@ironbearxl: yes, maybe. It's all about the tangents on your mesh matching the tangents used for baking. If you use a .mesh in xNormal you are more likely to get a closer match than using a .obj file (obj files do not contain tangents, so any app that loads one has to generate them its self).
I know marmoset uses them, but I haven't seen them elsewhere.
And I don't think there are lots of exporters for it.
For example, Earthquake used modo, but I think that for exports he sent the model to Maya for the .mesh exporter.
Attempting to do some searching on how to make my own skyboxes....I make my own HDR environment spheres for maya, I was thinking it would be fun to do a skybox set in the middle of the street here in Seattle. Any suggestions? With the sky box files, for each there are some dds files, an env file, and the skybox texture...hummmmm
I know marmoset uses them, but I haven't seen them elsewhere.
And I don't think there are lots of exporters for it.
For example, Earthquake used modo, but I think that for exports he sent the model to Maya for the .mesh exporter.
You could import a .obj into toolbag and save it as a .mesh too.
A .mesh is not the same as an ogre .mesh, they just ended up with the same file extension by coincidence. An 8monkey mesh is a format unique to marmoset.
And having default settings on open might not be a bad idea ;-)
Just purchased to have a play with - looks great so far.
You mentioned you provide a tools to switch a license between machine and I am presuming this is LicenseTransfer.bat?
Just wondering how the LicenseTransfer.bat tool works, if I want to move my licsense to another machine. It's not something I just want to go experimenting with to find out
Yes, the bat file is what's used, and it might be self explanatory, but if you want you can read the details of how it works in the documentation (included pdf file). It's not as dangerous a process as it might sound
Im demoing at the moment and i noticed that the spec/gloss map are composed into one map. Would it be possible in future release to seperate these. I itterate my spec and gloss alot and constantly comping them is a pain in the ass. It'd be much more user friendly to seperate the maps.
just installed the Trial and wow..... things have changed! for the better! Going to have to get into doing some animation now it looks so fantastic. Great work guys! Might have to buy.......hmmmmm
@BlackulaDZ: Thats... pretty weird. Unfortunately it doesn't have much to do with toolbag, since that error is coming from the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 redistributable installer (which we just included with the toolbag install, but we didn't create). It's probable that toolbag still installed correctly, but if it doesn't you might want to try installing this:
i get the same 1935 error when trying to install the c++ redist, i tried the 64 bit version too. also wthe toolbad did install it seems, but I get this when I launch it
I think a system restore is in my near future
Oh man Andy that picture gets me every time I see it
Thanks for the suggestions but the bleed is not the issue, I just over bled a couple pieces and it still does it.....
and the background color isn't it either, its not like the these seams are geometry seams allowing me to see the bg color behind it....its in the texture (set the bg to hot pink...didn't show through)
I will try to produce this on another computer tomorrow and post results
After purchasing and spending some time playing with the new release, I'm loving it.
Just a few requests/suggestions.
Coming from an environment/prop ART perspective it would be great to have the following:
* Abilty to blend Materials using vert colours/alpha, 3 or 4 would be nice to allow dirt/grime variations to break up tiling textures.
* Diffuse colour tint
* Second/Third UV channel option for blended Materials
* A simple terrain editor to allow us to place a floor terrain and sculpt it, then blend custom Materials, make pathways/roads etc also using above (see UnrealED, Hammer, Chrome Engine, CryEngine etc).
* Sky Boxes without the grass etc that will look better if there is as above a terrain made or a custom floor mesh modelled.
OS X eh? We're looking into it, but no promises yet We do think a bunch of people and institutions would be interested in a mac version, and the core technology at work in toolbag should be fairly portable, but we'll have to take a deeper look.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, keep em coming.
hey guys, really liking the new marmoset Just wanted to ask if there was a good way to stop these appearing?
The mesh isnt all welded, but even on a test mesh with a welded edge the light still leaks out down the side of the edge. Is it a scale problem? or is there a way to stop it?
Hi guys, I'm trying out this software and so far it's great!
I'm having a problem with alphas, basically I can't get a smooth transition in the transparency, I tried all sort of blending and alpha threshold setting but can't get it working properly. Is there something I do wrong? How to get clean transparency?
Here is a screengrab of the problem:
Is there a way to update a mesh without a complete material wipe? Each time I re-import the same object (with minor mesh updates) the material list is wiped clean. I have to load and re-apply all my materials again. This would be a very useful feature!
As far as the "leaking" shadows go - I have a fix of sorts in the latest (not yet released) build we're working on here. It gives the user the option for shadows to be cast in one of two ways, and one of them eliminates the leaks.
If anybody cares to know, this whole shadow aliasing/leaking/shimmering issue is one that hasn't been solved properly for real time rendering yet. Any game that gets good results is usually doing so through a careful balancing act to hide the artifacts. It's still an active area of research. In our case we have a little more wiggle room because performance isn't quite so important (at least in toolbag), so in the future we might try a more complicated solution if our users demand it.
As far as the hair rendering goes - alpha testing will get you consistent results sorting-wise, but we do not have per-triangle sorting in toolbag yet, and even that wouldn't fully solve the blending problem. What you're trying to do is a little difficult for a real time renderer, but you may see better results if you use a combination of alpha blending and alpha testing (alpha test only pixels with alpha just above zero, and use blending to get softer edges).
@Oniram with the pistol model: I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing. It looks like some sort of UV export issue, since once the UVs are loaded in toolbag they are not manipulated at all. If that is an OBJ as you say, triangulating it before export from your modeling package might be helpful.
A another question about Alphas. Can I get partial transparency like 50%? For making transparent glas/plastic and stuff? All I've gotten so far is the object either visible or hidden.
aajohnny3d: Try the usual - make sure your graphics drivers are up to date, and that you meet the system specs. If that doesnt work, post a bit more detail here.
A another question about Alphas. Can I get partial transparency like 50%? For making transparent glas/plastic and stuff? All I've gotten so far is the object either visible or hidden.
If you want to get some good semi-transparent glass/plastic materials, I'd recommend using the ComplexRefraction channel model. You can use the alpha channel of the Spec map to add fancy, detailed, varying levels of transparency to your hearts content.
There are technical limitations with using alpha blend modes on any other material channel models (Phong, Aniso, etc...). You won't get proper sorting against the skybox, but alpha blending should work against other 3d geometry.
Thanks jeffdr for the explanation, tweaking those values gives me a good compromise at the end and I also paint a new alpha with less gradient at the tips and it works better now. Thanks again!
A another question about Alphas. Can I get partial transparency like 50%? For making transparent glas/plastic and stuff? All I've gotten so far is the object either visible or hidden.
The alpha channel of the diffuse map will be used for alpha blending. If you set the alpha value to 50% then you would get what you're looking for i'd bet.
This is what I was afraid of would happen with this DRM.
I run a striped RAID setup, and one of the drives died earlier this week. This of course changes my hardware ID as I decided to get two new higher capacity drives and RAID up again.
Obviously I wasn't able to transfer my license from my dead PC in this situation. I can run the trial for the time being, but how do I go about sorting this issue?
This is what I was afraid of would happen with this DRM.
I run a striped RAID setup, and one of the drives died earlier this week. This of course changes my hardware ID as I decided to get two new higher capacity drives and RAID up again.
Obviously I wasn't able to transfer my license from my dead PC in this situation. I can run the trial for the time being, but how do I go about sorting this issue?
Yeah, I have to say it, the people at monkeylabs are nice, they helped me to get my license running again after an hardware update, don't be afraid to buy for that reason, they seems like a reasonable bunch
Hi, awesome tool, thanks.
This is actually not an issue with the new toolbag, as I found it in the old one as well, but I really want to use the new one..so there you go
there are funny lines and triangles on my model, looks like really low quality shading on the surface, and especially where there's light hitting on it, otherwise it's less worse but the artifacts still visible.
Nothing more is wrong, just the funny looking shading. It wouldn't kill the model, but its really distractingly bad for the presentation and I don't see that in any of other ppl's render, shadings all good and smooth.
Is it becuase my card? I use ATI X1400. It's lower than the lowest spec I know, but I figure x1600 is not that different from mine so...
here are the screen shots.
I post this in the toolbag masterthread as well, sorry for cluttering the space but I'm itching for an answer.(and I dont know how to delete a post)
Hi I am having an issue trying to import my obj into the toolbag.
Well the issue is it is not importing it at all. I tried both OBJ and FBX and neither brought the mesh into the viewer. But it will import my other OBJs into the viewer. There is no error message to pop up when I attempt to import my obj/fbx.
Hi I am having an issue trying to import my obj into the toolbag.
If other meshes are loading fine for you and this one isn't, then very likely something is different in your export process. Try opening those obj or fbx files in another modeling app, and see if they don't load there either.
I though that my obj/fbx from max would be broken or corrupt so I imported the obj into maya and it opened fine.
Another idea I had was to break up the mesh into smaller pieces thinking the toolbag was having a problem loading my many parted obj. But that was a no go when It would not import a single obj with about 250 tris.
Replies
Awesome, thanks Jeff.
There is an exporter available for Maya and you can use them in xNormal.
@Jeff,
Is the 8ML .mesh the same as the ogre .mesh format?
And I don't think there are lots of exporters for it.
For example, Earthquake used modo, but I think that for exports he sent the model to Maya for the .mesh exporter.
You could import a .obj into toolbag and save it as a .mesh too.
And having default settings on open might not be a bad idea ;-)
Just purchased to have a play with - looks great so far.
You mentioned you provide a tools to switch a license between machine and I am presuming this is LicenseTransfer.bat?
Just wondering how the LicenseTransfer.bat tool works, if I want to move my licsense to another machine. It's not something I just want to go experimenting with to find out
Cheers
Stu
blarg.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32bc1bee-a3f9-4c13-9c99-220b62a191ee&displaylang=en
I think a system restore is in my near future
At my texture seams (uv island borders), when I zoom out a little, a black nasty seam apears
Any fixes? It appears even when I use the take shot feature....
What a bummer, I just got the full license
Try increasing the texture bleed or changing the background colour to match the affected parts and see if that helps.
Thanks for the suggestions but the bleed is not the issue, I just over bled a couple pieces and it still does it.....
and the background color isn't it either, its not like the these seams are geometry seams allowing me to see the bg color behind it....its in the texture (set the bg to hot pink...didn't show through)
I will try to produce this on another computer tomorrow and post results
If you want to PM the files, i will check them here if you like.
Glad you got it fixed
After purchasing and spending some time playing with the new release, I'm loving it.
Just a few requests/suggestions.
Coming from an environment/prop ART perspective it would be great to have the following:
* Abilty to blend Materials using vert colours/alpha, 3 or 4 would be nice to allow dirt/grime variations to break up tiling textures.
* Diffuse colour tint
* Second/Third UV channel option for blended Materials
* A simple terrain editor to allow us to place a floor terrain and sculpt it, then blend custom Materials, make pathways/roads etc also using above (see UnrealED, Hammer, Chrome Engine, CryEngine etc).
* Sky Boxes without the grass etc that will look better if there is as above a terrain made or a custom floor mesh modelled.
Thanks
Stu
is there any way to export out a turntable animation?
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, keep em coming.
The mesh isnt all welded, but even on a test mesh with a welded edge the light still leaks out down the side of the edge. Is it a scale problem? or is there a way to stop it?
By bigern77 at 2010-08-14
I reported the same issue on page 4 and Jeff said they are looking into it.
Hopefully it will be fixed in the next release
I'm having a problem with alphas, basically I can't get a smooth transition in the transparency, I tried all sort of blending and alpha threshold setting but can't get it working properly. Is there something I do wrong? How to get clean transparency?
Here is a screengrab of the problem:
Thanks in advance!
im wondering also if thats because its a .obj instead of a .mesh
Is there a way to update a mesh without a complete material wipe? Each time I re-import the same object (with minor mesh updates) the material list is wiped clean. I have to load and re-apply all my materials again. This would be a very useful feature!
Otherwise this thing is perfect.
If anybody cares to know, this whole shadow aliasing/leaking/shimmering issue is one that hasn't been solved properly for real time rendering yet. Any game that gets good results is usually doing so through a careful balancing act to hide the artifacts. It's still an active area of research. In our case we have a little more wiggle room because performance isn't quite so important (at least in toolbag), so in the future we might try a more complicated solution if our users demand it.
As far as the hair rendering goes - alpha testing will get you consistent results sorting-wise, but we do not have per-triangle sorting in toolbag yet, and even that wouldn't fully solve the blending problem. What you're trying to do is a little difficult for a real time renderer, but you may see better results if you use a combination of alpha blending and alpha testing (alpha test only pixels with alpha just above zero, and use blending to get softer edges).
@Oniram with the pistol model: I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing. It looks like some sort of UV export issue, since once the UVs are loaded in toolbag they are not manipulated at all. If that is an OBJ as you say, triangulating it before export from your modeling package might be helpful.
If you want to get some good semi-transparent glass/plastic materials, I'd recommend using the ComplexRefraction channel model. You can use the alpha channel of the Spec map to add fancy, detailed, varying levels of transparency to your hearts content.
There are technical limitations with using alpha blend modes on any other material channel models (Phong, Aniso, etc...). You won't get proper sorting against the skybox, but alpha blending should work against other 3d geometry.
The alpha channel of the diffuse map will be used for alpha blending. If you set the alpha value to 50% then you would get what you're looking for i'd bet.
I run a striped RAID setup, and one of the drives died earlier this week. This of course changes my hardware ID as I decided to get two new higher capacity drives and RAID up again.
Obviously I wasn't able to transfer my license from my dead PC in this situation. I can run the trial for the time being, but how do I go about sorting this issue?
No problem, email toolbag@8monkeylabs.com and we will help you get up and running again.
This is actually not an issue with the new toolbag, as I found it in the old one as well, but I really want to use the new one..so there you go
there are funny lines and triangles on my model, looks like really low quality shading on the surface, and especially where there's light hitting on it, otherwise it's less worse but the artifacts still visible.
Nothing more is wrong, just the funny looking shading. It wouldn't kill the model, but its really distractingly bad for the presentation and I don't see that in any of other ppl's render, shadings all good and smooth.
Is it becuase my card? I use ATI X1400. It's lower than the lowest spec I know, but I figure x1600 is not that different from mine so...
here are the screen shots.
I post this in the toolbag masterthread as well, sorry for cluttering the space but I'm itching for an answer.(and I dont know how to delete a post)
Well the issue is it is not importing it at all. I tried both OBJ and FBX and neither brought the mesh into the viewer. But it will import my other OBJs into the viewer. There is no error message to pop up when I attempt to import my obj/fbx.
Am I doing something wrong?
If other meshes are loading fine for you and this one isn't, then very likely something is different in your export process. Try opening those obj or fbx files in another modeling app, and see if they don't load there either.
I though that my obj/fbx from max would be broken or corrupt so I imported the obj into maya and it opened fine.
Another idea I had was to break up the mesh into smaller pieces thinking the toolbag was having a problem loading my many parted obj. But that was a no go when It would not import a single obj with about 250 tris.