Dude, this tool is pure awesome. I was just wondering if there was a way to have multiple objects? I have read through and saw a work through about having one obj and then referencing another one. I take it there is no way to do more than 2 though? Any help would be great!
Nevermind, I didn't know you could export the multiple obj's without combining them and have them show up as separate meshes once imported into marmoset. Now this tool is REALLY SWEET!
Sorry this is a link to a different website but I haven't had time to post it on polycount. In any case, it is a testament to how awesome marmoset is! Thanks 8 monkeylabs! You guys rock!
Here is my 1st marmoset render. Modeled and exported using xsi. Normals and ao baked in max 9.
I played with the settings of marmoset a little bit, and i ended up using the triligth set up with some custom settings for the post effects. Is there a way to make your own ligthing. Im trying to figure out how everyone else is getting this really awesome renders.
The light environment can be rotated with shift+LMB and the direction of the light can be shifted with shift+MMB. When moving the light around it helps to turn on "show light direction" under the render tab.
Titus figured out how to make new light environments here's his post from earlier in this thread, it's a bit involved though...
Here's a link to some of the new light environments that he made.
Hey there. I had similar problem but with exporting the mesh from max so not really sure how you could do this in modo, but in max when exporting the mesh I had to click on "normals" under optimization in the export window. That fixed it for me. I hope that helps.
Ben Apuna - That is true, but I'm using a plugin I wrote, which exports custom and accurate vertex normals.
I've tested exporting same mesh from max and the results are the same.
I'm not sure what's going on, I've put the ball mesh online - http://www.svartberg.com/wip/q_marmoset_shaderbug.obj.
Would be great if anyone has any insights here, you can spot the problems just by loading it into marmoset ..
I took a look at your file, a two things stood out to me as possible trouble makers.
1. Messed up UVs.
2. Open edges, these didn't show up as smooth in Modo (401) either.
The cool thing is that your custom vertex normals appeared to be importing just fine into Marmoset, though when I re-export it with Modo's stock OBJ exporter they don't transfer over
Hopefully that helps
EDIT:
Thanks for the OBJ plugin btw. I have yet to try it out (mostly been exporting ASEs to UDK and trying to figure out a Modo -> Torchlight workflow...), though I intend to the next time I work with xNormal or Marmoset.
Ben Apuna thanks a lot mate ! The issue was with the messed up UV's ..
I wouldn't find that in a million years (other than going through each poly), I'm curious how you found it out ?
The open edges are a way to force hard edges in smoothing in different engines, and luckily rarely causes issues.
Cool, feel free to post feedback about the plugin, especially if you found it hard to understand.
Also I hope it works with 401, as I'm still using 302.
The UVs were a bit hard to figure out. First I noticed that some faces were transparent (or inverted) in Marmoset which is strange because there was no alpha applied. Next I started looking at the model in Modo and all the faces normals seemed to be pointing outward correctly, I ran Senecas's cleanup script just to be sure. Tried again in Marmoset same problem. Tried to search for extra verts, there weren't any. Finally I thought might be a UV thing. I used draw select to select the faces one by one in the UV window and noticed that after I was done there were a couple of faces that weren't selected in the 3d viewport. Selected inverse and noticed the two edges that got selected in the UV window. Then I realized those UVs had been smashed toghether somehow.
The open edge thing is great for hard edges in engines, I wish Luxology would implement a real hard/soft edge or smoothing group solution.
I'll let you know if I encounter any issues with the script.
Hi
I really like marmoset but I am having a few problems. First I get wierd artifacts from the skin shader. The other problem is I dont know how to get a transparent texture in marmoset. I tried a tga with an alpha channel but it crashes toolbag everytime. Im not sure if its my graphics card or if I am saving the tga with the alpha channel wrong. I have an ati radeon x1300pro series graphics card (outdated I know). Has anyone had similar issues and figured out how to fix them.
What do you mean by "weird artifacts"? The only thing I can think of offhand is try to change the shadow distance under the render tab. You really want the shadow distance to be the lowest number possible without the shadows disappearing on your model.
You can also try to increase the resolution of the shadows press the "~" or "`" key to bring up the command line then type in the command "set render.shadows.res 4096" and hit enter, though this needs a lot of Vram to work so your card might not be able to handle it. You could try a lower value like 2048.
If you're using Photoshop to save your TGAs keep "Compress (RLE)" unchecked. Marmoset does not like compressed TGAs. Also the alpha texture needs to be in the Diffuse texture's alpha channel, just mentioning it even though it seems as you've done this already. Hopefully that does the trick.
I'm unfamiliar with ATI cards, will it display normal maps in real time (shader model 2 I think...)? If the answer is no, that's probably why Marmoset is crashing.
Thanks for the response. Checking off the Compress RLE fixed the problem with the alpha TGA. Increasing the shadow res definately made a difference but there are still noisy lines that run accross the model. Heres an image to explain what I mean better.
The results from the tutor looks nice but mine not. I might have done something wrong but I dunno why. Depending of how I move the sky (using shift + left mouse) I get some weird results:
Now I'm wondering what I did wrong. Could you guys give me a hand? Does it has something to do with the mesh? It was imported in marmoset as obj with the standard export config from max 2009. Or does it has something to do with the textures? Here are my textures:
diffuse:
specular:
normal:
Any kind of help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Strange, one possibility could be that you didn't create a material for your knife.
As more of a general note black in your normal map is a bad idea. You should fill all the empty space with the flat normal color: R 128 (or 127), G 128 (or 127), B 255.
EDIT:
It could be your model as well, are you sure all your face normals are pointing outward?
I guess I've found out where the main problem was: I exported the obj file from max with a directX shader. After I exported the object with a standard grey shader it worked fine. After that I added the normal, diffuse and spec maps in the toolbag. Was a Noobish mistake I think. :-) I also fixed 2 wrong vertices on the model. I also put a background on my normal map, like you said.
I looks better now but it still has some ugly problems, like this:
Random grainy artifacts
Some random normal problems
I've just checked my textures and didn't find anything strange. Any ideas?
Exporting with a DirectX material isn't so noobish, I've gotten into tons of trouble with those things, maybe I'm still a noob too lol :poly136:
As for the artifacts, try increasing the shadow resolution and playing with the shadow distance settings. Those are usually the first culprits for artifacts in Marmoset. I went over how to do that a few posts back.
It could possibly be the specular sharpness setting as well, try sliding that around to see if helps.
Exporting with a DirectX material isn't so noobish, I've gotten into tons of trouble with those things, maybe I'm still a noob too lol :poly136:
As for the artifacts, try increasing the shadow resolution and playing with the shadow distance settings. Those are usually the first culprits for artifacts in Marmoset. I went over how to do that a few posts back.
It could possibly be the specular sharpness setting as well, try sliding that around to see if helps.
Yeap, you're right. It had something to do with the config from marmoset. But I'm too lazy so I just downloaded the toolbag again (lol) and with the default settings it looks way better:
Please dont crucify me for this, I dont have alot of time to look through the thread right now, im working on a project and have encountered this error, not sure if its an error with my model or what. The area that is really shiny isnt suppose to be like that, i have specularity off and was wondering if you guys have any ideas? i had this problem with another model and i ended up having to add triangulation to get it to work correctly but on this model that would require more work. is there a simple fix for this?
The results are really amazing! I could watch them for days!
Another question. Is there a way to make an animation on toolbag? Or is it only allowed to import an animation? I was just checking out the animation tab but didn't figure out how it works...
---EDIT---
I've just saw the .txt tutorial file, it says that .mesh files with animation are recognized, but animations in .obj files aren't. Is there a way to export an animation from 3ds max and import in toolbag?
Please dont crucify me for this, I dont have alot of time to look through the thread right now, im working on a project and have encountered this error, not sure if its an error with my model or what. The area that is really shiny isnt suppose to be like that, i have specularity off and was wondering if you guys have any ideas? i had this problem with another model and i ended up having to add triangulation to get it to work correctly but on this model that would require more work. is there a simple fix for this?
Take a look in previous page, I had similar problem caused by bad uv's.
Hi there, i have same strange stripes problem as sayris's on page 40,my graphic card is also a radeon X1950. I have tried the method disanski said,but it does not work.Is there any solution?
I can't remember if this has been covered yet or not. Marmoset is crashing for me when I try to load a particular .tga file. What on earth could be going on with this?
Edit.
MY bad. It's a "non power of 2" error.
I EPIC FAIL.
I seriously worked on that for like 1 hr before posting. sorry for wasting your time. lol.
I am trying to figure out, how to export multiple obj's without combining them. I need two separated objects in marmoset, each of them with its own texture. Character and pedestal.
I tried installing export plugin for maya, but the current version is older and I can't run it under maya 2009.
In Modo I just break my mesh apart into multiple mesh layers, then select them all at the same time and save/export as a single OBJ file.
Once imported into Marmoset all the different parts of the mesh appear as separate mesh chunks which can each have their own material + textures applied to them.
I managed to put my objects as separated in obj's format. I had to select "group on", under export option and it worked I am able to have different materials and chunks in toolbag
I have another question. Is there any way to adjust bias for shadows. I get shadow artifacts if turned on. I scaled the mesh and lights and couldn't remove the artifacts. The only way to remove them is to turn the shadows off. But I don't want to do that.
First make sure your mesh is around the proper scale for Marmoset.
Go to the render tab in Marmoset and toggle the box labeled "show scale reference" on. Now you should see a human figure which is about the right size you want to be importing your objects into Marmoset.
You can also slide the "shadow distance" slider under the render tab back and forth to see if that helps. For best results you want the shadow distance setting to be just close enough + one or two steps more than necessary for the shadows to show up at all.
You can also try to increase the resolution of the shadows. To do that press the "~" or "`" key to bring up the command line then type in the command "set render.shadows.res 4096" and hit enter. Keep in mind this setting requires a fairly decent graphics card to work right. Other power of two numbers work here as well, so 2048 and 8192 are fair game, I've never tried to go higher than that though.
Sometimes rotating the light environment to a slightly different angle can help too.
Your help is much appreciated. The console command for shadows is great. However I still had the artifacts. What solved the problem was un checking the "use culling" under the material settings. And it worked
Heyy everybody. I am bringing my character to marmoset and this time I would like to know how you guys render your models when it comes to characters. The problem I am currently having is that some parts of the model have different specular sharpness so if i set it to work correct for the armor the face does not work very well and it looks plastic or the other way around.
I suspect i could just do 2 renders and composite them in PS but i would like to know if there is different work flow.
Thanks guys
Edit :
I was reading the back pages again and I see that i am being silly again. I understand i have to separate the model in to few objects. What if that makes yuo cut the object in to more chunks then your uv chunks?
Everytime I make a screenshot with f12, I get an image that is extremeley distorted, the screenshot is take from a different view, and the model has many lines going through it. I only set the screenshot res to 2048x2048
I think you can break up your model into as many chunks/materials as needed. I made something with 17 chunks before and other than being a pita to figure out what was what to apply the correct materials to it worked out just fine.
I've never had that problem before, does the screenshot f12 work correctly at lower resolutions like 1024? If so it might be that your graphics card is running out of VRAM or just can't handle it.
I once had strange colorful screenshots, closing then restarting Marmoset seemed to fix it.
If it's just the f12 thing not working for you and your model looks fine on screen then you can just do it the old fashioned way by hitting the "Print Screen" key and pasting into Photoshop. You won't get a high res image but it works.
I made a normal map in 3ds max using the projection mod and after doing it the object looked well in 3ds max using a directx shader with the normal map but in marmoset the normal map get loaded but nothing happens. Also if I use the bump map as a normal bump for render purposes in 3ds max it won't work either... Any ideas?
PS: If I load a normal map from a different model it will load normally. So it should be a problem with the map not with the geometry :poly118:
low poly model in max:
low poly with normal map in Max in a directx shader (rendered as animation->preview)
Thanks Ben. I was afraid that sometimes you can not separate some parts of the mesh at the exact border but I don't really have this problem now, just trying to understand how you guys do it. Thanks a lot
@ hellkt I believe you need to have a diffuse map in the slot in order to see the normal map correct. Not too sure about that.
Is there anybody who could explain what exactly Fresnel exponent is- I mean I see what it does but I don't understand what is it theoretically.
Thanks again.
1. Make sure the UVs on that object are getting transferred over properly.
2. Make sure the material is applied to that mesh chunk.
- Related to that I recommend creating an actual named material file in Marmoset for each object you bring in rather than using the "default_mtl.mat". That way you can save your material with it's specific settings and re-use it in the future.
3. I agree with disanski, I believe you also need at least a diffuse map in the material for it to work properly. I'm looking at Marmoset right now with only a normal map in the material my object does not look right at all. Once I add a diffuse map everything seems to work like it should.
Replies
Nevermind, I didn't know you could export the multiple obj's without combining them and have them show up as separate meshes once imported into marmoset. Now this tool is REALLY SWEET!
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=76297&page=3
the final renders are near the bottom
Here is my 1st marmoset render. Modeled and exported using xsi. Normals and ao baked in max 9.
I played with the settings of marmoset a little bit, and i ended up using the triligth set up with some custom settings for the post effects. Is there a way to make your own ligthing. Im trying to figure out how everyone else is getting this really awesome renders.
The light environment can be rotated with shift+LMB and the direction of the light can be shifted with shift+MMB. When moving the light around it helps to turn on "show light direction" under the render tab.
Titus figured out how to make new light environments here's his post from earlier in this thread, it's a bit involved though...
Here's a link to some of the new light environments that he made.
Hope that helps
There a flat normalmap in that area, and the glowing is because of specuality. (in pic below, you can see bad smoothing with specuality off)
The mesh is split on the uv edges .. any ideas ?
Also worth mentioning it looks fine in 3dsmax.
You're exporting OBJs from Modo, right? Hard edges in Marmoset will be caused by splits in the mesh or by attempting to use vertex normal maps.
I always delete all vertex normal maps and smooth my models by using a material with it's smoothing angle set to 180°.
Hope that helps.
I've tested exporting same mesh from max and the results are the same.
I'm not sure what's going on, I've put the ball mesh online - http://www.svartberg.com/wip/q_marmoset_shaderbug.obj.
Would be great if anyone has any insights here, you can spot the problems just by loading it into marmoset ..
1. Messed up UVs.
2. Open edges, these didn't show up as smooth in Modo (401) either.
The cool thing is that your custom vertex normals appeared to be importing just fine into Marmoset, though when I re-export it with Modo's stock OBJ exporter they don't transfer over
Hopefully that helps
EDIT:
Thanks for the OBJ plugin btw. I have yet to try it out (mostly been exporting ASEs to UDK and trying to figure out a Modo -> Torchlight workflow...), though I intend to the next time I work with xNormal or Marmoset.
I wouldn't find that in a million years (other than going through each poly), I'm curious how you found it out ?
The open edges are a way to force hard edges in smoothing in different engines, and luckily rarely causes issues.
Cool, feel free to post feedback about the plugin, especially if you found it hard to understand.
Also I hope it works with 401, as I'm still using 302.
The UVs were a bit hard to figure out. First I noticed that some faces were transparent (or inverted) in Marmoset which is strange because there was no alpha applied. Next I started looking at the model in Modo and all the faces normals seemed to be pointing outward correctly, I ran Senecas's cleanup script just to be sure. Tried again in Marmoset same problem. Tried to search for extra verts, there weren't any. Finally I thought might be a UV thing. I used draw select to select the faces one by one in the UV window and noticed that after I was done there were a couple of faces that weren't selected in the 3d viewport. Selected inverse and noticed the two edges that got selected in the UV window. Then I realized those UVs had been smashed toghether somehow.
The open edge thing is great for hard edges in engines, I wish Luxology would implement a real hard/soft edge or smoothing group solution.
I'll let you know if I encounter any issues with the script.
I really like marmoset but I am having a few problems. First I get wierd artifacts from the skin shader. The other problem is I dont know how to get a transparent texture in marmoset. I tried a tga with an alpha channel but it crashes toolbag everytime. Im not sure if its my graphics card or if I am saving the tga with the alpha channel wrong. I have an ati radeon x1300pro series graphics card (outdated I know). Has anyone had similar issues and figured out how to fix them.
You can also try to increase the resolution of the shadows press the "~" or "`" key to bring up the command line then type in the command "set render.shadows.res 4096" and hit enter, though this needs a lot of Vram to work so your card might not be able to handle it. You could try a lower value like 2048.
If you're using Photoshop to save your TGAs keep "Compress (RLE)" unchecked. Marmoset does not like compressed TGAs. Also the alpha texture needs to be in the Diffuse texture's alpha channel, just mentioning it even though it seems as you've done this already. Hopefully that does the trick.
I'm unfamiliar with ATI cards, will it display normal maps in real time (shader model 2 I think...)? If the answer is no, that's probably why Marmoset is crashing.
http://img704.imageshack.us/i/headmarmoscreengrabcopy.jpg/
Changing the shadow distance may help.
You might also want to look at the different specular settings like the fresnel exponent.
Could be a post effect as well, try turning post effects and or bloom off under the render tab.
It might even be the interaction between your material/model/textures and that specific environment, try loading one of the different environments.
If none of that helps I don't know what will, good luck.
first off thanks for this awesome model viewer!
I tested it with the sample objects mentioned and it looks pretty nice. Now I've been doing a tutorial from CG tuts+: http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3d-art/next-gen-weapon-creation-day-4-diffuse-and-specular-textures/ that uses this model viewer (by the way a big thanks for Ben Bolton for making this tutorial).
The results from the tutor looks nice but mine not. I might have done something wrong but I dunno why. Depending of how I move the sky (using shift + left mouse) I get some weird results:
Now I'm wondering what I did wrong. Could you guys give me a hand? Does it has something to do with the mesh? It was imported in marmoset as obj with the standard export config from max 2009. Or does it has something to do with the textures? Here are my textures:
diffuse:
specular:
normal:
Any kind of help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
As more of a general note black in your normal map is a bad idea. You should fill all the empty space with the flat normal color: R 128 (or 127), G 128 (or 127), B 255.
EDIT:
It could be your model as well, are you sure all your face normals are pointing outward?
I guess I've found out where the main problem was: I exported the obj file from max with a directX shader. After I exported the object with a standard grey shader it worked fine. After that I added the normal, diffuse and spec maps in the toolbag. Was a Noobish mistake I think. :-) I also fixed 2 wrong vertices on the model. I also put a background on my normal map, like you said.
I looks better now but it still has some ugly problems, like this:
Random grainy artifacts
Some random normal problems
I've just checked my textures and didn't find anything strange. Any ideas?
As for the artifacts, try increasing the shadow resolution and playing with the shadow distance settings. Those are usually the first culprits for artifacts in Marmoset. I went over how to do that a few posts back.
It could possibly be the specular sharpness setting as well, try sliding that around to see if helps.
Yeap, you're right. It had something to do with the config from marmoset. But I'm too lazy so I just downloaded the toolbag again (lol) and with the default settings it looks way better:
Thanks for the help! :-)
Another question. Is there a way to make an animation on toolbag? Or is it only allowed to import an animation? I was just checking out the animation tab but didn't figure out how it works...
---EDIT---
I've just saw the .txt tutorial file, it says that .mesh files with animation are recognized, but animations in .obj files aren't. Is there a way to export an animation from 3ds max and import in toolbag?
Yeap, that's true, it solved the problem. Thanks!
EDIT: FlipV for diffuse did the trick.
Take a look in previous page, I had similar problem caused by bad uv's.
Animation can only be exported from Maya with stooge exporter plugin.
yup i had a few faces that werent pulled out thanks for mentioning it, such a simple problem!
BTW: BRISBANE = AWESOME
Grrrr, what a shame!
I hope this feature is going to be implemented for 3ds max someday. It would be awesome!
Now I'm going to start my next project, can't wait to see the results in marmoset, I'm really excited! :poly142:
Thanks for the info though!
Edit.
MY bad. It's a "non power of 2" error.
I EPIC FAIL.
I seriously worked on that for like 1 hr before posting. sorry for wasting your time. lol.
I am trying to figure out, how to export multiple obj's without combining them. I need two separated objects in marmoset, each of them with its own texture. Character and pedestal.
I tried installing export plugin for maya, but the current version is older and I can't run it under maya 2009.
I would be very grateful for any help.
In Modo I just break my mesh apart into multiple mesh layers, then select them all at the same time and save/export as a single OBJ file.
Once imported into Marmoset all the different parts of the mesh appear as separate mesh chunks which can each have their own material + textures applied to them.
I hope that makes sense and helps.
I managed to put my objects as separated in obj's format. I had to select "group on", under export option and it worked
I have another question. Is there any way to adjust bias for shadows. I get shadow artifacts if turned on. I scaled the mesh and lights and couldn't remove the artifacts. The only way to remove them is to turn the shadows off. But I don't want to do that.
Go to the render tab in Marmoset and toggle the box labeled "show scale reference" on. Now you should see a human figure which is about the right size you want to be importing your objects into Marmoset.
You can also slide the "shadow distance" slider under the render tab back and forth to see if that helps. For best results you want the shadow distance setting to be just close enough + one or two steps more than necessary for the shadows to show up at all.
You can also try to increase the resolution of the shadows. To do that press the "~" or "`" key to bring up the command line then type in the command "set render.shadows.res 4096" and hit enter. Keep in mind this setting requires a fairly decent graphics card to work right. Other power of two numbers work here as well, so 2048 and 8192 are fair game, I've never tried to go higher than that though.
Sometimes rotating the light environment to a slightly different angle can help too.
Your help is much appreciated. The console command for shadows is great. However I still had the artifacts. What solved the problem was un checking the "use culling" under the material settings. And it worked
I suspect i could just do 2 renders and composite them in PS but i would like to know if there is different work flow.
Thanks guys
Edit :
I was reading the back pages again and I see that i am being silly again. I understand i have to separate the model in to few objects. What if that makes yuo cut the object in to more chunks then your uv chunks?
Everytime I make a screenshot with f12, I get an image that is extremeley distorted, the screenshot is take from a different view, and the model has many lines going through it. I only set the screenshot res to 2048x2048
I think you can break up your model into as many chunks/materials as needed. I made something with 17 chunks before and other than being a pita to figure out what was what to apply the correct materials to it worked out just fine.
fghajhe:
I've never had that problem before, does the screenshot f12 work correctly at lower resolutions like 1024? If so it might be that your graphics card is running out of VRAM or just can't handle it.
I once had strange colorful screenshots, closing then restarting Marmoset seemed to fix it.
I'm having another problem here with toolbag:
I made a normal map in 3ds max using the projection mod and after doing it the object looked well in 3ds max using a directx shader with the normal map but in marmoset the normal map get loaded but nothing happens. Also if I use the bump map as a normal bump for render purposes in 3ds max it won't work either... Any ideas?
PS: If I load a normal map from a different model it will load normally. So it should be a problem with the map not with the geometry :poly118:
low poly model in max:
low poly with normal map in Max in a directx shader (rendered as animation->preview)
test Normal map (same used in the dx shader):
in marmoset:
@ hellkt I believe you need to have a diffuse map in the slot in order to see the normal map correct. Not too sure about that.
Is there anybody who could explain what exactly Fresnel exponent is- I mean I see what it does but I don't understand what is it theoretically.
Thanks again.
Three possible things to check.
1. Make sure the UVs on that object are getting transferred over properly.
2. Make sure the material is applied to that mesh chunk.
- Related to that I recommend creating an actual named material file in Marmoset for each object you bring in rather than using the "default_mtl.mat". That way you can save your material with it's specific settings and re-use it in the future.
3. I agree with disanski, I believe you also need at least a diffuse map in the material for it to work properly. I'm looking at Marmoset right now with only a normal map in the material my object does not look right at all. Once I add a diffuse map everything seems to work like it should.
Grrr, how I hate simple problems that make me spend hours trying to solve it! :poly127:
I always ignored the cmd which opens with toolbag and he was showing this error all the time:
So on the render to texture window I just did this:
Now it's looking fine, the seams need some work and I'll make some texture improvements in photoshop later:
Hope this helps other people that might be having the same problem...