Hey, I've tried splitting my UV's, I still get the same artifacts. And I have no flipped normals. AND I re-did the projection cage. Still the exact same thing in both maps. Anything you can think of? I've posted some pics and I've indicated what the UV shells represent on my model. You'll have to excuse my badly drawn arrows haha. Pictures: As you can see here, my cage is more than enough enveloping both of my meshes, in both the book itself and the bookmark.
I had some but relatively minor 3D art knowledge prior to University.
Ok first off, your UVs are not appropriately mapped. UVs tend to take the 2D shape of the the 3D version. Compare your UVs to your model. The cover of the book is not a rectangular shape but instead squarish in your UVs. The UVs should be the same shape basically as the actual Face it is mapping. Secondly, It does not appear you separated the UV hulls properly based upon hard vs soft edges (smoothing groups). Thirdly, The ribbon/bookmark's low poly/high poly do not conform properly to each other, the low poly is sticking out considerably which will yield bake errors. This is certainly what is visible in your AO bake. Fourthly, The envelope is too large, it is usually best to have the tightest Envelope/cage as possible to project detail accurately. Fifthly, the size of your UVs do not appropriately correlate to the size of the actual objects in terms of importance. What is the very most important part of the book? The cover certainly. The ribbon takes up nearly a third of the 0 to 1 UV space.
See below for what I would more or less do in this scenario. Notice in this instance, every single edge that is hard has a cut for that UV Hull. In Maya the crisp solid lines in the viewport are Hard edges, the dashed lines are soft edges.
Geez I get it I'm terrible >_>. Haha joking with you. Ok I just remembered. Like the idiot I am sometimes, I paid no attention to smoothing groups. But there's something I don't understand, do all hard edge UV shells need to be on a different smoothing group?
secondly: I thought that too. My UVS don't match the form of the model. It's extremely irritating especially if you have OCD . I'll fix it.
thirdly: I do know about UV shell priority. I did think about what the viewer will see the most, but my front and back cover UV's couldn't be scaled anymore on the X axis, they were hitting the border. So what I should have done, that I just realised now, is that I should have rotated them like you have done in your UV map.
Fourthly, ok: good to know about my low poly not conforming to my high poly. So would I rather want the high poly sticking out more or would I want them to be conforming as close together to each other as they can be? Also, this means I'll have to actually edit the geometry of one of the bookmarks to better fit the other, correct?
Fifthly, I wish I knew the cage had to be pretty tight beforehand. Oh well, I'll fix that.
also, thanks for providing me with your UV Map, I'll compare it to mine.
Its interesting to see somebody who actually knows what they're doing, do what you just did. I've got so much to learn. . I'll give my model the required fixes and post back to you.
one other thing, since I have a pretty big lack of modelling knowledge, I'm not comfortable modelling most shapes and forms. For example, take this concept image:
I can confidently say that I can't model most of the forms you see here. I had a go at modelling the cooking pot/cauldron (second row), I started off with a sphere but I failed miserably. Know any good tutorials that teach good form modelling like this? I've seen quite a few tutorials out there but none have been very good or specific to what I need. Thanks.
I am not very intimate in the ways of 3DS Max so I am unsure of that program's methods regarding Hard/Soft edge implementation, only vaguely.
I strongly, strongly implore you to make the Ithaca shotgun Millenia' tutorial has and start a new thread or update this one with your progress. He uses 3DS Max so you should be able to learn from him.
Regarding UVs, when you perform a planar projection on a face, make sure the proportions are equal both in width and height. Follow Millenia's UV video he talks about his methods, he uses Iron to ensure the best projection angle was performed and relax to ensure the UVs were smoothed enough:
The High and Low poly mesh need to be nearly, perfectly on top of each other with extremely little mesh clipping. They need to conform together quite closely.
Regarding the last bit, about modeling knowledge. I never truly understood that either, how to model something years ago. I decided to follow Millenia's videos on his Ithaca, it was a huge step in difficulty especially considering he used a different program to model. However that gave a large chunk of the missing knowledge I needed. After following that tutorial and others of the like you should be able to look at any of those objects and model them swiftly. Almost all of those objects can be ideally modeled in Max/Maya without using zBrush except for the fabrics/organics. Out of all of these objects, the Cup is easiest then chair, cauldron, anvil, sword, axe, helmet, canteen, bag, and the trousers. (Others do not really seems to matter... cheese and steak)
Follow @Millenia tutorial, he is a godsend for making that tutorial. He has a considerable amount of views for those Ithaca videos, he taught plenty of people proper methods.
Oh be sure to apply a checkerboard pattern to your mesh to ensure distortion is kept to a minimum before you scale everything down to fit in the UV space.
Okay, upon your request, I shall binge watch Millenia videos. AND hopefully take part in his gun tutorial series. With Millenia, and with a lot of other advanced 3ds Max users, they use a max plugin called TexTools. It increases your capabilities and convenience when UV mapping and texturing. I think I'll get that.
About the high and lowpoly conforming, I still don't understand. Does this mean that I'm going to have to edit the geometry of one to better fit the other? Or should I not be messing around with the geo at all? And maybe there is another option to make them conform better? What would you do in a situation like this?
And yeah I do use a checker pattern to make sure there is no distortion and scaling is correct across my UV's. Digital Tutors have provided a really good checker pattern that I'm going to get, that not only does it make distortion visible to you, but also shows you if your UV's are flipped. And as a checker pattern normally consists of squares, their pattern consists of circles and squares, so you can compare both shapes to thoroughly make sure you have no distortion. No excuse for having distortions haha.
There's also a UV issue I'm having. I'm failing to replicate one of your UV shells. It's this one: (the black lines) How did you achieve those? When I try to map them in a planar fashion, and yes, I'm mapping them on the right axis, I get this: I've tried scaling it but then I get weird results. Do I break each polygon off and try to work with it like that? I have no clue. I know you're no max wizard or anything, but how did you work with it using maya? Tell me generally, did you work with each individual piece and then stitch it back together? I'll keep trying.
Btw, meaning to ask this to someone, is a sculpting package good for modelling organic objects such as rucksacks or pants? I know sculpting is good for organic work such as characters and creatures, AND even hardsurface. But I suppose it would be smarter to model organic items such as bags, in a sculpting package right? Since you can model the pants and the rucksack in 3ds Max/Maya however I've realised that it would take a long time, and it would be tedious. It just would be in-efficient to start off with. If that's the case, then I shall acquire a sculpting package. Zbrush, since I've heard it's the king of 3d sculpting.
One last thing (I promise :P), you wrote "Let me know if you need help with something!". Which I appreciate so much. I'm just wondering why somebody like you, feels the need to help me out this much. You have seriously helped me out tremendously. Don't you get tired of answering my constant questions? (that btw, will stop soon). Haha. It's kind of interesting. Is it maybe because you were once at the level I'm at right now and you know how it feels? >_^
Regardless, I appreciate all the help you've given me and all the help you've to give me in the future. If you feel like I'm harassing you or something, just tell me to buzz of haha, I won't mind at all.
(You know this but...) The main way to go about modeling is called Sub Division modeling. What this is essentially is the addition of supporting edges to your low poly and then Smooth the mesh adding sub divisions, or Turbo smooth in max. So I say this, because if you have your "Mid Poly" (just the mesh after the low poly but before the high poly with supporting edge geometry) then apply your turbo smooth, your High Poly should conform to your low poly nearly perfectly. If it does not conform, you need to have your support edge geometry closer to significant edges to retain the form when smoothed. You should not need to edit the high poly geometry, actually I do not think I have edited high poly geo much at all. Since your bookmark is sticking out some how, delete your high poly (or remove the turbo smooth modifier) and add better supporting edge geometry. Then turbo smooth it.
Regarding the UV hulls you indicated, what I did was select those faces which are the inner lip of the top and bottom cover and applied a planar projection in the Y axis. Then I ensured the width and height proportion values were set to the same integer. I did not need to sew or manipulate scale in any way to achieve that UV shape.
Also, why is your UV hull so highly tessellated?
Sculpting true organics such as creatures and characters are the core purpose of zbrush or mudbox but other organics like rocks, clothing, or detail on hard surfaces are also ideal. Zbrush is definitely the king of sculpting, despite its heavy UI. Some people use Marvelous Designer instead for clothing. Though there are some that consider true artists use zbrush to sculpt clothing and regard others that use Marvelous Designer as "cheating" which I find to be untrue. Though it is better to learn it in zbrush first then use Marvelous Designer.
I used to be completely and utterly confused beyond all reality regarding 3D aspects. I wished someone would just explain crap to me. So, yes... I guess that is why I am helping you. However, that is what Polycount is for, veterans, intermediates, beginners, and hobbyists to come together and assist others in improving their work in some fashion.
If you were harassing me... haha, I would make it clear.
Haha, understood. And yes I do know what Subdiv modelling is, but there's no harm in you confirming what I know by you explaining it.
Also, I don't understand this: "Then I ensured the width and height proportion values were set to the same integer." Same integer as what sorry? The faces on the model? And how would I go around doing that?
I also don't exactly know what you mean by this either: "Also, why is your UV hull so highly tessellated? " Do you mean, why does it have so much density? It's just temporary, I just enlarge the UV shell so that I can see it more clearly when I'm working with it, but then I decrease it's size when I'm placing it into the 0,1 space.
Also yeah I've heard that Marvelous Designer is good for creating clothing geometry. I will check out Marvelous Designer, but for the most part, I've seen people do absolutely amazing jobs in Zbrush creating clothing and such.
"I used to be completely and utterly confused beyond all reality regarding 3D aspects" True that bro. Still am of some sort haha.
See below, the Projection Width and Height are initially different when applying a planar projection. You need to either have "Keep image width/height ratio" checked or manually edit the width/height integers in the blue box I have selected. Notice how they change proportions in the top and bottom image. After this step, relaxing the UVs would be best to better fit the shape of the Wall Terminal cushion proportions.
I asked why your UV hull was so tessellated because it appears you have many edges on that selected face/hull compared to what you had in a previous post.
Ahh, there's an option for this! It's essential too! Millenia explained it. Okay. I'll look into that. Also, what about my UV shell being highly tesselated?
I've also nearly completely UV mapped my book. One problem at a time. Ensuring that I locate problems like this and gain the knowledge in fixing them, I can apply this knowledge to all my future models.
Hey, I have a question. I'm not so sure about something. When I'm using the checker pattern, on smaller parts of the mesh, like these thin faces that make up the outer lip of the book, does the checker map need to squarish? Or can it be stretched, like rectangles? That part is so confusing One other thing, why haven't you overlapped these specific UV shells? They're the same. (the black lines I have indicated)
Technically the Squares should be perfectly square. Its alright if they are slightly warped just use within reason.
Considering this is only one mesh, and there is little restrictions you should have at this point, having separated UV hulls is totally fine. Overlapping UV hulls that share a likeness or are mirrored is something you should worry about in the future. It is also nice to have unique UV hulls for unique detail throughout the mesh.
Exactly as I thought. You just confirmed it. Perfectly answered. I'll be posting my progress shortly. You know, this is really working out. After this, I'm going to do one more mesh. This time, quite a bit more complex, something on a bigger scale. So I can make sure, without your help, I can find issues and know how to fix them on my own. I want to get the basics and fundamentals down really well. I'll try to incorporate toolbag2 into my workflow with my next mesh.
Also, thinking about texturing this book, would you use Substance Painter to texture it? Because I honestly do want to get out of the slow paced texturing that photoshop gives.
And there's still one thing I don't get, I have no idea what to do about the low poly and the high poly not conforming together. Their location coordinates are the same, so they are clipping. But the bookmark is obviously not conforming well. So what do I do? Edit the geo? It feels like I will most likely have to right? I mean, what else can I do?
Yeah, I am defo going to get one. I'll get one now actually. Digitial Tutors have provided a good one, it shows distortion, flipped UV's and other good stuff too.
Okay I'm getting normal map problems, All the UV's that need to be split are split. I don't even think my cage is too big since I've decreased it's size significantly. It's pretty thin now. I do however have some more ideas that I need to try out, I have a few things in mind. So not all hope is lost yet. Just updating my progress. Here's my UV's, my Normal Map and the model with the cage:
For my normal map, don't mind the dark bit at the top, I'm just viewing it in my photo viewer.
Progress! Okay, I altered my cage a bit, I did a bit of moving around with the vertices of my cage to make it more optimal. This concluded in a much cleaner Normal Map. Now, there is one slight issue, and I'm extremely curious and interested in finding out why this issue even exists. So the bookmark/ribbon is being projected to other UV shells.
I took it into UE4, the normal map looks very nice btw, pretty clean, and pretty...pretty. :P These pictures will do the explaining. Now how do I fix it haha.
Haha, "By the way, your bake came out much better! Good job man." That was your first time complimenting my work, and to me, it feels extra great since it's by somebody who is working in the industry! wait, this is the first time anybody has complimented my work.
Yeah I thought: 'what if I just move the bookmark away? That way it isn't going to be projected on anything'. But I want to know why this is happening, that's what is key here. My NM will defo come out 100% clean if I move the bookmark away though.
Okay, lets get into it. First of all, the HP, LP and Cage together. I don't exactly know how you want it, but here goes nothing: if you want them differently just tell me.
XNormal Settings:
Also, this is going to be a problem. I know substance painter is all about procedurally generated textures and other good stuff. But I have no clue on how I would add images onto my model in substance painter. Like the front cover, the design, it's an image, not a rock material, so I can't exactly just slap it onto my model. Plus, I haven't properly used substance painter. I'm also not a big fan of Allegorithmics "Substance Painter for beginners" tutorial series since the UI has changed drastically. And, the previous crate model I had, I tried to add some finishing touches on it using SP, but I couldn't even properly bring my textures into SP. Like, I brought them in, but the UV scale values were way off, the texture was being displayed on wrong parts of my model.
Okay but, how would I go on attaching it back to one mesh? When I bring the book into UE4, I want it to have the bookmark attached to it as one mesh. How would I do that?
Oh, that simple huh. I was overthinking it. Also, what about substance painter? I was using it just now for my crate mesh, I'm getting a little more familiar with it, but it's still quite alien to me. I fixed one problem, it was a UV scale/tile issue, wasn't really an issue, just a matter of me figuring something out.
So how would I apply bitmap images onto my model in SP? Since the cover of this book has a design onto it. It's not just, say, leather. Seems like you missed the last part of my previous question.
Clear all meshes in the low poly bake settings area. Then add your low poly mesh, then right click and browse for cage. Add your cage there.
You should have a clean bake, bar any other new errors.
Regarding the texture deal in painter, there are a few ways to do this. One easy but tedious way is to open up photoshop, add in your UVs from Max, add in the image you want, lay the texture over the UV shell/face, hide your UVs and save out the texture as a TGA, then, Import the image you wish to use via file>import image into project. Then add a fill layer, turn off Height, Roughness, Metalness and leave only color. As long as you have it placed over the proper UV hull it should be fine.
You could also import the base texture you wish to use and use that as a stencil as long as it is transparent.
Okay, still the same result. Exact same result. Lol, why is this happening?! I could move the bookmark and correct it right away. But we should be able to figure this out... right?
Also, I think I may have the complete wrong idea about what substance painter is. See, I thought, all of the stuff you just explained, you COULD DO in substance painter. I don't want to exactly add any colour onto it via a brush. I want to apply bitmap textures onto my book. Confused, really confused haha. It's because I was wondering if there is any other alternative to Photoshop that may be somewhat faster.
ohhhh here comes my confusion anxiety ... Yes, I get it, it's a thing.
You can, like I said there are a few ways. Alternatively you can do the following:
Save your image to a Folder Open Substance Painter File>Import Image Add a layer Click base color Add the image/texture you wanted Start projecting/painting the image onto your mesh
Also, reduce your ray distance in xNormal, refer to the Image I posted above (.5). Lets see if that works...
Edit: There are some things you just cant do with Substance Painter. Photoshop has been around for years and years and unfortunately is still needed in many instances. Its not entirely a bad thing, you just have to adjust to the many programs an artist needs.
Okay, I understand. So photoshop is still widely being used amongst other texturing software such as Substance Painter/Substance Designer to ease the texturing process and to increase texturing capability? So, could you give me any scenarios where I would use SP? If I want to add procedurally generated texture that are tiling on my model, such as cobblestone on a wall, would I use SP?
And, about the ray distance, I was taught to use the 'Ray Distance Calculator' in the 'tools' submenu... I'm sure I can't exactly use your ray distance values for all objects, so how would I know what to type in as my ray distance?
Also, taking another look at your portfolio (for inspiration of course ) I just realised, I've played both of the games you've worked on haha. I prefer Injustice more than MK X. I prefer MK on PC more. Question, if you don't mind me asking, was the pay good or satisfactory? And, GOD your Access Panel looks so good! I'm guessing it's triscount however is too high for realtime applications?
EDIT:Okay so the ray distance values don't make a difference either. Exact. Same. Results... I think, what I will do, is that this time, I will move the bookmark away and bake my maps that way, but if this EVER happens again, I'll straight away start a thread for it.
EDIT 2: Okay, so I deleted the old cage. Now, I've positioned the bookmark away from the book, and I've then created a new cage and re-exported all 3 meshes (LP, HP & Cage). Now, I'm getting the same weird artifacts as I was before, however the bookmark problem is gone... what?! I've messed around with the cage quite a bit trying to get optimal results but nothing changes everytime I bake the normal map. I've seperated the 3 meshes so you can see them, obviously when I'm making the cage, they're clipping.
Substance painter would be used for 95% to 99% of your mesh texturing process. If you were to create procedural textures that would be done 99% to 100% in Substance Designer. That procedural texture/material would then be added to painter as a material and can be used in future projects. Photoshop is used to edit, adjust, and add "stuff" that Substance cannot do, like add text/font (properly) or like images/logos.
Yeah that bake looks totally fine! If anything you just need to push edge padding/dilatation up. Good work man, guess the bookmark was too close...
Apply it to the model as @billymcguffin suggested. UE4 or marmoset.
Thanks for playing Injustice and MKX! Flattered!
No complaints regarding pay.
The ray distance should be fine at .5 for 90% if not more of your bakes. It comes down to the size of your envelope.
The vert count/tri count of the access panel is indeed too high for in game use. It is not however far too high. If it were to be used as a direct interactable with the character (player) it would be fine as well.
That is normal? Well, now that I look at it, it does look fine. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel that this normal map is a little less defined than my previous one. Is there anyway I can alter the intensity of this normal map? Or Is changing the high poly the only way to do that?
"Thanks for playing Injustice and MKX! Flattered No complaints regarding pay" haha, no, thank you for making a game that I spent hours and hours on! I'm not a massive fan of mobile games, but Injustice was definitely addicting.
"If anything you just need to push edge padding/dilatation up". See, I have no proper knowledge of this, people have mentioned it. But I just don't get it, what is edge padding? what does it do?
Also, about the ray distance, do you think I should use the ray distance calculator? And I want to know when I should change my ray distance. I don't want to constantly be asking you: 'should I change my ray distance for this object?'. I want to know my self.
Good to know about the Access Panel. But, how does making it directly interactable with the character compensate for it's high count of triangles?
Also, I need to add the base textures and the AO, but here is the book with it's normal map, rendered in UE4, it looks perfect. Finally, something I have created that I can actually appreciate:
And about the SP/SD & PS topic, I would like to see a workflow of this happening. Can't find a video explaining it. It's the most I'm confused about. But I understood what you explained, and I'm obviously feeling more confident on the topic.
If you want to increase the strength of the normal map, a quick way is open it in Photoshop, duplicate the layer, and set the duped layer to overlay. It will double the strength. Do not go too crazy or it will look jacked up.
Edge padding is for mip mapping, or more specifically to fix the issues caused from mip maps. When a texture is 4096x4096, this is seen as 4k (4096) up close. As the player walks further, and further away the texture will reduce to 2k (2048), to 1k (1024), to 512, to 256, etc. The smaller a texture gets the more bleed will occur. When you look at your texture with your UVs overlaid on top of the texture, you will see the texture ends abruptly a few pixels away from the edge. When you use edge padding, the bleeding will read the padded edges and provide "padding." The padded edges will provide additional data for the UVs to read. The padding copies and dilates the very last pixel color based upon the amount of pixels you determine in your bake.
Required padding by pixel based upon texture size:
Honestly, I have very rarely changed the ray distance or used the calculator. Its a very rare occurrence, I would say do not worry about it. You need to worry about the tightness of your projection cage/envelope. Ray distances largely work best for planar surfaces as opposed to cages.
The higher the tri count of a mesh the higher visual fidelity and quality the user will see. The user will interact with it so it would be worth adding a much more defined amount of geometry to ensure it looks smooth enough close up. Like for example, in a first person shooter the guns are very high poly for a low poly compared to a third person shooter. It depends on the level of detail required for the specific instance of a specific mesh. This brings up the discussion of LODs in the same sense as mip mapping. When the player goes further away from an object the texture AND mesh get down rzed in some fashion.
The book turned out great! Smoothing looks great in engine, good work.
Regarding SP/SD/PS, just bide your time. You will understand when and what necessitates using which program.
That is bizarre, the AO issue. It looks like something is clipping the cage or the HP/LP are not conforming... I have no idea what would cause that other than the common issues. Non-conforming meshes, clipping cage, reversed normals, duplicate mesh underneath HP/LP, improper smoothing. Hope that works... make sure settings are like this:
I see, I'm still trying to figure out what objects will need Normal/AO. I'm getting there, but, after your explanation.... this doesn't need neither of those maps does it? I mean, Normal for smoothness, but smoothing groups will give me that. I'll give your solution a go, thanks for your input!
Hey, okay, I'll try that in photoshop. And yeah, not too crazy, I know. Nice explanation of edge padding, you're the only person who has that information sinked into my head, and a lot of other info too. Thanks for the links too, will check em out as always. But... how would I go ahead now to 'pad' my edges? Photoshop? Different software?
If you say so, I won't worry about the ray distance. I'll read up properly on what it's about to get a full understanding, but I'll leave it at 0.50000.
About the tri count, it makes sense. Interaction with models need to be as visually pleasant as they can be, I get it.
Yeah it's about time I got into LOD's. I never really knew what they were, they used to pop up all the time when modding games like Skyrim... thanks to your explanation, I have a better idea of what they are now.
Now, about the AO, it doesn't matter, since it doesn't even show on the book, it's just very vague, I can get away with it. I'll also make sure my occlusion settings are correct.
"Regarding SP/SD/PS, just bide your time. You will understand when and what necessitates using which program." Understood.
Okay, so here is my book fully textured, normal mapped and well occluded. The only problem I have with this, is that there are slight black lines at the edges, and the bookmark is too glossy/smooth. But other than that it looks very good. If I told my self I could create something like this 5 months ago, I wouldn't have believed myself. Thanks.
I just feel that working in photoshop is slow, any tips for a newbie? Also, when I'm saving my textures after some progress, I keep having to tediously click save as, change the file type to BMP and then hit save. I can't just CTRL+S. Know any faster saving methods?
Also, your medieval weaponry looks glorious, awesome work. Hoping to achieve that level of glory one day.
All objects need a normal map. Do they need high poly detail baked down? That is based upon certain circumstances. I would say you do not really need a defined normal map for the bookmark but it would not hurt. Same goes for AO.
Edge padding should be done in xNormal. However, after the fact you can open your completed textures in photoshop, add your UVs and lay them on top, select the negative space around the UVs (use magic wand tool), delete the negative space in your textures, then go to filters>xNormal>Dialation>Set to appropriate pixel amount> hit ok. (You probably need to add the plug-in into photoshop).
Post you Textures up on here, let us take a look. Also dont use .bmp, save textures as .TGA for game art, when you post images on polycount however use jpegs. There is not an easier way of saving out textures in photoshop, its very mundane but it is how it is. There may be pulg-ins to expedite the process that I am unaware of.
I agree to make the pages a tad lighter. I also do not see much definition in the normal map from the leather design on the covers. Could be differed to you ultimately but it seems appropriate. Tone down the AO, its too strong.
Understood. Also, thanks for the info on the image formats, I'll keep that in mind. I'll get the XNormal plugin for photoshop too.
And about the saving, I'll keep a good eye out for nifty PS plugins to increase saving convenience. I'll make the adjustments you recommended, but there is one thing: " I also do not see much definition in the normal map from the leather design on the covers". What do you mean? And I still to increase the NM intensity btw, just letting you know.
O.. Okay, but... how do I do that? I know Ndo can do that, I love that software but neither do I have it nor do I know how to use it. I will be defo getting it and learning it though.
You could take your image and throw it into a layer in painter, and only have it use the height channel rather than color, metal, and roughness. Play with the strength. Then another layer or even in the same previous layer in painter for roughness. try to mimic the material it is conveying. So if it was gold make sure it looks like gold metal leaf.
(What I would do) Alternatively, take the image into photoshop, delete the negative space, place a black and white adjustment over it, place a levels adjustment and make what you want higher whiter and lower blacker, add a pure black fill layer underneath, merge the two layers together, make sure you have a duplicate, make sure the result is black and white, white will be a raised bump and black a flat/depression use the filter within PS for xNormal use Height2Normals. Take the resulting Normal map and Overlay that over the base normal map, save that out and use that as your normal map.
Thanks! I know right? 3DReaper has helped me out so much this past month. It's an amazing feeling to know, if I get stuck or mess something up, I can go to him for guidance. I can go to Polycount in general for guidance.
Nice explanation, but I'm afraid I don't completely understand. Though the photoshop method is more do-able for me, the painter one is more convenient. BUT, I think it's time for me to get NDO2. I was going to get it anyway since it's a miracle software (my jaw dropped the first time I saw an NDO demonstration video). I can simply just put the image in photoshop, and click 'Convert To Normal' in NDO and bam, done.......more or less.
I'm actually in situations where I'm needing to use and learn software like this, which is good, I'm expanding my library of knowledge and software, ultimately expanding my capabilities as a 3D artist.
Also, I dialated my texture map and saved it is as TARGA. I see however, no visible difference in UE4. I also made the page colours brighter after you and @billymcguffin recommended. It does look better. Pictures of the book in UE4 AND the dialated and none dialated textures:
Replies
And I'll take a look at the things you mentioned. I'll post back letting you know if I've got them fixed or not.
Pictures:
As you can see here, my cage is more than enough enveloping both of my meshes, in both the book itself and the bookmark.
Also, did you know any 3D art prior to going Uni?
Ok first off, your UVs are not appropriately mapped. UVs tend to take the 2D shape of the the 3D version. Compare your UVs to your model. The cover of the book is not a rectangular shape but instead squarish in your UVs. The UVs should be the same shape basically as the actual Face it is mapping.
Secondly, It does not appear you separated the UV hulls properly based upon hard vs soft edges (smoothing groups).
Thirdly, The ribbon/bookmark's low poly/high poly do not conform properly to each other, the low poly is sticking out considerably which will yield bake errors. This is certainly what is visible in your AO bake.
Fourthly, The envelope is too large, it is usually best to have the tightest Envelope/cage as possible to project detail accurately.
Fifthly, the size of your UVs do not appropriately correlate to the size of the actual objects in terms of importance. What is the very most important part of the book? The cover certainly. The ribbon takes up nearly a third of the 0 to 1 UV space.
See below for what I would more or less do in this scenario. Notice in this instance, every single edge that is hard has a cut for that UV Hull. In Maya the crisp solid lines in the viewport are Hard edges, the dashed lines are soft edges.
secondly: I thought that too. My UVS don't match the form of the model. It's extremely irritating especially if you have OCD
thirdly: I do know about UV shell priority. I did think about what the viewer will see the most, but my front and back cover UV's couldn't be scaled anymore on the X axis, they were hitting the border. So what I should have done, that I just realised now, is that I should have rotated them like you have done in your UV map.
Fourthly, ok: good to know about my low poly not conforming to my high poly. So would I rather want the high poly sticking out more or would I want them to be conforming as close together to each other as they can be? Also, this means I'll have to actually edit the geometry of one of the bookmarks to better fit the other, correct?
Fifthly, I wish I knew the cage had to be pretty tight beforehand. Oh well, I'll fix that.
also, thanks for providing me with your UV Map, I'll compare it to mine.
Its interesting to see somebody who actually knows what they're doing, do what you just did. I've got so much to learn.
one other thing, since I have a pretty big lack of modelling knowledge, I'm not comfortable modelling most shapes and forms. For example, take this concept image:
I can confidently say that I can't model most of the forms you see here. I had a go at modelling the cooking pot/cauldron (second row), I started off with a sphere but I failed miserably. Know any good tutorials that teach good form modelling like this? I've seen quite a few tutorials out there but none have been very good or specific to what I need.
Thanks.
I strongly, strongly implore you to make the Ithaca shotgun Millenia' tutorial has and start a new thread or update this one with your progress. He uses 3DS Max so you should be able to learn from him.
Regarding UVs, when you perform a planar projection on a face, make sure the proportions are equal both in width and height. Follow Millenia's UV video he talks about his methods, he uses Iron to ensure the best projection angle was performed and relax to ensure the UVs were smoothed enough:
The High and Low poly mesh need to be nearly, perfectly on top of each other with extremely little mesh clipping. They need to conform together quite closely.
Regarding the last bit, about modeling knowledge. I never truly understood that either, how to model something years ago. I decided to follow Millenia's videos on his Ithaca, it was a huge step in difficulty especially considering he used a different program to model. However that gave a large chunk of the missing knowledge I needed. After following that tutorial and others of the like you should be able to look at any of those objects and model them swiftly. Almost all of those objects can be ideally modeled in Max/Maya without using zBrush except for the fabrics/organics. Out of all of these objects, the Cup is easiest then chair, cauldron, anvil, sword, axe, helmet, canteen, bag, and the trousers. (Others do not really seems to matter... cheese and steak)
Follow @Millenia tutorial, he is a godsend for making that tutorial. He has a considerable amount of views for those Ithaca videos, he taught plenty of people proper methods.
Let me know if you need help with something!
Something like this as well:
https://threepencils.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/uv-map-template.png
With Millenia, and with a lot of other advanced 3ds Max users, they use a max plugin called TexTools. It increases your capabilities and convenience when UV mapping and texturing. I think I'll get that.
About the high and lowpoly conforming, I still don't understand. Does this mean that I'm going to have to edit the geometry of one to better fit the other? Or should I not be messing around with the geo at all? And maybe there is another option to make them conform better? What would you do in a situation like this?
And yeah I do use a checker pattern to make sure there is no distortion and scaling is correct across my UV's. Digital Tutors have provided a really good checker pattern that I'm going to get, that not only does it make distortion visible to you, but also shows you if your UV's are flipped. And as a checker pattern normally consists of squares, their pattern consists of circles and squares, so you can compare both shapes to thoroughly make sure you have no distortion. No excuse for having distortions haha.
There's also a UV issue I'm having. I'm failing to replicate one of your UV shells. It's this one: (the black lines)
How did you achieve those? When I try to map them in a planar fashion, and yes, I'm mapping them on the right axis, I get this:
I've tried scaling it but then I get weird results. Do I break each polygon off and try to work with it like that? I have no clue.
I know you're no max wizard or anything, but how did you work with it using maya? Tell me generally, did you work with each individual piece and then stitch it back together? I'll keep trying.
Btw, meaning to ask this to someone, is a sculpting package good for modelling organic objects such as rucksacks or pants? I know sculpting is good for organic work such as characters and creatures, AND even hardsurface. But I suppose it would be smarter to model organic items such as bags, in a sculpting package right? Since you can model the pants and the rucksack in 3ds Max/Maya however I've realised that it would take a long time, and it would be tedious. It just would be in-efficient to start off with.
If that's the case, then I shall acquire a sculpting package. Zbrush, since I've heard it's the king of 3d sculpting.
One last thing (I promise :P), you wrote "Let me know if you need help with something!". Which I appreciate so much. I'm just wondering why somebody like you, feels the need to help me out this much. You have seriously helped me out tremendously. Don't you get tired of answering my constant questions? (that btw, will stop soon). Haha. It's kind of interesting. Is it maybe because you were once at the level I'm at right now and you know how it feels? >_^
Regardless, I appreciate all the help you've given me and all the help you've to give me in the future. If you feel like I'm harassing you or something, just tell me to buzz of haha, I won't mind at all.
Regarding the UV hulls you indicated, what I did was select those faces which are the inner lip of the top and bottom cover and applied a planar projection in the Y axis. Then I ensured the width and height proportion values were set to the same integer. I did not need to sew or manipulate scale in any way to achieve that UV shape.
Also, why is your UV hull so highly tessellated?
Sculpting true organics such as creatures and characters are the core purpose of zbrush or mudbox but other organics like rocks, clothing, or detail on hard surfaces are also ideal. Zbrush is definitely the king of sculpting, despite its heavy UI. Some people use Marvelous Designer instead for clothing. Though there are some that consider true artists use zbrush to sculpt clothing and regard others that use Marvelous Designer as "cheating" which I find to be untrue. Though it is better to learn it in zbrush first then use Marvelous Designer.
I used to be completely and utterly confused beyond all reality regarding 3D aspects. I wished someone would just explain crap to me. So, yes... I guess that is why I am helping you. However, that is what Polycount is for, veterans, intermediates, beginners, and hobbyists to come together and assist others in improving their work in some fashion.
If you were harassing me... haha, I would make it clear.
Keep at it.
Also, I don't understand this: "Then I ensured the width and height proportion values were set to the same integer." Same integer as what sorry? The faces on the model? And how would I go around doing that?
I also don't exactly know what you mean by this either: "Also, why is your UV hull so highly tessellated? " Do you mean, why does it have so much density? It's just temporary, I just enlarge the UV shell so that I can see it more clearly when I'm working with it, but then I decrease it's size when I'm placing it into the 0,1 space.
Also yeah I've heard that Marvelous Designer is good for creating clothing geometry. I will check out Marvelous Designer, but for the most part, I've seen people do absolutely amazing jobs in Zbrush creating clothing and such.
"I used to be completely and utterly confused beyond all reality regarding 3D aspects" True that bro. Still am of some sort haha.
Thanks.
I asked why your UV hull was so tessellated because it appears you have many edges on that selected face/hull compared to what you had in a previous post.
Also, what about my UV shell being highly tesselated?
I've also nearly completely UV mapped my book. One problem at a time. Ensuring that I locate problems like this and gain the knowledge in fixing them, I can apply this knowledge to all my future models.
I'll post back as soon as I can.
Nothing more.
One other thing, why haven't you overlapped these specific UV shells? They're the same. (the black lines I have indicated)
Considering this is only one mesh, and there is little restrictions you should have at this point, having separated UV hulls is totally fine. Overlapping UV hulls that share a likeness or are mirrored is something you should worry about in the future. It is also nice to have unique UV hulls for unique detail throughout the mesh.
After this, I'm going to do one more mesh. This time, quite a bit more complex, something on a bigger scale. So I can make sure, without your help, I can find issues and know how to fix them on my own. I want to get the basics and fundamentals down really well. I'll try to incorporate toolbag2 into my workflow with my next mesh.
Also, thinking about texturing this book, would you use Substance Painter to texture it? Because I honestly do want to get out of the slow paced texturing that photoshop gives.
And there's still one thing I don't get, I have no idea what to do about the low poly and the high poly not conforming together. Their location coordinates are the same, so they are clipping. But the bookmark is obviously not conforming well. So what do I do? Edit the geo? It feels like I will most likely have to right? I mean, what else can I do?
For my normal map, don't mind the dark bit at the top, I'm just viewing it in my photo viewer.
I took it into UE4, the normal map looks very nice btw, pretty clean, and pretty...pretty. :P
These pictures will do the explaining. Now how do I fix it haha.
Can you post an image of the LP,HP, and Envelope all in one image, together?
This is a very odd issue... perhaps move the book mark totally away from the book, like far to the left.
By the way, your bake came out much better! Good job man.
You may not have the proper settings for the cage. Make sure the "Use Cage" setting is checked and browse and add your cage to the low poly.
To me, this issue looks like a massive cage, but you are not getting errors elsewhere... has to be an error in xNormal.
Yeah I thought: 'what if I just move the bookmark away? That way it isn't going to be projected on anything'. But I want to know why this is happening, that's what is key here. My NM will defo come out 100% clean if I move the bookmark away though.
Okay, lets get into it. First of all, the HP, LP and Cage together. I don't exactly know how you want it, but here goes nothing:
if you want them differently just tell me.
XNormal Settings:
Also, this is going to be a problem. I know substance painter is all about procedurally generated textures and other good stuff. But I have no clue on how I would add images onto my model in substance painter. Like the front cover, the design, it's an image, not a rock material, so I can't exactly just slap it onto my model. Plus, I haven't properly used substance painter. I'm also not a big fan of Allegorithmics "Substance Painter for beginners" tutorial series since the UI has changed drastically. And, the previous crate model I had, I tried to add some finishing touches on it using SP, but I couldn't even properly bring my textures into SP. Like, I brought them in, but the UV scale values were way off, the texture was being displayed on wrong parts of my model.
Show your settings for the low poly, in xNormal as well.
You would merge the bookmark and the book into one individual mesh.
So how would I apply bitmap images onto my model in SP? Since the cover of this book has a design onto it. It's not just, say, leather. Seems like you missed the last part of my previous question.
And my LP options for XNormal:
Read this:
http://polycount.com/discussion/107196/youre-making-me-hard-making-sense-of-hard-edges-uvs-normal-maps-and-vertex-counts/p1
Use these settings:
Clear all meshes in the low poly bake settings area. Then add your low poly mesh, then right click and browse for cage. Add your cage there.
You should have a clean bake, bar any other new errors.
Regarding the texture deal in painter, there are a few ways to do this. One easy but tedious way is to open up photoshop, add in your UVs from Max, add in the image you want, lay the texture over the UV shell/face, hide your UVs and save out the texture as a TGA, then, Import the image you wish to use via file>import image into project. Then add a fill layer, turn off Height, Roughness, Metalness and leave only color. As long as you have it placed over the proper UV hull it should be fine.
You could also import the base texture you wish to use and use that as a stencil as long as it is transparent.
Also, I think I may have the complete wrong idea about what substance painter is. See, I thought, all of the stuff you just explained, you COULD DO in substance painter. I don't want to exactly add any colour onto it via a brush. I want to apply bitmap textures onto my book.
Confused, really confused haha. It's because I was wondering if there is any other alternative to Photoshop that may be somewhat faster.
ohhhh here comes my confusion anxiety
Save your image to a Folder
Open Substance Painter
File>Import Image
Add a layer
Click base color
Add the image/texture you wanted
Start projecting/painting the image onto your mesh
Also, reduce your ray distance in xNormal, refer to the Image I posted above (.5). Lets see if that works...
Edit: There are some things you just cant do with Substance Painter. Photoshop has been around for years and years and unfortunately is still needed in many instances. Its not entirely a bad thing, you just have to adjust to the many programs an artist needs.
And, about the ray distance, I was taught to use the 'Ray Distance Calculator' in the 'tools' submenu... I'm sure I can't exactly use your ray distance values for all objects, so how would I know what to type in as my ray distance?
Also, taking another look at your portfolio (for inspiration of course
And, GOD your Access Panel looks so good! I'm guessing it's triscount however is too high for realtime applications?
EDIT: Okay so the ray distance values don't make a difference either. Exact. Same. Results... I think, what I will do, is that this time, I will move the bookmark away and bake my maps that way, but if this EVER happens again, I'll straight away start a thread for it.
EDIT 2: Okay, so I deleted the old cage. Now, I've positioned the bookmark away from the book, and I've then created a new cage and re-exported all 3 meshes (LP, HP & Cage). Now, I'm getting the same weird artifacts as I was before, however the bookmark problem is gone... what?! I've messed around with the cage quite a bit trying to get optimal results but nothing changes everytime I bake the normal map.
I've seperated the 3 meshes so you can see them, obviously when I'm making the cage, they're clipping.
Yeah that bake looks totally fine! If anything you just need to push edge padding/dilatation up. Good work man, guess the bookmark was too close...
Apply it to the model as @billymcguffin suggested. UE4 or marmoset.
Thanks for playing Injustice and MKX! Flattered!
No complaints regarding pay.
The ray distance should be fine at .5 for 90% if not more of your bakes. It comes down to the size of your envelope.
The vert count/tri count of the access panel is indeed too high for in game use. It is not however far too high. If it were to be used as a direct interactable with the character (player) it would be fine as well.
"Thanks for playing Injustice and MKX! Flattered
No complaints regarding pay" haha, no, thank you for making a game that I spent hours and hours on! I'm not a massive fan of mobile games, but Injustice was definitely addicting.
"If anything you just need to push edge padding/dilatation up". See, I have no proper knowledge of this, people have mentioned it. But I just don't get it, what is edge padding? what does it do?
Also, about the ray distance, do you think I should use the ray distance calculator? And I want to know when I should change my ray distance. I don't want to constantly be asking you: 'should I change my ray distance for this object?'. I want to know my self.
Good to know about the Access Panel. But, how does making it directly interactable with the character compensate for it's high count of triangles?
Also, I need to add the base textures and the AO, but here is the book with it's normal map, rendered in UE4, it looks perfect. Finally, something I have created that I can actually appreciate:
And about the SP/SD & PS topic, I would like to see a workflow of this happening. Can't find a video explaining it. It's the most I'm confused about. But I understood what you explained, and I'm obviously feeling more confident on the topic.
It's improved but it's still kinda bad... why?!
As a high smoothing angle should be okay for the LP.
But, try baking the hp on top, and the cage above that.
Edge padding is for mip mapping, or more specifically to fix the issues caused from mip maps. When a texture is 4096x4096, this is seen as 4k (4096) up close. As the player walks further, and further away the texture will reduce to 2k (2048), to 1k (1024), to 512, to 256, etc. The smaller a texture gets the more bleed will occur. When you look at your texture with your UVs overlaid on top of the texture, you will see the texture ends abruptly a few pixels away from the edge. When you use edge padding, the bleeding will read the padded edges and provide "padding." The padded edges will provide additional data for the UVs to read. The padding copies and dilates the very last pixel color based upon the amount of pixels you determine in your bake.
Required padding by pixel based upon texture size:
- 512 = 4 pixels
- 1024 = 8 px
- 2048 = 16 px
- 4096 = 32 px
Read:http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Mip_Mapping
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Edge_padding
Honestly, I have very rarely changed the ray distance or used the calculator. Its a very rare occurrence, I would say do not worry about it. You need to worry about the tightness of your projection cage/envelope. Ray distances largely work best for planar surfaces as opposed to cages.
The higher the tri count of a mesh the higher visual fidelity and quality the user will see. The user will interact with it so it would be worth adding a much more defined amount of geometry to ensure it looks smooth enough close up. Like for example, in a first person shooter the guns are very high poly for a low poly compared to a third person shooter. It depends on the level of detail required for the specific instance of a specific mesh. This brings up the discussion of LODs in the same sense as mip mapping. When the player goes further away from an object the texture AND mesh get down rzed in some fashion.
Read:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/LevelOfDetail
The book turned out great! Smoothing looks great in engine, good work.
Regarding SP/SD/PS, just bide your time. You will understand when and what necessitates using which program.
That is bizarre, the AO issue. It looks like something is clipping the cage or the HP/LP are not conforming... I have no idea what would cause that other than the common issues. Non-conforming meshes, clipping cage, reversed normals, duplicate mesh underneath HP/LP, improper smoothing. Hope that works... make sure settings are like this:
Nice explanation of edge padding, you're the only person who has that information sinked into my head, and a lot of other info too.
Thanks for the links too, will check em out as always. But... how would I go ahead now to 'pad' my edges? Photoshop? Different software?
If you say so, I won't worry about the ray distance. I'll read up properly on what it's about to get a full understanding, but I'll leave it at 0.50000.
About the tri count, it makes sense. Interaction with models need to be as visually pleasant as they can be, I get it.
Yeah it's about time I got into LOD's. I never really knew what they were, they used to pop up all the time when modding games like Skyrim... thanks to your explanation, I have a better idea of what they are now.
Now, about the AO, it doesn't matter, since it doesn't even show on the book, it's just very vague, I can get away with it. I'll also make sure my occlusion settings are correct.
"Regarding SP/SD/PS, just bide your time. You will understand when and what necessitates using which program." Understood.
Okay, so here is my book fully textured, normal mapped and well occluded.
The only problem I have with this, is that there are slight black lines at the edges, and the bookmark is too glossy/smooth. But other than that it looks very good. If I told my self I could create something like this 5 months ago, I wouldn't have believed myself. Thanks.
I just feel that working in photoshop is slow, any tips for a newbie? Also, when I'm saving my textures after some progress, I keep having to tediously click save as, change the file type to BMP and then hit save. I can't just CTRL+S. Know any faster saving methods?
Also, your medieval weaponry looks glorious, awesome work. Hoping to achieve that level of glory one day.
Edge padding should be done in xNormal. However, after the fact you can open your completed textures in photoshop, add your UVs and lay them on top, select the negative space around the UVs (use magic wand tool), delete the negative space in your textures, then go to filters>xNormal>Dialation>Set to appropriate pixel amount> hit ok. (You probably need to add the plug-in into photoshop).
Post you Textures up on here, let us take a look. Also dont use .bmp, save textures as .TGA for game art, when you post images on polycount however use jpegs. There is not an easier way of saving out textures in photoshop, its very mundane but it is how it is. There may be pulg-ins to expedite the process that I am unaware of.
I agree to make the pages a tad lighter. I also do not see much definition in the normal map from the leather design on the covers. Could be differed to you ultimately but it seems appropriate. Tone down the AO, its too strong.
Overall it turned out quite well! Great work.
Understood. Also, thanks for the info on the image formats, I'll keep that in mind.
I'll get the XNormal plugin for photoshop too.
And about the saving, I'll keep a good eye out for nifty PS plugins to increase saving convenience.
I'll make the adjustments you recommended, but there is one thing: " I also do not see much definition in the normal map from the leather design on the covers". What do you mean? And I still to increase the NM intensity btw, just letting you know.
Textures:
Base:
AO:
NM:
I would also consider adding variation in the roughness.
Think of something like this:
And how would I vary the roughness?
(What I would do) Alternatively, take the image into photoshop, delete the negative space, place a black and white adjustment over it, place a levels adjustment and make what you want higher whiter and lower blacker, add a pure black fill layer underneath, merge the two layers together, make sure you have a duplicate, make sure the result is black and white, white will be a raised bump and black a flat/depression use the filter within PS for xNormal use Height2Normals. Take the resulting Normal map and Overlay that over the base normal map, save that out and use that as your normal map.
Hope that makes sense.
And @3dReaper Thanks to you, its nice to see people like you go above and beyond to help someone new.
BUT, I think it's time for me to get NDO2. I was going to get it anyway since it's a miracle software (my jaw dropped the first time I saw an NDO demonstration video). I can simply just put the image in photoshop, and click 'Convert To Normal' in NDO and bam, done.......more or less.
I'm actually in situations where I'm needing to use and learn software like this, which is good, I'm expanding my library of knowledge and software, ultimately expanding my capabilities as a 3D artist.
Also, I dialated my texture map and saved it is as TARGA. I see however, no visible difference in UE4. I also made the page colours brighter after you and @billymcguffin recommended. It does look better. Pictures of the book in UE4 AND the dialated and none dialated textures:
DIALATED
NON DIALATED.