DDS cube maps - Maya LT - OSX (edit: solved)

poopinmymouth

Hello all, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I am working at an OSX only studio, and I need to mess with DDS files, cube maps, and Maya LT's shaderFX. 

My questions:

1. What format do DDS cubemaps need to be for maya to read them? Standard unreal cubemaps with all of them in a line?
2. Has anyone found a way to author DDS cubemaps using OSX?

I can convert a single square texture from PNG to DDS using XnConvert, and maya sees the image fine. If I convert a 64x384 (64x64x6) the DDS won't display in maya. I tried resizing the 64x384 into a 512 PNG and then converting, still no luck. 

I can imagine ways to fix this involving PCs or dual booting, but please let me know if there are any native OSX solutions to this problem. 

EarthQuake

I'm not aware of any OSX tools to do this, however, If you just need a standard cube map (no diffusion blurring or anything like that) you can hack this together in any 3D app that has baking, provided you know the cube map layout (usually it's all in a line or in a cross format). If you have a sample cube map that works with your shader it should be trivial to figure out the format, you can open DDS files in Photoshop with a plugin (from nVidia I think? it's been a while).

1. Assuming you have a panoramic image to use use, apply it to a simple sphere.
2. Add a cube and UV it to match the cube map layout - sub-divide the box to make it a quad ball and scale it to roughly fit the sphere
3. Bake the map as a diffuse map or whatever

You can use Photoshop to save the map as DDS, I think Maya can bake to DDS natively too.

If you have access to a Windows box, Lys is really good: https://www.knaldtech.com/lys/ - it can do all the things: blurring in HDR, blurred diffuse/specular mips, different cube map layouts/formats, etc.

poopinmymouth

I have no problems making the source pixels. It's saving them in a format I can use.

The photoshop DDS plugin is windows only

I can make dds square files, but it seems Maya's LT reflection cube map node in shaderFX wants a cubemap DDS in a very specific format, and I need to find a way to author that using OSX tools if at all possible. 

For example if I plug a standard DDS made with XNconvert into the texture node? shows the file fine. If I plug a DDS saved as 1x6 in the Unreal format? also loads in the texture node, but I can't get it to load in the "reflect cube map" node. Unreal specifies a very specific DDS setting for cubemap DDS's, and my assumption is that I need to do it in this way, and the XnConvert is using the more standard options that are readable in the texture node, but not the "reflect cube map" node. 

I'm going to play around with making the same PNG to DDS conversion using the Nvidia plugin at home on my PC and see if that gives me a usable image.

throttlekitty

Maya's dds reader might be getting hung up on the resolution or DXT format. When you say "maya sees the image fine" that means it will display it as a regular texture but not as a cubemap?

also i found this thread that might be helpful.

welbot

http://fnordware.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/dds-plug-in-for-after-effects-and.html

poopinmymouth

Thanks guys, this gives me some new information. 

poopinmymouth

For anyone curious, I managed to find the solution. You need the plugin from Welbot's link. Be sure to check the readme for installation instructions. 

This is the layout you need, 4/3 where it's 4 units tall and 3 wide. Your width has to be a power of two. Save as DXT5 with none for alpha channel and tick "cube map" at the bottom.  It won't preview in the cubemap node thumbnail but it reads in Maya.