yes it is launched or triggered if you will with the openUV button on the toolbar:
not sure at this point if it is triggered as well within the macroscript of that counter part of texTools, will look into it.
Tumerboy & frwanque - thanks. I need to get used to using that edit button on the panel I suppose. The edge/vert align that's used in that top panel fixes the issues of the "linear" button in the toolbar, so I'm wondering if that's just a redundancy, renderhjs?
@Vassago: Not really they are different although related somewhat.
Linear:
Has 2 modes unlike the align buttons. The first mode just aligns the verts from their first vert to their last one (flow start and end). The 2nd mode aligns the same but within a 90 degree angle snap so either just U or V axis. So it is actually a very precise and smart tool combined.
Also recently added and changed with just 1 edge selected (only in its first mode) it selects a loop and then aligns it. This makes it very powerful and fast in certain situations.
Align:
Just like the gif animations explain, they align based on bounding box dimensions so its always most upper bound, left, right or bottom. And the same characteristic applies to shells which makes these buttons powerful for outer edges, verts or just aligning shells to a border.
Improved setup, displays now correctly bitmaps within the setup guide under 2010+ dark themes.
Rewrite of all the bake tools to support store to clipboard, save as.. dialog, apply as material and display in the virtual frame buffer. Some types come now with presets which will be extend in later versions.
New diffuse material to vertex color transfer script, so you can use baked materials (apply as material before) as vertex color blends within complex material setups.
Complete rewrite of the Checker map tool that switches checker maps on your object selection. It is way more robust now and supports any number of selected objects to switch, apply checker maps or simply reset their original maps back. It can remember up to 24 materials (really any kind of material you had before) of objects, so it always know what a object had before you applied a checker map on it.
Tweaked 'linear' tool so that with just one edge selected it NOW only edge selects and aligns with the first mode (left mouse button). With right mouse click you can thus even auto axis align single edges.
New space evenly tool that spaces shells evenly apart similar to how adobe applications offer this (Flash, Illustrator). Also there is no need for a 2nd mode as it detects the U or V axis flow automatically.
I will suggest to split your "Edit UV" button in 2 buttons
"Edit UV1" and "Edit UV2"
and why not add some quick access button like "uv1=uv2" or "uv2=uv1" or "uv2>uv1" or "uv2>uv1"
There is a way to have "Split" button only on selected shell?
Yozora: fixed and updated that on my server. It was just about displaying a image that explains for the first time how to drag macroscripts to the toolbar. It only happened to those with max versions below 2010.
pepp0r: about to add a extra catch there, so that you wont have the crash, did you applied it to a non poly object? anyway will add a extra if condition that will abort if undefined is returned. Will post a update later.
@renderhjs no it is a editable poly with a standart shader on it and BTW i use max 2010 x64, i use TexTools since you have released it :poly142: :thumbup: and with the older versio0ns i have no errors only with the newest version hope you fixed soon
Kind of, doesn´t replace original max files and since textools are out i didn´t even bother to use uv tools, because textools are just awesome and get better with every update.
Kind of, doesn´t replace original max files and since textools are out i didn´t even bother to use uv tools, because textools are just awesome and get better with every update.
Nice work renderhjs:poly121:
Some major difference from my point of view:
TexTools is newer and works with recent versions of 3dsMax (9+). I started development of TexTools with version 9 (though 2009 was already out there back then). My main max version I work and develop with these days is 2010.
There is no need for admin rights or the need to copy files manually to program files folders like many other scripts and plugins force you to. And I believe the installation is very easy and open, without modifying existing max files. There is even a uninstall option in the MZP setup that removes any former TexTools files on your system, including max generated macroscript links, windows temporary files (MZP related) and so on.
I have a strong interest in UV and Textures, so unlike other tools TexTools offers more in the direction of texture maps because I think the 2 are close related. Baking blockmaps for example is something I haven't seen anywhere else before.
With texTools I try to reduce working steps dramatically. Number of mouse clicks and interactions do count and for example if I can bake a texture map straight into the clipboard instead of a stupid dialog to ask me where to save it is something I wish other applications would offer.
You might notice that many tools are context sensitive, trying to be smart in the situation you are using them. Some tools detect the flow of things, other if you selected shells, edges or verts and so on.
Hey renderHJS, I know a while back I said I didn't see what the fuss was about with TexTools. Gave it another shot, I just wanted to say I was wrong. Downloading 4.10 now. I've Unwrapped a couple of characters and animals with TexTools riding shotgun, and just a handful of things like your stich and mirror alone make it worth it. Been doing some ill shit that would be a pain to do without TexTools. In fact, I haven't posted on Polycount in a little while because I've been busy working (go figure).
(mayaterror slinks back to forum shadows with tail between legs)
Look like a perfect version !!! Thanks a lot for the corrected checker map feature this is really really powerfull. You rock :thumbup:
Noticed one little thing : The new linear tool some time don't align perfectly all vertices even while pressing left mouse button or right mouse button. (The precision lost is about pixels).
Wished improvment (Oh please, please !) : Is it possible to get the textool checker
working with other uv channels ?
Airbrush & RenderHjs : I think that the "sort" option must sometime respect the original rotation of selected shells. Rotating them is not usually the best thing at a given moment.
Maybe using the right-click for a "Sort using actuall shell orientation" can be a good idea.
What i do actually in my everyday workflow is : Select some shells "Sort" them than place the first shell where i want (absolute left) place the last shell where i want (absolute right) and after i select all the sorted shell and hit the "Space shell button". That way all my shells are evenly spaced the way i want.
(Note : Space shell button is a really clever and smart feature !!!)
But sometime i need shell to be sorted without being re oriented .
-Was thinking about something else : I loved the old lost "Comp" feature. Why not returning it back into the "Align" feature. --> if you select an edge it align the shell like actually but if you select a shell it "Comp" immediatly the shell --> Maybe more of a case sensitive style.
Some time with the actuall "Align" we must re-orient a bit the shell than select an edge (Sometime need to zoom in if the edge are too small) and hit the "Align" button.
-Autodesk need guy like Renderhjs and PJanssen they are developping things into a more natural and efficient way. User oriented than juste software oriented. They are not just creating a feature. They're thinking the way they'll be used.
RenderHJS: Ever sense installing TexTools many versions ago I've had a problem in the UV editor thats never gone away (and has even propogated through later versions of the app when installed). That is, In the editor the non-border edges of shells are a dark grey, and are almost impossible to see. Pic:
Is their a way to fix this? I normally make the background a blindingly bright color when working so I can see them because of it, but I'd really rather not
That is because since Max2008 they added multi object unwrap support and starting with that max version inner edges are colored with the same color of your object wirecolor color (the wireframe color, that is available at the upper left corner next to the modifier drop down list in the modifier panel). So to fix that color change your wire color to something else than that dark grey
btw, thought I'd point this out: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75174
Guy was asking about auto-stacking similar UV shells, didn't texTools used to have a function for that (don't see anything like it atm)?
Few glitches thought I'd bring up too using 4.10 w/ Max 2009 x64. the TexTools menu seems to be stuck in one spot when the UV window isnt open. It can be moved but it'll just snap right back once released. The Mirror tool if pressed with nothing selected will give an error and repeatedly make the error noise until textools is closed.
Did you get rid of the "COMPR" button or functionality, I am not seeing it in 4. Looked useful.
Anyway, my problem. This image...
That tube did not unwrap well at all using the "PEEL" function. It came out quite gross. So I had to do a regular point-to-point seem and pelt map it the old fashioned way. When I was done I have a very boated looking mesh but was able to finagle it down to what you see in the UVW Unwrap window.
My problem, how do I space all the horizontal lines evenly? Ala this image?
I am having an incredibly annoying issue. I have tried the build in bake and changed the render-er to Mental Ray and Back... but now I cannot bake a regular Normal Map using the convention baking methods.
I hit render and -nothing- happens (actually I just noticed it says "Texture Baking Completed" down in the lower left of Max; though there is no file outputed [I always render to file and not into a material). I have quadruple checked all parameters.
A Restart of Max did not fix this issue.
EDIT: -IF- I let it automatically unwrap my mesh I do get a Render Window and a normal map. Otherwise it is as though it refuses to acknowledge that I have UV info in channel 1.
EDIT: Alright, I am a noob. I am not sure how, but my unwrap is on Channel 4, if I set Render to Texture on that channel it works. But how do I set my UVs (the way they are) Back to 1? And. I am not sure how everything got on 4, I have been doing this awhile now. Seems like an odd mistake to make.
I haven't been using Textools as we have a custom Unwrap interface at work which has been good enough for most of the jobs I have to deal with.
The new Bake TExture maps features look great though and the ability to bake AO, cavity maps etc a tthe click of one button looked good enough to get me to try the new version. At work I normally bake my AO with the light tracer method but I can't figure out how to pick the high and low poly object so that the lighting information of the high is baked onto the low. Am I being stupid and missing something obvious here that allows me to define the high and low objects?
Using the Ambient Occlusion button seems to automatically use whatever objects are in the scene to bake the AO (so if the high and low occupy the same space the high is used for the AO of the low) - I get black shadows wherever the high and low intersect however. Is there some sort of method which is going to allow me to stop the intersecting meshes rendering pure black while still projecting the AO information of the high onto the low?
Sorry if these are really obvious/ noobish questions!
I also don't care for the AO at all. It doesn't beat the result of using a skylight and a ground plane under your model. The output on the cavity map also didn't make sense when I used it.
Hello renderhjs, first BIG thank You for this tool
2nd, would it be hard to implement some better packing algoritms? if you know gile it has quite nice packing...
anyone have solution for this?
it's for lightmapping cause many times after unwrap and manual placement there is still a lot of empty space by default..
my toughts about automating it a little bit and reduce time and frustration when dealing with 300+ meshes... below
IDEA:
some switch mode >> arrange/select bigger and more important objects by % of size treshold >> make them fill desired square/rectangle (with packing/or manual placement) >> lock previous packed/arranged chunks >> calculate remaining free area >> calculate area of remaining chunks >> scale them to fit remaining area (?take packing offset into account) >> try to fill holes with remaining bigger chunks >> iterate trough not placed chunks >> scale and/or rotate and/or position them to fill remaining space
RESULT:
greater area coverage + various pixel density based on importance of surface for engines which can handle various pixel density.
it will greatly fall into your 2click/functions per button concept (automatic/semi-automatic )
Or if there is more relevant thread to presented idea can anyone direct me?
It is possible to reopen mapping dialog with unwrap assigned by TexTools if I set correct channel eg.: 2 wihout adding another unwrap over existin one with the same channel? Is this bug? Or can it be set somewhere?
The dock that goes above the UVW window never shows up [Pixel Unit Transform Floater], it used to but when i made the uvw window bigger is disappears, i can make the window smaller and it will come back but i have a dual monitor setup so i put 3ds on the right screen with the uvw window on the left.
could you add a button to bring that top toolbar back and also make it not Auto stick to the uvw window. That seems to be the root of the problems.
I have been busy at work (Haar Cascade, FLART tracking, 3d engines, C#, Unity3d, Silverlight,..) and private- lots of other things happend and I did not got the time reading or replying all questions and suggestios here.
But many posts are valueable to me and the project so this is a catching up with the last posts and a small update report at the end.
But sometime i need shell to be sorted without being re oriented .
I already have 2 modes for that button or tool used (vertical and horizontal flow). I actually though thought about that before as well but I would need to map it in another way - another button for it might be another way.
About the comp button, you can already use the 'sort' button on just one shell which behaves exactly the same, which is why I removed that button.
Guy was asking about auto-stacking similar UV shells, didn't texTools used to have a function for that (don't see anything like it atm)?
Yes this has been a long dream of me, having a stack function applies a perfect UV copy to a bunch of shells to one source shell, all with geo topology reference precision.
Right now I am already at my 5th code rescratch but I think I got it this time thanks to some limitations. But more about that later in my post.
Also thanks for the bug reports.
Did you get rid of the "COMPR" button or functionality, I am not seeing it in 4. Looked useful.
Use the sort function for that, it behaves the same if you apply it on just 1 shell. Thats why I removed them because it was overlapping functionality.
As for the spacing thing: Thats very tricky to solve in a scripting way - I guess it would have to select a ring and loop combination and then average them - but I guess it could never work out well for any situation. The picture you provided is rather simple but what about something that is devided in a more complex way or something that has a dounut shape or other complex things in it?.
I added a average shells script in the latest update but I don't see a way of doing that for edges or loop edges.
I am having an incredibly annoying issue. I have tried the build in bake and changed the render-er to Mental Ray and Back... but now I cannot bake a regular Normal Map using the convention baking methods.
That shouldn't happen but what could have happend is that baking properties to a object node (a node represents a object in max) wasn't cleared propper. And there is a simple way to avoid or fix that should you have that issue:
Just create a new node/ object in max like a poly and delete all the faces of it, then attach the other object that won't bake anymore to it. It should now bake again.
Also as for file by default it renders to the clipboard which is the same as if you ctrl+c a part in photoshop, msPaint, Painter and all other image editors in windows. SO once you baked a map and its done its stored in your clipboard so that you can paste it to Photoshop.
But with the latest release of TexTools you can choose if you want to:
store it to the clipboard
apply it as a material
save it the harddrive (a save dialog will appear once its done)
or just store it in the clipboard.
A mix or all of the 4 at the same time is also possible.
anyone got this working on max 2011 on win7 pro 64bit?
..
how did you do it? I followed the auto method and it failed and i tried the manual method and it failed any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have windows 7 64 bit at work with Max 2010 64bit and it works just like max 2009, 2008 and 9 booth in 32 or 64 bit. It also worked for me under Windows XP 32 bit.
Reasons why the setup could fail are:
- the user / windows temporary folder could not accessed or copied from. 3dsMax generates temporary files if you drop MZP (zip archives) into max so that it can access the scripts inside that archive. My setup searches for that temporary folder and the last TexTools related files.
If for some reason it can not find or access them you get that error message. It always worked for me so its rather tricky for me to understand what goes on if it fails for someone.
But maybe you have a very restricted windows?, in which user folders are more restricted? Or your company or admins bended user max files to a different folder or have some propritary folder setup which maxscript does not detect by default? I will try to work out something that makes it even easier to copy the files manually. If you still need a hand PM me and I will go it through with you.
I normally bake my AO with the light tracer method but I can't figure out how to pick the high and low poly object so that the lighting information of the high is baked onto the low. Am I being stupid and missing something obvious here that allows me to define the high and low objects?
Now you are right, there is no way atm. to define a high poly Object for the baking process, its all restricted to the same object that gets baked.
Beeing able to assign a high poly object would mean another level of complexity as you still need to be able to define a cage for example, tune the ray distance, exclude list and lots of other things. I wanted to keep things stupid easy - I guess for those things you would still have to go the manual way.
would it be hard to implement some better packing algoritms? if you know gile it has quite nice packing...
I know actually someone who wrote a custom packer for 3dsMax but it was done in the SDK and very simple. So far I haven't touched the SDK using c++, I am more the scripting guy and I think that the scripting stuff would be to slow or bloated to write. And yeah I agree max could use a new packer with all the research that went on the last couple of decades while max still didn't change at all.
Just found a little bug in the script.The texture size doesn't stay the same when i open TxMap tools.
Well not really a bug, maybe a misunderstanding however:
You need to close the Options dialog in order so save the changes to the textools ini file in the user folder. Only if those changes are saved will it be used next time you execute the checker tool for example.
Might change it perhaps, or force a close of the dialog once done.
Hey render, why can't I produce/bake texture maps that are bigger than 2048 size? Thanks.
With the new version you can save at least the image to your hard drive which should give you the ability to catch at least somehow.
As for why not beyond 2k, maybe its your OS or the software you are pasting the image into - which restricts you from using that size. I should check or test on my computer what the actual limit of the windows clipboard is, because maybe there is a limilt?
I could be wrong but I thought that I baked a 4k map before to my clipboard and it worked. Will look into it, until then use the newer version and add a check to the 'save..' checkbox within the bake floater of texTools.
The dock that goes above the UVW window never shows up [Pixel Unit Transform Floater], it used to but when i made the uvw window bigger is disappears, i can make the window smaller and it will come back but i have a dual monitor setup so i put 3ds on the right screen with the uvw window on the left.
could you add a button to bring that top toolbar back and also make it not Auto stick to the uvw window. That seems to be the root of the problems.
It was useful, i miss it :*(
well if it disappears just close and open the UV editor with the big button in TexTools that should re trigger the Transform toolbox at the top of the UVunwrap editor.
Having it not stick to the UVunwrap editor would be a mess and yet another floater you have to arrange somewhere somehow and always search for it if you really need it. I will look into the code if it caps at <0 like if its on the left screen which might count as negative x space for example - maybe something odd is going on there. It works however for me with 2 screens where the 2nd screen always is to the right of the first one.
so finally regarding updates:
I have been attempting 5 times now already writing a script that copies or transfers UV shell topology from one shell to others - so that you just need to unwrap or tweak one shell and paste that to the others. This would also be used to stack the topology of shells ontop of each other, and once it works perfectly it would be one of the coolest features of TexTools because it saves a hell lot of time unwrapping instances and alike.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX_SwTUDK1A[/ame]
The 2nd part of the video shows some trouble spots atm. which I hope to address - but I already have some ideas for that
a few notes:
It works with symetrical shells (mirrored, turn symetrical,...)
the source shell is placed in the upper left corner, any other shell with the same face count and seams will be 'mapped' or pasted with the source topology.
at the moment it doesn't stack them but keeps them in their relative position. Once the script works there will be 2ndary mode which stacks them on top of each other, whereas the other mode behaves like now.
you can also use it to orientate, scale shells in the same way as the source one.
Yo render awesome updates!!, can you output your uv's in textools to vectors / paths? Would be a really awesome feature used to use it in PSD PathUnwrapper.
Damn, that's one awesome tool there man, should be pretty handy, even with a couple of limitations! Can't wait to get my hands on this.
On a side note, I've been trying to use the Split tool to create UV islands from my smoothing groups but it keeps saying I have no smoothing groups in my mesh so it uses the default value of 60, but I clearly do have SG's. I've tried converting to Mesh, back to Poly, stacking an Edit Poly modifier...no dice. Any idea of what I'm doing wrong?
Just wanted to say that launching the UV Edit window throught the Textools interface button allowed me to use the Split tool, it's AWESOME. Thanks again.
Noors, I guess a temporary solution would be copy the mesh, then copy the UV from channel 2 to channel 1 and then fix it, and copy it back to the original mesh. (I always do it with a copy, just in case I fuck up )
Replies
just always use edit uv from th textool bar. Never from the unwrap modifier.
hope it's help
not sure at this point if it is triggered as well within the macroscript of that counter part of texTools, will look into it.
thanks again.
Linear:
Has 2 modes unlike the align buttons. The first mode just aligns the verts from their first vert to their last one (flow start and end). The 2nd mode aligns the same but within a 90 degree angle snap so either just U or V axis. So it is actually a very precise and smart tool combined.
Also recently added and changed with just 1 edge selected (only in its first mode) it selects a loop and then aligns it. This makes it very powerful and fast in certain situations.
Align:
Just like the gif animations explain, they align based on bounding box dimensions so its always most upper bound, left, right or bottom. And the same characteristic applies to shells which makes these buttons powerful for outer edges, verts or just aligning shells to a border.
Update time:
download: TexTools_4.10.mzp
a summary of changes:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74251
But with a gradient mix in the rendering process to get a nice ramp transition from worn edges to none.
Thanks so much Renderhjs
"Edit UV1" and "Edit UV2"
and why not add some quick access button like "uv1=uv2" or "uv2=uv1" or "uv2>uv1" or "uv2>uv1"
There is a way to have "Split" button only on selected shell?
Thanks for the update :thumbup:
Been using this since ver 1.x man! Your efforts are really apreciated.
Thank you!
by the way I get this error when installing;
3d max 2009, 64 bit.
It still works fine after I close the box though so nothing to worry about.
pepp0r: about to add a extra catch there, so that you wont have the crash, did you applied it to a non poly object? anyway will add a extra if condition that will abort if undefined is returned. Will post a update later.
Kind of, doesn´t replace original max files and since textools are out i didn´t even bother to use uv tools, because textools are just awesome and get better with every update.
Nice work renderhjs:poly121:
You might notice that many tools are context sensitive, trying to be smart in the situation you are using them. Some tools detect the flow of things, other if you selected shells, edges or verts and so on.
(mayaterror slinks back to forum shadows with tail between legs)
Just one little problem, the ao bake seems to only be baking my mesh faceted, it wont let me do it smooth.
Noticed one little thing : The new linear tool some time don't align perfectly all vertices even while pressing left mouse button or right mouse button. (The precision lost is about pixels).
Wished improvment (Oh please, please !) : Is it possible to get the textool checker
working with other uv channels ?
I do have smoothing groups!
Maybe using the right-click for a "Sort using actuall shell orientation" can be a good idea.
What i do actually in my everyday workflow is : Select some shells "Sort" them than place the first shell where i want (absolute left) place the last shell where i want (absolute right) and after i select all the sorted shell and hit the "Space shell button". That way all my shells are evenly spaced the way i want.
(Note : Space shell button is a really clever and smart feature !!!)
But sometime i need shell to be sorted without being re oriented .
-Was thinking about something else : I loved the old lost "Comp" feature. Why not returning it back into the "Align" feature. --> if you select an edge it align the shell like actually but if you select a shell it "Comp" immediatly the shell --> Maybe more of a case sensitive style.
Some time with the actuall "Align" we must re-orient a bit the shell than select an edge (Sometime need to zoom in if the edge are too small) and hit the "Align" button.
-Autodesk need guy like Renderhjs and PJanssen they are developping things into a more natural and efficient way. User oriented than juste software oriented. They are not just creating a feature. They're thinking the way they'll be used.
Thanks guy !!!!
Is their a way to fix this? I normally make the background a blindingly bright color when working so I can see them because of it, but I'd really rather not
btw, thought I'd point this out: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75174
Guy was asking about auto-stacking similar UV shells, didn't texTools used to have a function for that (don't see anything like it atm)?
Few glitches thought I'd bring up too using 4.10 w/ Max 2009 x64. the TexTools menu seems to be stuck in one spot when the UV window isnt open. It can be moved but it'll just snap right back once released. The Mirror tool if pressed with nothing selected will give an error and repeatedly make the error noise until textools is closed.
Did you get rid of the "COMPR" button or functionality, I am not seeing it in 4. Looked useful.
Anyway, my problem. This image...
That tube did not unwrap well at all using the "PEEL" function. It came out quite gross. So I had to do a regular point-to-point seem and pelt map it the old fashioned way. When I was done I have a very boated looking mesh but was able to finagle it down to what you see in the UVW Unwrap window.
My problem, how do I space all the horizontal lines evenly? Ala this image?
I hit render and -nothing- happens (actually I just noticed it says "Texture Baking Completed" down in the lower left of Max; though there is no file outputed [I always render to file and not into a material). I have quadruple checked all parameters.
A Restart of Max did not fix this issue.
EDIT: -IF- I let it automatically unwrap my mesh I do get a Render Window and a normal map. Otherwise it is as though it refuses to acknowledge that I have UV info in channel 1.
EDIT: Alright, I am a noob. I am not sure how, but my unwrap is on Channel 4, if I set Render to Texture on that channel it works. But how do I set my UVs (the way they are) Back to 1? And. I am not sure how everything got on 4, I have been doing this awhile now. Seems like an odd mistake to make.
The new Bake TExture maps features look great though and the ability to bake AO, cavity maps etc a tthe click of one button looked good enough to get me to try the new version. At work I normally bake my AO with the light tracer method but I can't figure out how to pick the high and low poly object so that the lighting information of the high is baked onto the low. Am I being stupid and missing something obvious here that allows me to define the high and low objects?
Using the Ambient Occlusion button seems to automatically use whatever objects are in the scene to bake the AO (so if the high and low occupy the same space the high is used for the AO of the low) - I get black shadows wherever the high and low intersect however. Is there some sort of method which is going to allow me to stop the intersecting meshes rendering pure black while still projecting the AO information of the high onto the low?
Sorry if these are really obvious/ noobish questions!
2nd, would it be hard to implement some better packing algoritms? if you know gile it has quite nice packing...
anyone have solution for this?
it's for lightmapping cause many times after unwrap and manual placement there is still a lot of empty space by default..
my toughts about automating it a little bit and reduce time and frustration when dealing with 300+ meshes... below
IDEA:
some switch mode >> arrange/select bigger and more important objects by % of size treshold >> make them fill desired square/rectangle (with packing/or manual placement) >> lock previous packed/arranged chunks >> calculate remaining free area >> calculate area of remaining chunks >> scale them to fit remaining area (?take packing offset into account) >> try to fill holes with remaining bigger chunks >> iterate trough not placed chunks >> scale and/or rotate and/or position them to fill remaining space
RESULT:
greater area coverage + various pixel density based on importance of surface for engines which can handle various pixel density.
it will greatly fall into your 2click/functions per button concept
Or if there is more relevant thread to presented idea can anyone direct me?
Just found a little bug in the script.The texture size doesn't stay the same when i open TxMap tools.
To reproduce the bug :
1. Run Textools
2. Change the size of the texture.
3. Then click on Txmap button
It reverts the texture size to the initial size which was there before.
Thanks
Bump
Thanks renderhjs...
could you add a button to bring that top toolbar back and also make it not Auto stick to the uvw window. That seems to be the root of the problems.
It was useful, i miss it :*(
But many posts are valueable to me and the project so this is a catching up with the last posts and a small update report at the end.
Cathodeus: I already have 2 modes for that button or tool used (vertical and horizontal flow). I actually though thought about that before as well but I would need to map it in another way - another button for it might be another way.
About the comp button, you can already use the 'sort' button on just one shell which behaves exactly the same, which is why I removed that button.
PolyHertz: Yes this has been a long dream of me, having a stack function applies a perfect UV copy to a bunch of shells to one source shell, all with geo topology reference precision.
Right now I am already at my 5th code rescratch but I think I got it this time thanks to some limitations. But more about that later in my post.
Also thanks for the bug reports.
Incomitatum: Use the sort function for that, it behaves the same if you apply it on just 1 shell. Thats why I removed them because it was overlapping functionality.
As for the spacing thing: Thats very tricky to solve in a scripting way - I guess it would have to select a ring and loop combination and then average them - but I guess it could never work out well for any situation. The picture you provided is rather simple but what about something that is devided in a more complex way or something that has a dounut shape or other complex things in it?.
I added a average shells script in the latest update but I don't see a way of doing that for edges or loop edges. That shouldn't happen but what could have happend is that baking properties to a object node (a node represents a object in max) wasn't cleared propper. And there is a simple way to avoid or fix that should you have that issue:
Just create a new node/ object in max like a poly and delete all the faces of it, then attach the other object that won't bake anymore to it. It should now bake again.
Also as for file by default it renders to the clipboard which is the same as if you ctrl+c a part in photoshop, msPaint, Painter and all other image editors in windows. SO once you baked a map and its done its stored in your clipboard so that you can paste it to Photoshop.
But with the latest release of TexTools you can choose if you want to:
- store it to the clipboard
- apply it as a material
- save it the harddrive (a save dialog will appear once its done)
- or just store it in the clipboard.
A mix or all of the 4 at the same time is also possible.quyeno: I have windows 7 64 bit at work with Max 2010 64bit and it works just like max 2009, 2008 and 9 booth in 32 or 64 bit. It also worked for me under Windows XP 32 bit.
Reasons why the setup could fail are:
- the user / windows temporary folder could not accessed or copied from. 3dsMax generates temporary files if you drop MZP (zip archives) into max so that it can access the scripts inside that archive. My setup searches for that temporary folder and the last TexTools related files.
If for some reason it can not find or access them you get that error message. It always worked for me so its rather tricky for me to understand what goes on if it fails for someone.
But maybe you have a very restricted windows?, in which user folders are more restricted? Or your company or admins bended user max files to a different folder or have some propritary folder setup which maxscript does not detect by default? I will try to work out something that makes it even easier to copy the files manually. If you still need a hand PM me and I will go it through with you.
FAT_CAP: Now you are right, there is no way atm. to define a high poly Object for the baking process, its all restricted to the same object that gets baked.
Beeing able to assign a high poly object would mean another level of complexity as you still need to be able to define a cage for example, tune the ray distance, exclude list and lots of other things. I wanted to keep things stupid easy - I guess for those things you would still have to go the manual way.
cupsster: I know actually someone who wrote a custom packer for 3dsMax but it was done in the SDK and very simple. So far I haven't touched the SDK using c++, I am more the scripting guy and I think that the scripting stuff would be to slow or bloated to write. And yeah I agree max could use a new packer with all the research that went on the last couple of decades while max still didn't change at all.
animax: Well not really a bug, maybe a misunderstanding however:
You need to close the Options dialog in order so save the changes to the textools ini file in the user folder. Only if those changes are saved will it be used next time you execute the checker tool for example.
Might change it perhaps, or force a close of the dialog once done.
boyluya: With the new version you can save at least the image to your hard drive which should give you the ability to catch at least somehow.
As for why not beyond 2k, maybe its your OS or the software you are pasting the image into - which restricts you from using that size. I should check or test on my computer what the actual limit of the windows clipboard is, because maybe there is a limilt?
I could be wrong but I thought that I baked a 4k map before to my clipboard and it worked. Will look into it, until then use the newer version and add a check to the 'save..' checkbox within the bake floater of texTools.
@lloyd: well if it disappears just close and open the UV editor with the big button in TexTools that should re trigger the Transform toolbox at the top of the UVunwrap editor.
Having it not stick to the UVunwrap editor would be a mess and yet another floater you have to arrange somewhere somehow and always search for it if you really need it. I will look into the code if it caps at <0 like if its on the left screen which might count as negative x space for example - maybe something odd is going on there. It works however for me with 2 screens where the 2nd screen always is to the right of the first one.
so finally regarding updates:
I have been attempting 5 times now already writing a script that copies or transfers UV shell topology from one shell to others - so that you just need to unwrap or tweak one shell and paste that to the others. This would also be used to stack the topology of shells ontop of each other, and once it works perfectly it would be one of the coolest features of TexTools because it saves a hell lot of time unwrapping instances and alike.
[ame]
The 2nd part of the video shows some trouble spots atm. which I hope to address - but I already have some ideas for that
a few notes:
I just typed 9.530 characters, time to get to bed
On a side note, I've been trying to use the Split tool to create UV islands from my smoothing groups but it keeps saying I have no smoothing groups in my mesh so it uses the default value of 60, but I clearly do have SG's. I've tried converting to Mesh, back to Poly, stacking an Edit Poly modifier...no dice. Any idea of what I'm doing wrong?