Xgen density brush no worky.
node
I'm able to get the cut and comb brushes "working"(bout as good as they ever will in in Maya: Xgen). But even if I max the size of the density brush, it doesn't register at all.
I've tried playing around with the other settings as well. The tool settings, and even deleted, and made a new sculpt layer. Hit the edit button, spammed the edit button, checked a near infinite number of times to make sure that I had the right things selected .etc
I've looked everywhere, but no one seems to have an answer for this that works.
I know Xgen can be buggy, janky, and an all around pain in the arse; but I've put a lot of work into this groom, and I don't really want to start over. So, any help will be appreciated.
Replies
Are you using classic or interactive xgen.
Is a lambert shader assigned to the mesh?
Any error messages?
Probably interactive. By 'shader' do you mean, material?
Maya, error messages, does that happen? Seriously though, I don't think I could move a polygon in Maya without getting an error message (not literally, but Maya does love to give error messages).
Without more info i cant help you.
Sadly can't help with your issue but this cracked me up. 😂 When I have to use Maya I always make sure to position the application window so the status bar is out of sight. Cause the program sure loves flashing messages for every.single.thing.
Really though.. for a program that has a perpetual cost of thousands of dollars; the company really doesn't seem to care about polishing it up at all.
Maybe if they had reasonable pricing, they'd actually make enough money off if it, to fix it.
I think it's considered part of the nerdy charm of the software. They probably spend a lot to make things complicated and mysterious looking, then spice it up for laughs with some inconsistent documentation. 😜
That sounds more like the job of 3DS Max, which as far as I can tell, is virtually the same program under a slightly different (and less user friendly) UI.
Far as that goes, I hate nerdy charm.. it's called a G U I, damnit, not a gooey.. is it that hard to say three letters..
Yes, it's interactive, and if you're talking about materials, I'm using Vrayfastsss2mtl4 on the mesh that the fur is attached to. Although I keep the mesh hidden since it's only there for the fur.
As for errors, I do keep getting "no bound geometry for facial fur" .etc.. even when the mesh isn't hidden.
I wasn't able to answer better before because I was away from my PC.
xGen wont work on meshes with third party shaders. Try a blinn or lambert on the groom mesh.
Have you done anythin to your groom geo?
Could you reimport the old geo and rebind?
xGen is a complex tool and such problems get normally fixed in the studio by a TD.
Well, Xgen has been working, technically. As I said, the cut, and comb brushes work fine, it's just the density brush that doesn't register.
That said, I can try swapping the shader and see if that makes a diff. As for the geo, I haven't altered it at all to the best of my recollection.
I can't do any major alterations on the geo without my hair/fur disappearing. Like, if I delete a poly, or add/remove any geometry, the hair will *poof*.
I can move vertices/edges/polys, and the hair will stay in tact, however I don't believe I've done that with this particular geo.
Does it work if you do a test on a sphere?
Obviously it will work if I simply make a new thing. But as I stated in the OP, I am not looking to re-do this, if it can at all be helped.
# Warning: XGen(1): No bound geometry for [Facial_fur1_base] #
Is the exact error.
I tried changing the mesh shader to a simple Lambert. But that didn't change anything.
Is there a mesh bound to your description`?
Thank you, I assumed that their had to be in order for it to work at all, but this is a unique perspective, so I'll look into it. I mean, I hadn't thought of looking into.. MEL (is that what that's called with the box graph thing? I forget as I'm a little out of practice atm) To check. I'll post an update here after I do. As well as perhaps post any relevant screens and renders.
Btw, thank you to anyone that's offered help on here. I seem to remember it being a fair bit more difficult getting any advice for Xgen when I initially started this model a few years ago (before side burnering the project for a year or so).
Perhaps covid has increased the number of people at home working on this kinda stuff. If so, then at least there's finally am upside to the virus that's effectively screwed everything else. Man, I miss my chocolate lucky charms..
BTW; one more question. You mentioned that Xgen issues are usually passed on to a TD. What is a TD? And, are you a TD?
Technical Director = TD
Those are the magicans fixing the stuff in a pipeline that doesnt work. They know how this all works under the hood. They are building the custom tools for studios.
Im not a TD im just an Artist.
Nice, I actually guessed it right then, I just wanted to check to be sure.
OK, I actually decided to hop into Maya, and have a quick look, and come to think of it, MEL is something different. It's like, a script or command line thing iirc.
But that thing that you're on, the closest I can find to it, would be the hypershade editor, and I don't think that's it. Otherwise, the hypergraph editor looks similar in it's connections, but not the same UI as the hypershade editor, or what you're on in that screenshot.
So if ya could point me in the right direction, I'll have a look and see if my things are connected correctly.
Thats the node editor.
NVM the above message. I finally found it under the main menu in the Windows dropdown menu. "Node Editor".
It looks to be connected..
I'll just go ahead and toss on a render or two of what I'm workin on.
In the above screenshot, I'd attempted to fix the bald strip on his chin by adding an extra strip of fur underneath it on a different geo mesh. But getting it to blend with the fur that's already there, plus having that extra needless fur there as an extra variable for things that could go wrong during animation.. Well, anyways, I decided to scrap that. I'm gonna try everything I can to fix this properly.
I've already used the cut tool in order to remove the fur from his lips. Now ideally, I need to get the density tool fixed in order to patch up that bald strip,
On a side note, I'm also working on UV mapping his outfit in order to properly texture it, as well as adding bump maps to give it a more realistic cloth look.
I used to know how to UV map really well using a simple tool which allowed me to UV map by manually selecting all of the edges around the parameter of the UV, then it'd create the perfect UV map every time, but now I'm wondering if I've just lost it, or if that was perhaps an add-on that I used for that. But that was how I made the UV's for the hair the face and the eyes.
But, thank you for the clarification.