I am still having issues...for some reason, now when I try to apply a material to a mesh, toolbag just crashes with no error message in the dialogue window, just a wondows "this program has had to close" message. I copes fone with inported objs, but not .mesh files generated from the same obj rigged up in Maya. I note that when i look a tthe UV layout of the triangulated mesh that stooge creates, it has ignored seams on the original quad UV layout and therefore has lots of crossed UVs from linking faces together that lie at a seam. I would imagine this uv mashup is what causes the crash, as it's when a mat is applied that the crash happens. Why is it mucking up the UVs, and can I preserve my layout seams? I can post grabs of the before and after uv layout map if this would help!
Hah- I wish I'd thought of the controller idea...but I finially figured out how to get the thing working. Part of the problem seems to have been that at seom point in the model creation, a single face got UV'd across a seam and this was messinhg the triangulation up. However, and for anyone who has a problem, here is EXACTLY what worked:
-in Maya, combine meshes and rename them into what will be the chunks for each mat in marmoset (e.g. body, head, eyes, weapon)
- add a single bone running vertically through the object where you want the rotation to be (usually the centre i guess!).
- smooth bind the meshes to the bone. For me, binding all at once seemed to produce the same result as doing each piece individually, but as some have had issues, go with a chunk at a time. Note that rigid binding crashed maya on (failed) export! Smooth bind only!
- animate the bone. For me, marnoset only seems to like a single keyframe tween- e.g. a keyframe at 1 and another at 24. When I added intervening keyframes, it would only export the animation up to the first keyframe it encountered. There may be a setting I'm missing but this is fine for turntable so I'm not desperately worried right now. When I want a wlk cycle things may change! You may need to adjust the animation tangent for a smooth animation. I dunno. Sometimes I do, others not.
- call stooge gui in the MEL window by typing stooge. Export with the the boxes ticked for wrtie tangents/bit-tangents, plus the ones for writing the mesh, rig and the skeleton. Choose a destination and export.
- stooge will close. Call it again and write the anim file. For some reason, I got a crash if the anim file had the same name as the skel and rig and mesh files so choose anew name.
- I put all the files, plus texture tga files in the toolbag folder as per the marmoset instructions.
- open marmoset and load mesh. Then find skeleton. Then load animation. Then add textures one by one, clicking the "vertex skinning" box.
- done! Muck about with other settings as much as you like
Apologies to those who already had this figured out but I really stuggled so hopefully this will help any other recent convert to the wonder of marmoset.
~P~
PS I should also say that it looked flippin awesome when I got it working, but I had to leave for work immediately afterwards. I'll be grabbing it with fraps later
I faced this problem on my test character, under the nose area, the shining polys, wonder why this happens? On the right side is a screenshot from 3dsMax viewport.
Does any one have problem with chunks window when you open mesh what have too many chunks? The names what don`t fit in window goes ower material window, buttons an so on. Does Toolbag support vertical scroll bar in "chunks" and "material" windows?
Yeah this is a known issue, no scroll is bad. What you can do is manually edit the .rig file after you save your mesh and link up the proper chunks. If you dont actually need multiple materials its best to just combine the chunks in your app of choice before exporting.
I faced this problem on my test character, under the nose area, the shining polys, wonder why this happens? On the right side is a screenshot from 3dsMax viewport.
This is one of two things, most likely:
1. Normals are not exported correctly, make sure to check export options for OBJ and enable normals
2. You have some verts in the uvs mistakenly welded together. If you have 2 verts in different positions 3d space, but welded together in UV space you will get errors as it cant figure out the tangent space correctly(will apear sort of... unlit, but the diffuse will still show up).
Aw, the first time I tried this I loaded an OBJ and it just crashed. I did have it in a relative path. I don't think I have a way to export as .mesh.
Crashing on OBJ import is probably a sign of bad uvs. Make sure if you have multiple uv sets, that the correct set is being exported(obj only supports 1 uv set).
EarthQuake, thank you my friend for your help! You were 100% right about "You have some verts in the uvs mistakenly welded together"
there was two verts on each side overlaping each other.
Yeah this is a known issue, no scroll is bad. What you can do is manually edit the .rig file after you save your mesh and link up the proper chunks. If you dont actually need multiple materials its best to just combine the chunks in your app of choice before exporting.
Thanks a lot. Editing .rig file solve the problem.
sorry if this has been asked before, i had a little dig through the thread but couldn't find an answer, sorry again if i missed it.
but if i a separate texture for the head of my character, one for the body, one for the eyes, and one for the hair (like this because made to L4D specs for a mod), how do i set up the material?, do i create a separate material for each and can i then apply them to a different material ID? is this even possible at the moment?
Hi guys, i have serached the thread and found some interesting answers to a few of t he display probalems ive been having - so great to have all this knowledge here - i wanted to ask though, with regards to how the chunks are imported, i have the object list in max upon export but the ordering does not match the order when imported into marmoset - a big problem when i want to use opacity ( and given that it does work best when the opacity using chunk needs to be last!
Has anyone come up with a sure fire way to get the ordering correct between max and marmoset ? Im using max 2008 if that helps.
sorry if this has been asked before, i had a little dig through the thread but couldn't find an answer, sorry again if i missed it.
but if i a separate texture for the head of my character, one for the body, one for the eyes, and one for the hair (like this because made to L4D specs for a mod), how do i set up the material?, do i create a separate material for each and can i then apply them to a different material ID? is this even possible at the moment?
As long as each of the different materials are split into separate "chucks" or "objects" when you export from your 3d app of choice, you should get each of them in the mesh list when you load it up, then you create a material for each texture and apply them to the correct chunks.
I assume that means you have more than one UV map. It was just pointed out to me that Marmoset only accepts one UV map.
You can load as many materials/mesh chunks as you want, essentially you could have 800 chunks, but as long as each of these chunks has only 1 UV map, it will load fine.
Also marmoset supports 2 uv channels(2nd uv channel for lightmap) but OBJs do NOT support more than 2 uv channels. So you need to export directly from maya if you want to use 2 uvs.
Hi guys, i have serached the thread and found some interesting answers to a few of t he display probalems ive been having - so great to have all this knowledge here - i wanted to ask though, with regards to how the chunks are imported, i have the object list in max upon export but the ordering does not match the order when imported into marmoset - a big problem when i want to use opacity ( and given that it does work best when the opacity using chunk needs to be last!
Has anyone come up with a sure fire way to get the ordering correct between max and marmoset ? Im using max 2008 if that helps.
thanks for all the help and the insane toobag!
Sorry i haven't tried in max, but i know in maya it tends to be the last mesh edited/created that will export last. You could try something like exporting your mesh, deleting it from your scene, and re-importing it back again, then export everything and see if it works.
Hi EarthQuake, thanks for the super fast response!
Thats exactly what ive been trying, and for the most part it does work, except i have 3 chunks - Body, Sunnies, Hair. No matter which way i import these into a fresh scene , the ordering doesnt match the ordering in max HAHA! Its driving me nuts because I think ill get lucky at some point :P :P
No problem man ill battle on and see if i cant solve it! Thanks again for the super fast response!
This is what i ended up with in case anyone was wondering - I managed to get the alphas sorting in a semi decent fashion , The laces, sunnies and hair, i ended up needing to combine all of those pieces into one chunk and only work with 2. It should be interesting when it comes time to make the sunnys really glossy compared with the other pieces......
As long as each of the different materials are split into separate "chucks" or "objects" when you export from your 3d app of choice, you should get each of them in the mesh list when you load it up, then you create a material for each texture and apply them to the correct chunks.
Just make sure you split each mat ID into its own object, and it should work fine.
Is there an exporter for Maya 2009? I install the 09 plugin and I get this...
// Error: Plug-in, "stoogeExport_maya90" was compiled against too old a version of the Maya API and is thus incompatible with the current Maya version. (stoogeExport_maya90)
I am on a PC.
Maya 2008 is actually "Maya 9.0" which is what the plugin is for. Blame autodesk for changing the versioning There are supported plugins for:
Maya7 = 7.0
Maya8 = 8.0
Maya2008 = 9.0
Here is my contribution to this thread... a buddy of mine told me about Marmoset and I love what the results. I only wish that i could get the normal map just as seamless...
Now, i wonder if this plugin would be awesome for XSI. This is awesome.
I baked his normals in Zbrush and everything was seamless there...and when rendered in XSI, everything was seamless...it is very weird behaviour. But i love the marmoset renderer...
EDIT: It looks like i will have to bake the normals again
And on further investigation, the seams in the arms disappear when i switch on Obj Space Normal Mapping. I am using tangent space but i don't know what others are using to bake their normals
Hey EQ, I know about that... But even if I try to make the maps as seamless as possible, the normal map will still have seams in it when used in Marmoset... is there a way around this without me painting out the seams
Hey EQ, I am using XSI and i did this with older models and everything looked clean... it may have been my ZMapper settings... I could try leaving everything as its default and bake it from there
Well, i am still dealing with the seams issue... I had to use a preset to get the model baked properly, which messed up my MR version of the normal map. At least now I know what settings to use when I am using normal maps.
very kick ass tool i will say again. Some of the models i have put into my work look like FNR4 models
I've made this render with Marmo and it's really cool ^^, but I can't have nice cast shadows
Anyone knows how I can make some more hard shadows in Marmoset orhave nice cast shadows (Character has actually no shadows casted on the table so he seems to floating a lil bit), thank you to tell me how
There isnt any way to adjust the shadows, aside from loading a different sky, or creating a new sky, since the shadows are tied to the sky content itself and not adjustable.
EQ, forgive me if been asked, but is the tangent space direction of the normal maps hard wired? Or is there a file I can change? Mine are -x -y +z Also, if you choose a dds, will it assume the rgb being the nm and ignore the alpha, or if it sees an alpha, assume the nm is a dxt-5nm (the one where I forget which channel is stored in alpha versus its normal since less compression artifacts).
Secondly, when choosing a specular, if I choose a dds, will it look automatically at the alpha for it?
Alright, I've been digging through the forum and I've done 10 or so searches for variations of the word render and resolution...render brings up a ton of posts saying..."look what I rendered", and resolution is everyone asking how to change the resolution of the viewer.
I want to know how I change the resolution of the actual renders...F12 I think. I know I need to ~ and put in something...but I don't know the command. Anyone happen to know off hand?
Thanks EarthQuake for the answer, but I don't understand, I have the cast shadows turned on from start but no shadows appears
I try the different sky (Sunny, shaddy, stormy etc...) but I see no difference T_T
I also play with shadow distance in the render window but nothing change
I missed something or what ?
Ok, I found why it doesn't work fine
The cast shadows don't work with a too high Alpha Threhold setting (superior to zero) in the material editor : so if you want shadows don't use alpha
Hourray !
Replies
I just want to get a turntable
~P~
as for a turntable, could you plugin a controller and then screencap using fraps while you spin the model round?
-in Maya, combine meshes and rename them into what will be the chunks for each mat in marmoset (e.g. body, head, eyes, weapon)
- add a single bone running vertically through the object where you want the rotation to be (usually the centre i guess!).
- smooth bind the meshes to the bone. For me, binding all at once seemed to produce the same result as doing each piece individually, but as some have had issues, go with a chunk at a time. Note that rigid binding crashed maya on (failed) export! Smooth bind only!
- animate the bone. For me, marnoset only seems to like a single keyframe tween- e.g. a keyframe at 1 and another at 24. When I added intervening keyframes, it would only export the animation up to the first keyframe it encountered. There may be a setting I'm missing but this is fine for turntable so I'm not desperately worried right now. When I want a wlk cycle things may change! You may need to adjust the animation tangent for a smooth animation. I dunno. Sometimes I do, others not.
- call stooge gui in the MEL window by typing stooge. Export with the the boxes ticked for wrtie tangents/bit-tangents, plus the ones for writing the mesh, rig and the skeleton. Choose a destination and export.
- stooge will close. Call it again and write the anim file. For some reason, I got a crash if the anim file had the same name as the skel and rig and mesh files so choose anew name.
- I put all the files, plus texture tga files in the toolbag folder as per the marmoset instructions.
- open marmoset and load mesh. Then find skeleton. Then load animation. Then add textures one by one, clicking the "vertex skinning" box.
- done! Muck about with other settings as much as you like
Apologies to those who already had this figured out but I really stuggled so hopefully this will help any other recent convert to the wonder of marmoset.
~P~
PS I should also say that it looked flippin awesome when I got it working, but I had to leave for work immediately afterwards. I'll be grabbing it with fraps later
Yeah this is a known issue, no scroll is bad. What you can do is manually edit the .rig file after you save your mesh and link up the proper chunks. If you dont actually need multiple materials its best to just combine the chunks in your app of choice before exporting.
This is one of two things, most likely:
1. Normals are not exported correctly, make sure to check export options for OBJ and enable normals
2. You have some verts in the uvs mistakenly welded together. If you have 2 verts in different positions 3d space, but welded together in UV space you will get errors as it cant figure out the tangent space correctly(will apear sort of... unlit, but the diffuse will still show up).
Crashing on OBJ import is probably a sign of bad uvs. Make sure if you have multiple uv sets, that the correct set is being exported(obj only supports 1 uv set).
there was two verts on each side overlaping each other.
Thanks a lot. Editing .rig file solve the problem.
but if i a separate texture for the head of my character, one for the body, one for the eyes, and one for the hair (like this because made to L4D specs for a mod), how do i set up the material?, do i create a separate material for each and can i then apply them to a different material ID? is this even possible at the moment?
i'll just put it into Unreal for now, would be nice in the future to have material IDs for Marmoset
Has anyone come up with a sure fire way to get the ordering correct between max and marmoset ? Im using max 2008 if that helps.
thanks for all the help and the insane toobag!
As long as each of the different materials are split into separate "chucks" or "objects" when you export from your 3d app of choice, you should get each of them in the mesh list when you load it up, then you create a material for each texture and apply them to the correct chunks.
Just make sure you split each mat ID into its own object, and it should work fine.
You can load as many materials/mesh chunks as you want, essentially you could have 800 chunks, but as long as each of these chunks has only 1 UV map, it will load fine.
Also marmoset supports 2 uv channels(2nd uv channel for lightmap) but OBJs do NOT support more than 2 uv channels. So you need to export directly from maya if you want to use 2 uvs.
Sorry i haven't tried in max, but i know in maya it tends to be the last mesh edited/created that will export last. You could try something like exporting your mesh, deleting it from your scene, and re-importing it back again, then export everything and see if it works.
Thats exactly what ive been trying, and for the most part it does work, except i have 3 chunks - Body, Sunnies, Hair. No matter which way i import these into a fresh scene , the ordering doesnt match the ordering in max HAHA! Its driving me nuts because I think ill get lucky at some point :P :P
No problem man ill battle on and see if i cant solve it! Thanks again for the super fast response!
Wait I don't see any sunglasses.
thank you earthquake. i'll give it a go
// Error: Plug-in, "stoogeExport_maya90" was compiled against too old a version of the Maya API and is thus incompatible with the current Maya version. (stoogeExport_maya90)
I am on a PC.
Maya7 = 7.0
Maya8 = 8.0
Maya2008 = 9.0
maya2009 is 10.0 and not supported
Now, i wonder if this plugin would be awesome for XSI. This is awesome.
EDIT: It looks like i will have to bake the normals again
It may just be the app expecting something totally different than what zbrush bakes, you could try a quick test bake in XN and see if its any better.
Also make sure you have your green channel flipped correctly(maya style)
very kick ass tool i will say again. Some of the models i have put into my work look like FNR4 models
I've made this render with Marmo and it's really cool ^^, but I can't have nice cast shadows
Anyone knows how I can make some more hard shadows in Marmoset orhave nice cast shadows (Character has actually no shadows casted on the table so he seems to floating a lil bit), thank you to tell me how
There isnt any way to adjust the shadows, aside from loading a different sky, or creating a new sky, since the shadows are tied to the sky content itself and not adjustable.
Secondly, when choosing a specular, if I choose a dds, will it look automatically at the alpha for it?
There is no DDS suport, only TGA. AFIAK
+x-y+z
I want to know how I change the resolution of the actual renders...F12 I think. I know I need to ~ and put in something...but I don't know the command. Anyone happen to know off hand?
I try the different sky (Sunny, shaddy, stormy etc...) but I see no difference T_T
I also play with shadow distance in the render window but nothing change
I missed something or what ?
The cast shadows don't work with a too high Alpha Threhold setting (superior to zero) in the material editor : so if you want shadows don't use alpha
Hourray !