Toolbag 1.02 is due out soon and with it comes a whole new bag of goodies! Among other notable new features: a skin shader that does not suck. You can now specify a skin map, a translucency map, and have control over the dermis and subdermis color. Even shadows work properly (oh em gee)!
I'm finding it a bit of a pain cos I work accross a couple of machines.
Without buying a second license I would have to constantly switch it between them.
I also use music software and a number of music software companies either use a dongle system (tie the license to say a USB stick) or say 5 license activations that once used up need to be reset via a secure members area login on the site which list all your software and licenses. See IK Multimedia for an example
Can't seem to find any setting that would cause this... :poly141:
Well I can tell you that's the AO, and its rendering upside down. This is a problem we had in the engine a long time ago, and it was eventually fixed for us by video driver updates. On an ATI card by any chance? :-P
Well I can tell you that's the AO, and its rendering upside down. This is a problem we had in the engine a long time ago, and it was eventually fixed for us by video driver updates. On an ATI card by any chance? :-P
Ahhhhh! Why yes I am :P It's resolved now. Thanks-a-million.
Oh, and I should have mentioned in the first post...
I'm new to toolbag, but I love what you guys have done with it! Keep up the good work
Yeah, I think you need to bring in your own ground.
Just have your mesh and ground mesh as separate objects in your 3d app of choice. Select them both at the same time and export as a single OBJ file.
Then you will end up with multiple "chunks" in Marmoset which you can apply separate materials to.
Hello,
Its not working here
Exported 2 selected objects (selected in same time) to OBJ, imported to Toolbag, I have 2 chunks but when adding/changing texture to one its also changing on the 2nd... any idea what Im doing wrong? Im using standard export settings, both objects with UV's... no idea what's wrong.
Is it possible to get specular highlights and reflections with the complex refraction shader?
Also, does the gloss channel function differently to other renderers? I seem to have trouble getting the results I would have expected.
Specular is possible with the refraction shader.
The gloss channel (I assume you realize its the alpha channel of the spec map) works like so: white is "sharpest" specular, black is "fuzziest" specular, with the sharpness limit determined by your material setting for specular sharpness.
I can't seem to get any specular unless I add a diffuse map which makes the surface opaque.
I was using the specular/gloss map correctly, i think what was throwing me off was trying to adjust it with just an environment light and with the specular fresnel setting thrown in I was getting even more confused. I am now just using a single spot for my testing and things are making more sense.
trying to adjust it with just an environment light and with the specular fresnel setting thrown in I was getting even more confused.
That reminds me - the current version has a bug w/ specular sharpness and frensel. We have addressed it already for our next release, but right now you may see some odd behavior with environment specular sharpness unless the fresnel factor is set to 0.0.
Will this new update reset the 20 day trial timer for those of us who've already installed, but were unable to purchase, Toolbag?
The new skin shader looks terrific. I hope the shadow issues are now sorted. If so, I might just have to sell some organs or fluids to finally purchase this little gem.
Hey I got a problem. I got a 64 bit Vista and the old toolbag works great on it, but I downloaded and installed the new trial and every time I run it, it gives me this access violation error....? I'm not sure where I went wrong.
I have ATI HD 5870 8 gb of ram Vista Ultimate. I just got this computer like a month ago and installed the old toolbag with no problem along with all the requirements for it.
I was just helping my girlfriend with some shots of one of her models and I was using the "Take Shot" feature. The model has some alpha pieces that were coming out weird in the screen shots. It seems that it saved the alpha information from the material in the alpha channel of the targa, and if you use that alpha channel to mask out the pieces, it masks things you don't want masked as seen in the image (Hair/head get masked in the middle one). We had to resort to doing regular screen captures (which is still good). Any suggestions?
@Zelenkov: ATI card eh? Those are prone to issues like this. Updating drivers might be helpful.
@iannuci: Huh?? Can you post a screenshot maybe? The short answer is "no" - you shouldn't have to use inverted colors in your spec map.
@kyle.rau: That could be a substantial bug you just found - alpha blending not working in screenshots? Or is it that the alpha channel of the screenshot result isn't quite what is wanted (as in the middle shot, which would not surprise me). What concerns me the most though is the left most shot - should we be seeing fuzzy edges on her sleeves and such?
The left most was from the test shot. So her sleeves should be like the in engine shot on the very right. Basically the take shot feature wasn't rendering out the alpha card stuff like her hair net and the sleeves. The idea is that it would render with the alpha card geometry correct.
Hey jeff the inverted colours are to compensate for the RGB colour space so light produces white highlights. Does toolbag convert textures to linear colour space?
OH heh i see. No, you shouldn't need inverted colors, toolbag renders properly in linear color space. If you are expecting white highlights be sure that your light source is white too (some of the sky environments are not very white for the most part).
Thank you also for posting broccoli man, we are all enriched for having seen that
PS: @kyle.rau: what are your system specs? I just tested this on my machine and it worked fine (alpha blended geometry rendered into screenshots okay). Sounds like a driver issue if I had to guess...
Just a little problem I have ... It seems that alpha channel of the snapshot (F12) isn't always good. I'm using a material with specular map with a gloss map in the alpha channel and the snapshots done with this material have an alpha channel coresponding of the model with his gloss map applied :
Problem disapears when I used a material with only diffuse and normal.
Skybox saturation adjustments. Some of the included cubemaps have a LOT of color, and I'd really like to be able to turn them down a bit. Some also have barely any, and I'd like to saturate them more.
I'd also really love to be able to load any DDS cubemap, but that's a lot of work I bet.
Skybox saturation adjustments. Some of the included cubemaps have a LOT of color, and I'd really like to be able to turn them down a bit. Some also have barely any, and I'd like to saturate them more.
I'd also really love to be able to load any DDS cubemap, but that's a lot of work I bet.
I had this problem. If I remember right, I had an alpha channel in my diffuse map. I deleted it and it fixed it.
Yeah, the problem is exactly that. I don't understand why when you have an alpha in the diffuse or the specular, the alpha channel of the snapshot isn't correct
OH heh i see. No, you shouldn't need inverted colors, toolbag renders properly in linear color space. If you are expecting white highlights be sure that your light source is white too (some of the sky environments are not very white for the most part).
Thank you also for posting broccoli man, we are all enriched for having seen that
PS: @kyle.rau: what are your system specs? I just tested this on my machine and it worked fine (alpha blended geometry rendered into screenshots okay). Sounds like a driver issue if I had to guess...
That's not an accident, in fact its actually a bug fix. Previous versions had a problem where fresnel settings would (incorrectly) also affect the specular sharpness. As of 1.02 this has been fixed, but you may see some changes on models with nonzero fresnel settings, such as your gun there.
Mark was going to make a "here is 1.02!!" post yesterday but I don't see it anywhere. We'll get the details to you guys soon as to what the new features are in 1.02 and such (there are many).
Hey, I have 1.01, to upgrade it do I need to press a special button or just downlaod all of Marmost 1.02 and give it the same key?
You'll have to download it from our page, and run the installer. No license steps will be needed. You can delete your existing version and install 1.02 instead, or install 1.02 in a different directory and use both versions.
As Jeff already mentioned, the next point release is now here. Here is the rundown of all the fancy new features and bug fixes:
Feature Additions:
Sky Tool generate custom lighting environments
Skin Shader 2.0 new controls for skin tone, translucency, and masking
Built-in Video Capture system *beta*
Cyan/Red & Amber/Blue 3D stereo rendering
Chromatic Aberration post effect added
Texture preview window added to each texture slot w/ mipmap level previewing
Gobos/Light gels texture projection from point and spot lights
Duplicate Light button for dynamic lights
Mesh changes now auto-update like textures
Default Scene file custom scene setups can now be saved as Toolbags default
Floor object added. Floor settings are found on the View menu tab.
Mesh triangle count display
Bug Fixes:
Sky brightness and rotation now save to scene files
Normal map swizzle and flip now save to scene files
Peter Pan artifact resolved with Front Faces Cast Shadows set as default
Specular sharpness now works properly with Fresnel settings
Improved default light placement
Resolved the flickering issue with wireframe overlay
Fixed the color discrepancy between viewport and screenshots
Cosmetic GUI changes to enhance button legibility.
We've also updated the ToolbagUserManual.pdf. Definitely check that out if you have questions about some of the additions (manual is also included in the installation).
This is a free update to all users, trial or registered. Download and install the new trial v1.02 build (http://www.8monkeylabs.com/toolbag), and you'll be ready to rock. If you are already a paid/registered user, your key will remain intact upon installation. No re-registering/activating is necessary. As always, keep the inquiries coming, spread the word to your friends, and feel free to send comments, critiques, thoughts to toolbag@8monkeylabs.com.
If I exported my animation from Maya to Marmoset, would I also be able to export my animated camera as well? And it looks like there is currently no motion blur, is that correct?
Apologies if my questions seem a bit daft. I realize most people use Marmoset to display models, but I'm interested in seeing if it's a viable alternative to Maya software/mental ray for simple animations. Thanks!
I stumbled upon the turntable video recording by mistake when I hit F9 (default for FRAPS) and started getting mad because FRAPS performance turned absolutely horrible as the load got a bit too high.
Love the feature, even though it's beta, but what kind of video does it output? Can't seem to play it in VLC or edit it in After Effects. For me it would probably be more useful if it output a sequence of images as an option
@Scooby - This v1.02 update will not reset your product trial period. Our previous point release did reset the trial, simply because it went live so close to the initial release date. We do run specials from time-to-time, so keep your eyes peeled for one of those and you can pick up the full license at a discount. Thanks!
@East - Toolbag is exporting uncompressed video which will typically take longer to load, and we have tested it with VLC. Perhaps you need to let VLC do it's thing and wait a bit longer for VLC to load enough to begin playback? Is VLC giving you an error of any kind?
alright, so just from my findings on the new specular/gloss:
-fresnel now works properly, doesn't effect specular highlight. this is good.
-gloss now has a much wider range. this allows for very flat areas and very glossy areas, but it's not standard and the asset will only look good in toolbag using the edited map. the edited map looks ridiculous.
here's an image i cooked up showing the difference between gloss in 1.01 and in 1.02. notice how ridiculous the new gloss map looks.
@East - Toolbag is exporting uncompressed video which will typically take longer to load, and we have tested it with VLC. Perhaps you need to let VLC do it's thing and wait a bit longer for VLC to load enough to begin playback? Is VLC giving you an error of any kind?
You were right. I must have experienced a temporary issue, since the newer turntable recordings load just fine, even at 1920x1080, and AE recognises the files, too.
It's fairly choppy, though, so I'm guessing it records in realtime and skips frames if it doesn't keep up? It's somewhat understandable at 1920x1080, which is why a frame by frame capture would be very nice, to get it super butter-smooth
gloss now has a much wider range. this allows for very flat areas and very glossy areas, but it's not standard and the asset will only look good in toolbag using the edited map. the edited map looks ridiculous.
Any comparisons to 1.01 are, as I think you've surmised, not relevant here since 1.01 was buggy (fresnel settings effectively reducing and in some cases eliminating entirely the range of gloss/sharpness).
As far as comparing it to other engines/renderers - all I have to say is "maybe"? We're not sure. It's very conceivable that another renderer would have a tighter range on specular sharpness extrapolated from the gloss map. If you had some comparison images with UDK or something else we'd be interested in seeing them. We can easily reduce the sharpness range in later releases if this is what the community desires - we just figured a large range gives the most flexibility.
It's also worth mentioning in case some people haven't figured it out - the material spec sharpness slider is a multiplier on what's in the gloss map. This means basically that white in the gloss map will always correspond to whatever sharpness that slider is set to. It's all relative. Again, this may be different from what some engines use.
Now officially soliciting feedback from folks who have used the gloss map in 1.02 :nerd:
since the fresnel slider no longer affects the specular sharpness, you can't achieve very glossy materials anymore unless you have a bright, washed out gloss. that gun is a perfect example, since the grip is a hard plastic, the black metal is fairly glossy, and the stainless steel is super shiny.
as you can see from flat values, the range is a lot higher in 1.02. black is now completely flat and gives a broad, almost nonexistent highlight, whereas white is almost the same as 1.01.
maybe this new way is correct, maybe i'm just doing it wrong again, but all i know is this new method forces gloss maps to be very low contrast unless you want major changes.
Replies
Nice work chaps!
Can't seem to find any setting that would cause this... :poly141:
*edit - This happens during the screenshot process
Thoughts?
(Thanks in advance)
I'm finding it a bit of a pain cos I work accross a couple of machines.
Without buying a second license I would have to constantly switch it between them.
I also use music software and a number of music software companies either use a dongle system (tie the license to say a USB stick) or say 5 license activations that once used up need to be reset via a secure members area login on the site which list all your software and licenses. See IK Multimedia for an example
Well I can tell you that's the AO, and its rendering upside down. This is a problem we had in the engine a long time ago, and it was eventually fixed for us by video driver updates. On an ATI card by any chance? :-P
Yes, was one of the biggest drawbacks of the old shader. We now have support for a skin mask.
Ahhhhh! Why yes I am :P It's resolved now. Thanks-a-million.
Oh, and I should have mentioned in the first post...
I'm new to toolbag, but I love what you guys have done with it! Keep up the good work
What to say... awesome ? \o/
Also, does the gloss channel function differently to other renderers? I seem to have trouble getting the results I would have expected.
Hello,
Its not working here
Exported 2 selected objects (selected in same time) to OBJ, imported to Toolbag, I have 2 chunks but when adding/changing texture to one its also changing on the 2nd... any idea what Im doing wrong? Im using standard export settings, both objects with UV's... no idea what's wrong.
Thanks in advance
Specular is possible with the refraction shader.
The gloss channel (I assume you realize its the alpha channel of the spec map) works like so: white is "sharpest" specular, black is "fuzziest" specular, with the sharpness limit determined by your material setting for specular sharpness.
I can't seem to get any specular unless I add a diffuse map which makes the surface opaque.
I was using the specular/gloss map correctly, i think what was throwing me off was trying to adjust it with just an environment light and with the specular fresnel setting thrown in I was getting even more confused. I am now just using a single spot for my testing and things are making more sense.
That reminds me - the current version has a bug w/ specular sharpness and frensel. We have addressed it already for our next release, but right now you may see some odd behavior with environment specular sharpness unless the fresnel factor is set to 0.0.
The new skin shader looks terrific. I hope the shadow issues are now sorted. If so, I might just have to sell some organs or fluids to finally purchase this little gem.
I think its a bit mean to tease us like this and then not release the installer :P
I have ATI HD 5870 8 gb of ram Vista Ultimate. I just got this computer like a month ago and installed the old toolbag with no problem along with all the requirements for it.
@iannuci: Huh?? Can you post a screenshot maybe? The short answer is "no" - you shouldn't have to use inverted colors in your spec map.
@kyle.rau: That could be a substantial bug you just found - alpha blending not working in screenshots? Or is it that the alpha channel of the screenshot result isn't quite what is wanted (as in the middle shot, which would not surprise me). What concerns me the most though is the left most shot - should we be seeing fuzzy edges on her sleeves and such?
Thank you also for posting broccoli man, we are all enriched for having seen that
PS: @kyle.rau: what are your system specs? I just tested this on my machine and it worked fine (alpha blended geometry rendered into screenshots okay). Sounds like a driver issue if I had to guess...
Just a little problem I have ... It seems that alpha channel of the snapshot (F12) isn't always good. I'm using a material with specular map with a gloss map in the alpha channel and the snapshots done with this material have an alpha channel coresponding of the model with his gloss map applied :
Problem disapears when I used a material with only diffuse and normal.
Skybox saturation adjustments. Some of the included cubemaps have a LOT of color, and I'd really like to be able to turn them down a bit. Some also have barely any, and I'd like to saturate them more.
I'd also really love to be able to load any DDS cubemap, but that's a lot of work I bet.
Yeah, the problem is exactly that. I don't understand why when you have an alpha in the diffuse or the specular, the alpha channel of the snapshot isn't correct
System specs:
8800gt
8gb ram
i7
windows 7 64bit
I'm on ATI, and you should still have my email and specs saved from earlier.
That's not an accident, in fact its actually a bug fix. Previous versions had a problem where fresnel settings would (incorrectly) also affect the specular sharpness. As of 1.02 this has been fixed, but you may see some changes on models with nonzero fresnel settings, such as your gun there.
Mark was going to make a "here is 1.02!!" post yesterday but I don't see it anywhere. We'll get the details to you guys soon as to what the new features are in 1.02 and such (there are many).
You'll have to download it from our page, and run the installer. No license steps will be needed. You can delete your existing version and install 1.02 instead, or install 1.02 in a different directory and use both versions.
As Jeff already mentioned, the next point release is now here. Here is the rundown of all the fancy new features and bug fixes:
Feature Additions:
- Sky Tool generate custom lighting environments
- Skin Shader 2.0 new controls for skin tone, translucency, and masking
- Built-in Video Capture system *beta*
- Cyan/Red & Amber/Blue 3D stereo rendering
- Chromatic Aberration post effect added
- Texture preview window added to each texture slot w/ mipmap level previewing
- Gobos/Light gels texture projection from point and spot lights
- Duplicate Light button for dynamic lights
- Mesh changes now auto-update like textures
- Default Scene file custom scene setups can now be saved as Toolbags default
- Floor object added. Floor settings are found on the View menu tab.
- Mesh triangle count display
Bug Fixes:We've also updated the ToolbagUserManual.pdf. Definitely check that out if you have questions about some of the additions (manual is also included in the installation).
This is a free update to all users, trial or registered. Download and install the new trial v1.02 build (http://www.8monkeylabs.com/toolbag), and you'll be ready to rock. If you are already a paid/registered user, your key will remain intact upon installation. No re-registering/activating is necessary. As always, keep the inquiries coming, spread the word to your friends, and feel free to send comments, critiques, thoughts to toolbag@8monkeylabs.com.
Cheers,
8monkey
Apologies if my questions seem a bit daft. I realize most people use Marmoset to display models, but I'm interested in seeing if it's a viable alternative to Maya software/mental ray for simple animations. Thanks!
I stumbled upon the turntable video recording by mistake when I hit F9 (default for FRAPS) and started getting mad because FRAPS performance turned absolutely horrible as the load got a bit too high.
Love the feature, even though it's beta, but what kind of video does it output? Can't seem to play it in VLC or edit it in After Effects. For me it would probably be more useful if it output a sequence of images as an option
"Will this new update reset the 20 day trial timer for those of us who've already installed, but were unable to purchase, Toolbag?"
I have already installed the 1.02 update, but get the notice that my trial has expired. I guess no option/love for us broke artists huh?
@East - Toolbag is exporting uncompressed video which will typically take longer to load, and we have tested it with VLC. Perhaps you need to let VLC do it's thing and wait a bit longer for VLC to load enough to begin playback? Is VLC giving you an error of any kind?
-fresnel now works properly, doesn't effect specular highlight. this is good.
-gloss now has a much wider range. this allows for very flat areas and very glossy areas, but it's not standard and the asset will only look good in toolbag using the edited map. the edited map looks ridiculous.
here's an image i cooked up showing the difference between gloss in 1.01 and in 1.02. notice how ridiculous the new gloss map looks.
It seems really odd that you have to wash out the gloss by such an extreme amount.
Have you tried it with just flat grey values?
I mean there is no way a gloss map should have to be pushed that far to get good results right?
It's fairly choppy, though, so I'm guessing it records in realtime and skips frames if it doesn't keep up? It's somewhat understandable at 1920x1080, which is why a frame by frame capture would be very nice, to get it super butter-smooth
Any comparisons to 1.01 are, as I think you've surmised, not relevant here since 1.01 was buggy (fresnel settings effectively reducing and in some cases eliminating entirely the range of gloss/sharpness).
As far as comparing it to other engines/renderers - all I have to say is "maybe"? We're not sure. It's very conceivable that another renderer would have a tighter range on specular sharpness extrapolated from the gloss map. If you had some comparison images with UDK or something else we'd be interested in seeing them. We can easily reduce the sharpness range in later releases if this is what the community desires - we just figured a large range gives the most flexibility.
It's also worth mentioning in case some people haven't figured it out - the material spec sharpness slider is a multiplier on what's in the gloss map. This means basically that white in the gloss map will always correspond to whatever sharpness that slider is set to. It's all relative. Again, this may be different from what some engines use.
Now officially soliciting feedback from folks who have used the gloss map in 1.02 :nerd:
as you can see from flat values, the range is a lot higher in 1.02. black is now completely flat and gives a broad, almost nonexistent highlight, whereas white is almost the same as 1.01.
maybe this new way is correct, maybe i'm just doing it wrong again, but all i know is this new method forces gloss maps to be very low contrast unless you want major changes.