything special to save Unreal 4-specific maps.
For your suggestions, I'll need to clarify what settings you're referring to for each tool.
Regarding saving previous settings, my experience has been that dDo remembers the last base creator settings you used if you're not using auto. If you can reproduce that it isn't, please show us how you did so we can fix it!
"Default file export" would be covered by selecting the appropriate export profile at project creation and using the same profile when you export - this should be set for you after you pick the profile you want to work with at creation.
nDo to dDo to UE4 doesn't really require anything more than the existing tutorials show - load your nDo normals into dDo with your base mesh and other input maps, let 3DO bake what's missing, create your materials in dDo, then export to UE4. If you need assistance, don't hesitate to ask - I'll gladly hop in our Quixel Hangout to go over the workflow with you!
Scaling down textures is done using the Scale feature of the desired texture layer in dDo - regardless of project resolution, you can always scale up or down per layer as needed.
Per your last point, when you used the dDo exporter to export as Unreal 4 (RMA Packed) - did you create the project as an Unreal 4 project? If you don't have a roughness map, you're not going to get a roughness map on export. Let me know and I'll get back to you ASAP.
Thanks for the prompt reply.
Do you think that in the future it would be a possibility to seamlessly transfer from nNo to dDo? That would cut down on people's workflow quite a bit if they use it like that.
So, "manual settings" are when you uncheck "AUTO" on resolution setting. It pops back up to 4k everytime I open up a new project instead of using my old resolution settings (in this case it was 512). (the 4k jumpback was verified by someone else on Quixel Hangout just now)
So, unless I missed it somewhere, the default exported files are PSDs. There ARE 4 TGAs in previewer, which could be what you're referring to, if that's the case, that needs a bit more clarity. But, anyway, we should be able to export whatever file format we want at anytime.
So, can you tell me if there's a list somewhere of the default file formats for each preset currently? If not, that would be nice to have for the community, just as a reference. But for now, could you tell me the default file formats for UE4 (RMA Packed.)
As far as scaling down, I'll have to try to find the scale feature.
Finally, ummm, I can export the maps manually? Ummm, lol, see this is the reason why I said something about the tutorial, step by step from start to finish. Because not once did they export files, or rather show the export process. And I am looking all over the place right now and see no options to export file. Only thing I can do (and have been doing) is saving the maps and importing them from UE4 (using the directory I saved them in). I don't see anything that says export.
#FAIL: I found the Open Exporter button...so fail... well that's going to save a little time:)
I don't think we're opposed to the idea, I just don't see a way it could work given our current tool setup. It would also only take out a few clicks at a critical point where you would arguably want the most control over the project: base creation. I'll let the developers know, regardless.
And yes, you should be exporting your maps. The *.PSDs are source files, the exported maps are what you'll want to work with in the engine!
There is no default format - you can choose from a variety once you open the exporter. Hope you're up and running now. Let me know if I can assist further!