When he talks about the Mudbox workflow, he says he did the polypaint within Mudbox and then I kinda got lost when he's talking about it working well with Photoshop and then he didn't talk about transferring the polypaint.
So with that workflow, if the hi res sculpt is polypainted before the mesh is unwrapped, how do you then bring in the retopo'd mesh that does have UV's if you see what I mean?
I'm a ZBrush user and not really familiar with Mudbox (although I've been meaning to check it out) and can't see how you'd transfer a polypaint from a sculpt that isn't unwrapped, to a retopo'd mesh that was created in a different app (Maya in this case),
Unless I'm missing something.
Hopefully I explained that badly enough so you're as confused as I am about the polypaint workflow.
creationtwentytwo: I don't think Mudbox uses "polypaint" as you're thinking of it, it actually paints proper textures (which is more useful, really!), so yes, you need UVs on your sculpt. Fortunately it's really easy to UV the control mesh of a base sculpt (even after you've sculpted it) so your textures will just be applied to that UV layout. You can then bake them however you want.
It was a nice demo video, those guys know what they're talking about. It was nice to see a few parallels with the workflows we've been developing at our studio too.
Well yes, you can transfer textures between any meshes with UVs using baking tools. If your sculpt is UV'ed and has a texture, you can bake that to a different mesh (in this case, low-poly game mesh). Basic stuff.
Yea, you need to unwrap the sculpt, but the benefit is that you can then save out your maps with layers as a psd and work in photoshop (in mud2011 at least, in mud2010/2009 the layers have to exported individually). They bake the maps from the high to the low in xnormal, so they get the normal + diffuse at the same time and it remains seamless.
I didn't realise you could bake the diffuse... so you have your sculpted and painted high res, then you stick both that and the retopo'd / unwrapped mesh into Xnormal and you get out the diffuse / normal / whatever else from XNormal?
creationtwentytwo: Thats about the just of it. You can do map transfers like that in Max/Maya/etc. also, its not something thats new or exclusive to xnormal.
Progg: Its been available online for about 2 years now, called DiamantUV. Can get it here.
I was personally wondering how much of the Mudbox part was just thrown in for Autodesk/GDC, seeing how Rich Diamant started a big U2:AT thread at ZBC and seems to show many of his assets in it on his site. Interesting video regardless.
Replies
I have a question though to those in the know.
When he talks about the Mudbox workflow, he says he did the polypaint within Mudbox and then I kinda got lost when he's talking about it working well with Photoshop and then he didn't talk about transferring the polypaint.
So with that workflow, if the hi res sculpt is polypainted before the mesh is unwrapped, how do you then bring in the retopo'd mesh that does have UV's if you see what I mean?
I'm a ZBrush user and not really familiar with Mudbox (although I've been meaning to check it out) and can't see how you'd transfer a polypaint from a sculpt that isn't unwrapped, to a retopo'd mesh that was created in a different app (Maya in this case),
Unless I'm missing something.
Hopefully I explained that badly enough so you're as confused as I am about the polypaint workflow.
It was a nice demo video, those guys know what they're talking about. It was nice to see a few parallels with the workflows we've been developing at our studio too.
So you need to UV the base mesh, paint the sculpt, and then it transfers to the in game retopo'd model? Wait.. what? Lol I'm still confused.
I didn't realise you could bake the diffuse... so you have your sculpted and painted high res, then you stick both that and the retopo'd / unwrapped mesh into Xnormal and you get out the diffuse / normal / whatever else from XNormal?
WTB that UV script and realtime UV editor display of UV warping... looks like Roadkill but 20 times better and inside of Maya.
Progg: Its been available online for about 2 years now, called DiamantUV. Can get it here.
Read the post I made above yours...Its called DiamantUV, and yes, despite the name its for more then just UVs.
.... Damn no love for Maya 8
whoops. Thought it was UV only
I wonder how AD felt about all the 3rd party stuff
right ch'ere! (that shit is awesome)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand xNormal! wohoooooooooo
definitely some cool tools