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Marmoset Toolbag - MASTER THREAD

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  • polozad
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    polozad polycounter lvl 9
    Usually, I'm very tolerance person, but this 8ApeLabs stuff really pissed me off. Here is a problem - it renders these strange seams, or I don't know what is it, whatever which app or technique I'm using. I tried zbrush normalmap, xnormal, 3ds max, I even sold my soul to devil and tried Maya.
    UVs are correct, mesh is correct too.
    I used UVlayout for UVs, maybe problem is here. Any advice - I will be REALLY appreciate.

    57658551.jpg
  • Ben Apuna
    It might be that you need to invert the green channel of your normal map (if rendered with default Max settings) in Photoshop. Strange that Maya's default normal map bake didn't work for you, it should be exactly what Marmoset needs.
  • polozad
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    polozad polycounter lvl 9
    Ben, I love you!
    Indeed, default Maya renderer is enough for magic. I had to fast learn some Maya tweaks (smoothing groups, .obj export, plugins, etc.), but now I almost happy. Seems like I'll have to migrate to Maya from max.

    But now I have another problem - Maya can't handle such amount of polygons that I need to.
    41621291.jpg
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    ivan0v wrote: »
    Can we render with an alpha mask for the image? i couldn't find.

    I thought the alpha of diffused worked for transparency.
  • Ben Apuna
    There's no need to use Maya normal map bakes exclusively.

    Just take your default Max normal map back into Photoshop, go to the Channels tab (Window -> Channels), select the Green channel by itself (Ctrl+2), and invert it (Ctrl+I). GIMP can probably do the same thing as well if you don't have access to Photoshop.

    Then re-save your normal map and re-load it into Marmoset. It should then be nearly the same as a Maya baked normal map.

    I think there is a setting in Max's render to texture options where you can invert the green channel automatically but I forgot exactly where it is and I don't currently have access to Max sorry.

    xNormal can automatically invert the Green channel during the baking process as well. In the Normal Map baking options change the Swizzle Coordinates to either X+ Y+ Z+ or X+ Y- Z+. "Y" is the green channel but I can't remember if it's supposed to be + or -, I think it's supposed to be + but I'm not 100% sure.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Damn max with its sideways axises and inverted green channel.
  • polozad
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    polozad polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks again, Ben.
    The problem was exactly in the mesh. Meshes exported from zbrush perfectly displayed in the Max, and vice versa. But in the Marmoset it shows a smoothing errors.
    I noticed that zbrush breaks UVs by polygons when exporting mesh, probably because of this I had a problem. After I exported same zbrush mesh in Maya, smoothed and exported in the Marmoset, my problems dissapeared.
    I spent on this few days and few kg of neurons. Goddamn.
  • Ben Apuna
    Ah good to know you found out what was wrong. Thanks for sharing the solution.
  • Revel
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    Revel interpolator
    Yes, ZBrush will break up your UV if you bring it into Max (I'm not remember that ZBrush did this if I bring the OBJ into Lightwave though), if that's the case you can set ZBrush to merge before it export the OBJ by going into Tool:Export then turn on Mrg for merge UV. You should turn this option only if you have break up UV problem, because sometimes other apps simply don't like it.

    Hope it's help you in some way.

    _Revel
  • OBlastradiusO
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    OBlastradiusO polycounter lvl 11
    Im curious to know if UDK has a system where you can switch in and out different environment shaders like Marmoset does ?
  • Rib
    I am getting these errors posted below. When the blue interface loads in, I click on Material Editor and then it crashes. I do notice I dont have a particle and sound folder



    Failed to open base/interface/toolUser.cfg
    Creating new file base/interface/toolUser.cfg
    Particle: cannot load file"base/particle/impactwater/impactwaterbig.part"!
    Sound: cannot open sound file "base/sound/impact/impactwater_large.wav"!
    Cannot load audio file base/sound/impact/impactwater_large.wav!
    Failed to open image 'base/texturelib/shield.tga'
    Failed to open image 'base/sky/sunny07/sunnyotaargus_skybox_ldr_shuffled.tga'
    Particle: cannot load file"base/particle/impactwater/impactwaterbig.part"!
    Cannot load audio file base/sound/impact/impactwater_large.wav!
    Failed to open image 'base/texturelib/shield.tga'
    Particle: cannot load file"base/particle/impactwater/impactwaterbig.part"!
    Cannot load audio file base/sound/impact/impactwater_large.wav!
    Failed to open image 'base/texturelib/shield.tga'
  • Ben Apuna
    I think the first two lines are normal if you are running Marmoset for the first time.

    All the rest of the error messages are normal as well. Marmoset Toolbag should still function properly.

    You are not supposed to have sound or particle folder either.

    That leads to the next set of questions to determine the cause of the crash. What OS are you attempting to run Marmoset on? and what graphics card do you have? Have you installed the PhysX and OpenAL drivers listed in the first post of this thread?
  • Rib
    My laptop is sucky maybe, it's slow when I have photoshop/maya open and around 3 years old. Yes I have installed those two from the first page


    HP pavilion Notebook PC
    Windows Vista home premium SP2
    2 gig ram
    Intel core 2 Duo CPU 1.67 ghz
    Graphic card: GeForce 8400M GS/NVIDIA
  • Ben Apuna
    Your laptop specs look ok.

    When it crashes, do you get any kind of error message?

    Are you launching Marmoset with "Run as Administrator"?

    Now that you have a toolUser.cfg open it up with notepad to make sure the "Size" setting in there matches up with you laptop's display resolution. One possibility could be that you are hitting the "Quit" button by accident.
  • Rib
    thanks Ben that fixed my problem. The screen size was bigger than my screen. :)
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    Marmoset supports glow maps and reflect maps?
  • Ben Apuna
    Glow maps workaround here.

    Separate reflect maps are not supported. You can try to fiddle with the two specular sliders and the fresnel exponent slider in the material tab to get a reflective look.
  • Ben Apuna
    Nope, in any case here's a link to a post on exporting animations from Maya.

    If all you need Marmoset for is static frame renders then obj export will work.
  • Ben Apuna
    You could go with obj and static renders from Marmoset, which is what I did for most of my portfolio renders. Or if you've got time pick up a copy of UDK or Unity, both are free to use and have a bunch of tutorials available online.

    There are also a bunch of real time material setups for Max and Maya floating around here. Xoliul's 3DS Max Viewport Shader for Max. Free Maya cgfx BRDF Shader, and Maya HLSL Shader - lcNextGenShader.fx.

    In the end I think you shouldn't worry too much about real time renders. If your artwork is good then it won't be a deal breaker if you used software renders in your portfolio.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    Marmoset allows making blending materials? I want to do object with 20% opacity.

    Is somewhere list with commands to Marmoset? I'm looking for changing resolution command.
  • Ben Apuna
    Blending materials? like with vertex colors? Sorry that's not possible as far as I know.

    20% opacity, with a opacity/alpha texture? That is possible, place your alpha texture into the alpha channel of your diffuse texture and save it as a uncompressed 32 bit tga. Then load it into Marmoset, change the Blend Mode to Alpha, and turn off alpha testing at the bottom of the material tab. Be aware that this may cause alpha sorting issues.

    The light environment can be rotated with shift+LMB and the direction of the light can be shifted with shift+MMB. When moving the light around it helps to turn on "show light direction" under the render tab.

    spacebar

    Will hide the UI.

    F12

    Is the hotkey for taking screenshots.

    The ` or ~ key will bring up the command console.

    set screenshotres 4096

    Will increase the size of F12 screenshots to 4096, I'm pretty sure any power of 2 number can be used here.

    set render.shadows.res 4096

    Will increase the resolution of the shadows, I'm pretty sure any power of 2 number can be used here as well. Be careful higher resolution shadows require a lot more vram from your graphics card.

    Those are pretty much the only useful (and possibly usable commands) that I know of. There should be a README.txt in your installation directory, it has all the other common UI commands.

    I hope that helps.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks :) I think that will help a lot. I'll check it in closest oportunity.


    Thank you. Alpha doesn't work with "cullin off"?
    Why if I'm looking from forward I have transaprency, but from back I don't have it?

    transparency.jpg

    Update: I found source of this problem.
    It's one of these spectres, its transparency doesn't work correctly. I dunno why, but maybe it was some bug during exporting or editing mesh. I'm just going to make it again.

    set render.shadows.res 4096
    set screenshotres 4096

    I think these and other commands could be attached to first post in this thread.
  • PogoP
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    PogoP polycounter lvl 10
    Wondering if anybody can help me, I'm having a problem with Marmoset on my laptop. It works fine on my desktop, but for some reason, when I load it on my laptop, clicking on buttons within marmoset with the cursor doesn't initiate the button's function: you have to click about 3 centimetres below everything.

    Anybody had this problem before? Got all the latest drivers etc, and installed Marmoset properly.
  • Ben Apuna
    Pussik:

    Try unchecking "alpha testing".

    Another way that might work would be to make back to back polygons where you have transparency.

    PogoP:

    Just about everyone has this problem check this post in particular my response to Shatter.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    After more fight with transparency I can say it's not problem with this one spectre. :(
    Looks like these objects have one way transparency.. back or front of its body.

    What do you mean "make back to back" ?
  • Ben Apuna
    A polygon is one sided, it's face normals only point in one direction. When viewed from the "back" in a game engine you will see right through it.

    To counteract this you make a duplicate of the faces that need to be seen from both sides and flip their face normals. So you end up with two polygons occupying the same 3d space but their face normals are pointing in opposite directions, "back to back".

    Sorry, I'm not sure if anyone else uses this term, it might just be me.

    Note:

    Sometimes when using this technique it helps to "push" the inward or outward facing polygons a tiny bit to avoid problems like z fighting, this is from what I've been told...
  • sasuki
    Hey guys can i import multi models each with their own textures into Marmoset?
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    Sasuki: You can, but this must be in one OBJ file.

    Ben Apuna: It's not a sprite, it's normal mesh. My friend told me, marmoset has problems with alpha and that explain everything.. so.. ok ^^ life


    Another question.. is some solution for moire effect on shadows? And another one:
    how to achieve shadows like this hand
    marmosettests1.jpg
  • Ben Apuna
    This post pretty much covers the only ways that I know of to fix shadows.
  • gibson543
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    gibson543 polycounter lvl 13
    Hey guys, I'm not sure if this was asked already but is marmoset available on macs?
  • Ben Apuna
    No, I think it only runs on XP and Vista. You might be able to run it with XP or Vista using Boot Camp. Good luck.
  • swayforce
    Is there a compiled version for maya 2010? If someone already ask for it can you link me to the link. It's kinda hard to read 50 pages straight. I got up to page 20. Thank you.
  • Ben Apuna
    There is no animation exporter available for Maya 2010.

    From one page back:
    Ben Apuna wrote: »
    Nope, in any case here's a link to a post on exporting animations from Maya.

    If all you need Marmoset for is static frame renders then obj export will work.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    Of course Marmoset works also on Win7.


    Question: Can I make some screen from marmoset with transparent background? Cutting my model in PS from black background is time-consuming.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    make the background the brightest green you can, it's much easier than cutting it with black.
  • explorer3d
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    explorer3d polycounter lvl 13
    hello everybody.Marmoset Toolbag is great tool for game artister. currently I have a issue about normalmap.then I spent all day to read this topis (from 1-50 page).but i havn't found out a way to fix it.i really want to someone can help me. thanks a lot.

    I baked the normal in 3dsmax. and it's look great in max (3point shader is very useful)
    12944287_395948578.jpg

    I also import to maya for check the normal

    12944287_395949044.jpg
    so I import to Toolbag. current it's looking great (not use specular)
    12944287_395948668.jpg
    then turn on the specular. i found some strange specular in three areas.(look like smooth group error)
    12944287_395949264.jpg
    12944287_395949224.jpg

    I have double checked the uv (no any uv vertex be welded)
    12944287_395949193.jpg
    12944287_395949086.jpg

    I also use one smooth group at these areas
    12944287_395949117.jpg
    checked the obj export option
    12944287_395949098.jpg
    normalmap
    12944287_395949152.jpg
    my pc is nvidia GTX260,4G memory,OS:XP 32.

    I really really want to get the answer. thanks again
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    How can I make some sky more bright? In every enviro is more shadows then light.

    I tried to edit existing skies, but changes doens't save. I downloaded 3 additional skies a long time ago, but these are dark too.


    Every sky looks like need one more light.
  • Ben Apuna
    explorer3d:

    I replied to you in your other thread.

    Pussik:

    Sorry I don't think that's possible in Marmoset, maybe you can do it with the post effects?

    Another way would be to just render the foreground object and background sky separately and composite them in Photoshop. Then you can make the sky as bright as you want.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    I want make bright sky, because I want have good illuminated model. :)

    I was making two shots with change light direction and composing it in PS, but this took a lot of time.
  • EarthQuake
    Pussik its funny you want to make the environments brighter, i think by default marmo enviros are pretty over-exposed(it depends on exactly which one we're talking, as if its a nighttine enviro or something... yeah....).

    One option is to open the .env file in notepad, and edit the values, you'll see there are a few lines for exposure or whatever, try experimenting with that.

    Another thing is to simply brighten your diffuse texture, i find that i generally need to darken my diffuse for marmoset work more than brighten, so it really depends on the content. It would be cool to see some images of what you consider isnt well illuminated.
  • Axcel
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    Axcel polycounter lvl 14
    I agree they are overexposed, but it can be brindle. Usualy I need make my color texture darker (especially highlights tones), because I have over-exposed bright fragments in light area.
    But this not eliminate "problem", with too small area of model surface in light and too big in shadow. This disproportion makes me .. ymm "unhappy?". :)
    If I want imitate a bathroom, where is a small window, which is one and only light source, Marmoset is fine. But when I want put my object in an exterior with daylight, everything is too dark. It seems like there is only one or two light source. In reality light around everything from all directions.
    Of course I know Marmoset isn't a Raytracer :D but what I want to tell is, another light source could make a huge difference but maybe making existing light more intense, will help a bit.

    Ps: I can tell sky called "room" doesn't have this "disproportion" of light and shadow area, but has sooo warm colors. :)
  • Mr.Bluesman
    Hi Chaps

    I'm trying this engine for the first time so apologies in I've missed
    the answer in my thread search.

    How do you guys bring a model in so it looks like it's on a ground
    casting shadows not floating in the air? Do you have to bring in your
    own ground or am I missing a function somewhere?

    Cheers

    bluesman
  • Ben Apuna
    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.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    Hi, my name is Lee, and i just want to say.

    i'm not going anywhere.
  • gibson543
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    gibson543 polycounter lvl 13
    Ok guys, I have a problem. I installed it and when I tried to run it it had an openal32.dll error, so I got the .dll and put it in my system32 folder, but now it's giving me 'procedure alcGetIntegerv could not be located in the openAL32.dll'. Any ideas?
  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    This is getting annoying. Marmoset keeps displating artifacts on my textures. Im saving the diffuse at 4096x4096 at 32 bits/pixel
    60848519.png
    Sometimes instead of doing that ^^ the texture will have green blobs all over it, and sometimes the texture loads fine ???
  • kyle.rau
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    kyle.rau polycounter lvl 8
    Been searching this thread since I swore it was asked before, but:

    Overlapping UV's ok for shadows? Is the environment cube lighting dynamic? Just making sure...

    Thanks! :)
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    Uh, this also may have been asked before, but is there a way to put different materials on two different objects that you have exported as one object? (e.g. attached one object to the other, but they don't share UVs and have completely different materials).
  • RipNic
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    RipNic polycounter lvl 13
    hi guys , could use your knowledge right now.


    i have some problems with the ambient map.

    when i load it , my mesh becomes dark and neither showing the ambient or the diffuse ,normal , spec maps either.


    have i missed something ? it looks like marmoset is supporting emissive ,ambient maps. from others images i have looked upon.
  • mxdirector
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