Mudbox painting workflow
Hey there,
I'm having trouble getting my head around the workflow I should be using to paint textures in Mudbox.
This is largely due to the fact I've barely ever used Mudbox before, and partly because I've always done my texturing in 2D.
Seeing an increase in people using 3D painting tools as well as the recent Naughty Dog session for Autodesk has inspired me to give it a shot. Painting the diffuse and specular looks awesome and it's something I wanna try out.
I'm coming from a ZBrush background and I just have no idea how to figure out the workflow for painting a mesh in Mudbox.
Here's my current workflow for most characters/assets:
Base mesh in Max (or ZSpheres occasionally) into ZBrush (without UVs) sculpt (and decimate if necessary), export to OBJ, retopo, UV the retopo'd mesh in Max and bake in Max or XNormal.
From the videos of the new Mudbox, it looks like you can get your UV map in the viewport and paint in either 2D or 3D, but does this mean you're painting on the Low poly version after it has UV's... or do you have to UV the high poly (surely not?!!?!).
That's the bit that confuses me, I'm guessing you can UV your base mesh before bringing it into Mud, but then how would you transfer the texture to your final low poly if you see what I mean.
I explained that badly probably but hopefully you understand.
Thanks
I'm having trouble getting my head around the workflow I should be using to paint textures in Mudbox.
This is largely due to the fact I've barely ever used Mudbox before, and partly because I've always done my texturing in 2D.
Seeing an increase in people using 3D painting tools as well as the recent Naughty Dog session for Autodesk has inspired me to give it a shot. Painting the diffuse and specular looks awesome and it's something I wanna try out.
I'm coming from a ZBrush background and I just have no idea how to figure out the workflow for painting a mesh in Mudbox.
Here's my current workflow for most characters/assets:
Base mesh in Max (or ZSpheres occasionally) into ZBrush (without UVs) sculpt (and decimate if necessary), export to OBJ, retopo, UV the retopo'd mesh in Max and bake in Max or XNormal.
From the videos of the new Mudbox, it looks like you can get your UV map in the viewport and paint in either 2D or 3D, but does this mean you're painting on the Low poly version after it has UV's... or do you have to UV the high poly (surely not?!!?!).
That's the bit that confuses me, I'm guessing you can UV your base mesh before bringing it into Mud, but then how would you transfer the texture to your final low poly if you see what I mean.
I explained that badly probably but hopefully you understand.
Thanks
Replies
I saw in the videos you could save out the different mat channels as a layered PSD which I'm guessing can't be done if you bake the texture onto a different, retopo'd mesh?
if you want to paint on the highpoly then probably yes. i don't think it's capable of projecting everything you paint from a highpoly to the lowpoly with the final UVs in realtime.
it might very well be possible to bake from a highpoly to a retopoed lowpoly and get it all in a layered psd as a result, but i dont bake things in mudbox so i dont know.
What mud is good at for painting :
-Give your base mesh some quick UVS
-Sculpt
-Paint on the finished sculpt, using paint layers : one for Diffuse, one for Spec, one for Gloss
then :
-Export these 3 channels as 3 separate files
-Double check in photoshop how the transparency looks like (might have to fill with either black or white depending on the type of map
-In Xnormal, bake to your lowpoly. Use a texture for the highpoly 'diffuse', and do it for the 3 channels you prepared.
Done!
I wouldnt even try to use it to paint the diffuse map of an already baked lowpoly asset for instance. Not much use for that really.
If you forgot to give the highpoly basemesh proper UVs, you can always export all your levels separately, give some UVs to lvl0, and reimport the subdivision levels one by one, hence recreating your highpoly now with UVs ready for painting.
your textures are saved as you paint in a folder called "your file name"_files. All you need to do is pick the brush tool and start painting provided that your model is already uv mapped.
painting in mudbox is as simple as anything could possibly be and it has pretty much the same shortcuts as sculpting.
all you need to do is actually watch that 2 minute video that shows you how to paint. and that's about it.
It was the specular thing I was most confused about. So you technically apply the spec map as a diffuse when baking right?
Am I right in thinking that the paint tools and UV viewer etc are more designed for people who only intend to use the model in it's high poly state, ie film/animation/stills and the UVs and maps they see in Mudbox will be final?
Thanks
Good luck!
By the way guys. Is there any custom mudbox-specific realtime shaders to be found anywhere ? I am surprised its so hard to find. Everybody was so happy when they announced this for 2009/2010 but I see it very rarely used. Would love an image-based shader compatible with diffuse/spec/gloss ...
Thanks a lot Pior, I've just had a quick play around and got a diff/spec map saved out of Mudbox and then baked in XNormal so I think I finally understand it!
Thanks for being patient
Also I still have to figure out the real differences between spec1/gloss1 and spec2/gloss2, its weird!
with a diffuse, spec, gloss, incandescence, reflection mask, bump and a normalmap channel...
and the paint tools are also improved...
if you like a white or grey image in the base layer you could import one...
This release feels like the best since Mud1. Fantastic stuff all around.
I still kinda wish there was a way to combine the default Mud material with a litsphere one. But I'll do it in Photoshop as post I guess.
(edit : they kindof fucked up this new shader tho haha. Check that horizon line! Thats so funny hehe. Hoping that the bugreport form actually works and that critical bugs are being addressed ...)
Couple quick questions about Mudbox...
Firstly, is there any similar materials to the Ralph Stumpf clay matcaps for ZBrush? One thing I really don't like about Mudbox is that the materials look a bit crappy in my opinion. I don't know if anyone else notices this but I feel I can't sculpt well with bad looking mats. I remember when I switched out of 'red clay' for the first time in ZBrush and felt like I'd improved about 1000%.
Secondly, is there a decent alternative to the claytube brush? (I could check this tomorrow but I'm not at my comp right now).
Thanks
Matcaps = Rightclick > Assign new material > Litsphere
http://vimeo.com/7916648
http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/lit_sphere_material_closer_look
Or just use the import UVs option
But a better alpha hair plain workflow would be better.
pior - couldn't it effectively be used to negate the 'seams' problem of painting a diffuse?
What i don't understand w/ mudbox paint layers workflow regarding gameart is :
Do you paint on the high sculpt or the 'baked/optimised' lowpoly? - (i haven't tried) but i am unware of any ability to bake the high poly's diffuse onto a low poly...
I know it can bake normals and displacement - but not diffuse paint layers?
hmm.