Mudbox, normal map?

Turoid

Is it possible to render a normal map directly in mudbox? Like I import my low poly mesh with uv's and then sub div it, add details etc. And then 'render' a normal map for it.

Peris

yes

Turoid

thanks for fast and simple reply haha. I found the tool for it I think, within mud. But there seem to be black holes, dots in the image? How can I fix that?

RazorBladder

broadening the cage search distance usually fixes that for me.

Turoid

I just watched some vids on mudbox's help site and I guess I understand it a bit now. But I walked into another problem :S It seems that it doesn't subdivide anymore? I get a windoes program error when clicking that button. I tried reinstalling, but that didn't fixed the prob

Blaizer

Mudbox is a disaster for normal maps. I had too export models into max to generate them properly.

Joao Sapiro

i would just use it for sculpting . i tried the normal map generator some time ago, yeah a disaster...

Turoid

Hmm, i like it actually.. But that's because of the 'one button click' i think :P

Pingpang

I couldn't for the life of me, figure out how to get Mudbox to generate its normal map using mythe UV map layout of my lo res geometry. Is there a way to specify this? Is it even possible? I had to get it to work properly in max's RTT.

Rhinokey

hmm ping when i did it it just auto used the low res. is it giving you an error or something?

Pingpang

Hey, here's what I think the problem is.

I have my lo res unwrapped mesh, instead of importing that into mudbox, I first started sculpting all the non organic details in max like armour panel seams (all the details that need to be accurate) So I think in that step I messed up my UV map by adding more geometry underneath the UVW Unwrap modifier.

What I should have done detail the model in an Edit Poly Modifier on top of UVW Unwrap modifier in the stack.

That being said - I think Mudbox needs the option of referencing the low res model's UV to generate the normal map.

pingpang

Rhinokey

that being said? whne i made my normal map the other day it used the low's uvs

if you manualy screw up the uv's i don't know what you expect the program to do

Pingpang

Yeah, I messed the UVW map up. Still learning the best methods.

I guess in mudbox you're stuck using the UVmap you import with. In Max's RTT you can generate the normal map using almost any UV map.

plus RTT seems a bit faster generating the image.
thx

EarthQuake

You can load a seperate low poly object, your highpoly uvs dont matter at all..... You dont need to render onto your cage or anything.

Pingpang

wicked! thanks for the tip.