Pixexix - projection texturing tool
EDIT: Just released Alpha6, which has a pro version. bunch of improvements, fixes and tweaks. plus new features! 
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So I wasn't too keen on the projection painting tools that were available to me and I had a few ideas for things I'd want them to do but they didn't so I started making my own.
recently got it to the point where it does everything I wanted it to do and doesn't crash all too often so I figured I'd post it here to see what you guys thought of it
Download:
you can grab it here (windows only for now)
Screeny:
Video & stuff:
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxuDt4-lbOk[/ame]
(been updated a few times since this video was recorded, so the horrible blending and seams have gone now
)
here is a rough thing I did with a more recent version
Key Features:
~~~
So I wasn't too keen on the projection painting tools that were available to me and I had a few ideas for things I'd want them to do but they didn't so I started making my own.
recently got it to the point where it does everything I wanted it to do and doesn't crash all too often so I figured I'd post it here to see what you guys thought of it
Download:
you can grab it here (windows only for now)
Screeny:
Video & stuff:
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxuDt4-lbOk[/ame](been updated a few times since this video was recorded, so the horrible blending and seams have gone now
)here is a rough thing I did with a more recent version
Key Features:
- use with any Image editor with a quick and simple workflow
- Import .obj, .jpg, .png
- Output .png
- After taking a snapshot, move the camera to view your model all you like as you make changes to it.
- snapshots can be re-ordered like layers in photoshop
- Occlusion, Backface culling, Normal & Depth Culling and fading options
- perspective or orthographic projection
- .obj files with multiple objects work fine (and are encouraged, saves lots of time to hide bits, and toggle off mesh data using shared UV space)
- It's still in alpha, so if you are doing something you care about, save often!
- How soon it crashes is pretty much (triangles*no. of snapshots taken), but you should be able to get a lot of use out of it before that happens, depending on your hardware. if it does crash, I'd very much like to see the "output_log.txt" in the pixexix_Data folder (if you dont mind ^__^)
- I made this in a game engine, so I wouldn't advise working with models you wouldn't consider 'realtime', this is no zBrush, it will run slow if you throw a bazillion faces at it
- I plan to make a 'pro' version at some point with .psd file support, and editing normal and specular textures as well as the colours it already does.
- if you think there is some feature that should be included or something would work different I'd love to hear it!
Replies
Seriously this is looking pretty slick, can't wait to try it when I've more time. Thanks for sharing !
This, combined with an AO pass should be incredibly useful. Thank you for doing this! Trying it asap.
ya, this is something I plan to add, it will be in there sooner or later, probably in the form of painting a height map and have it generate the right normal map for that. but I'm also tempted to be able to project normal maps on top of each other and have them corrected. it wouldn't be so great for painting, but if you had a normal texture already you wanted to project onto the model, it could be handy I guess.
not heard of mary lite and I can't google well today it seems, what is that?
yeah, that's how I did the steapunk surfer model, if you start out with an AO bake, it's a massive headstart since it gives you the form of the model right away. pretty useful since I dont have any wireframe display or lighting in it yet, also, it usually matches up with where I want the shading to be anyway
Any plans to implement a simple mordor pixel walking algorithm?
SophieH, he's talking about Mari, quite a few folks call it Mary for some reason. I guess we have Max and Maya, why not Mary
As for Mari - thats the new ptex based painting app used for extremely detailled movie models. Its seems to run very slow tho.
i need to mess with it a bit more, but being able to modulate the cull-gradients with a greyscale texture like a render cloud for less uniform transitions would be really nice.
it'd be awesome then...
You know, guys are right - generating normal maps is not a problem actually, and painting heightmaps is not that interesting. The real issue is to work with normal mapped object as if it is a highpoly model. First of all - Normal culling should keep normal map in mind while projection - not only the actual geometry.
I was just kidding )) I meant your program to have a real great chance to become a simplified (and games-oriented) version of cinematic-oriented MARY. That's it ))
Pasha_sevez: This is Mary, This is Mari. Very different
Tavor: this program allows you to use the tools in any image editor to paint your textures, Thats why its usefull.
What Pixexix will (probably) do later:
- output to layered .PSD with helper wireframe layer
- output all snapshots to single .PSD
- Work on OS/X
[EDIT]OK, navermain'I shoulda'v red beta'r !
OMG :poly105: U r right
this is totally a planned feature, and you will be able to choose if you want normal culling to be based on normal map or vert normals alone, assuming all goes well
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, making a 1px high texture with your own grayscale map for masking, or perhaps having a curve editor of some kind?
Like r_fletch_r says, it was my intention to use any 2D image editor, since people usually get attatched to the feel of their editor's tools, and including some generic airbush type things would probably not produce the best results for most artists I think. ultimately though, the engine I have used for this has absolutely horrific speed for editing textures, you'd get massive lag as you draw if it was to happen inside pixexix ^__^;
I do plan to add support for loading PSD files, but theres no real way I could import the layers and be able to edit them in a way that makes sense. I'd probably flatten the layers before import, and maybe allow the user to check which layers they want discarded, though probably not, you can just toggle visibility in PS just as well.
if its just for fixing seams though, I'd recommend importing the whole texture anyway, working on it, then taking only the parts you fixed up and dropping them on the original texture in the right layers
that sounds very perculiar indeed, I've never heard of applications deleting themselves, did it also remove the 'pixexix_data' folder? if not could you put the debug log that's in there on pastebin or some such for me, it might shed some light on the problem ^__^;
I'm guessing this is a scale problem, the model is probably very tiny or very large, and the scale slider isn't great, I'll make sure the next release auto-scales the model so it fits within a reasonable area. any chance I could have a look at a .obj or two to see if this is indeed the issue? if it's something to do with max its certainly something I need to fix asap.
this pretty much depends on your hardware, myself I've loaded and drawn on a 100k triangle model ok (if pretty slow) and I chatted with a guy who apparently projected onto a model with 1m tris a couple of times before crashing.
like I say in the notes though, having a large amount of triangles means the program will crash sooner, its due to some memory issue I haven't corrected yet, but if you are working with around 15-20k tris on moderate hardware, you should be finished editing your texture before the program gives up on you.
that said, save often, it takes a split second its barely even noticable, in fact I'll probably implement an autosave sooner or later.
wow, that was lots to respond to, thanks for the feedback and stuff folks
Not if you do it on the gpu.
the 'smeared edges' you see is a 5pixel margin around UV islands filled with the nearest projected pixel so when the texture is viewed from sharp angles (or less sharp ones at lower resolution) the seams are invisible. this is pretty much what it's doing:
as you can see, if you are getting the smeared edges it means it's working, so you shouldnt see any problems in whatever else you load your model+texture in, though now I think on it a 5pixel border might not be enough at some resolutions and/or auto mipmap generations, I'll make the margin size customisable in the next update
Sure you can. You would use a RenderTexture and Graphics.DrawMeshNow() to render a projected texture (brush stroke) into uv space (by changing the vertex positions into uv positions in the vertex program in the shader). Then blit that into your currently selected layer. You can get a RenderTextures contents with Texture2D.GetPixels() for when you need to write them to disk.
the viewport is tiny, and the window should be resizable or at least be bigger.
Looks cool so far, looking forward to trying it out with an asset.
I don't like the licensing stuff so far, how can you even tell what we use models for anyway? :P
thanks, I'd appreciate that, if it's not working how it shows in the image above it could be problematic.
should look the same as the screenshot, only without the stuff in the right panel, that only appears when you take a snapshot.
and yeah, the window is 800x600, my laptop resolution is 1280x800 so it needs to be small as I work on it, and it doesn't resize now because it's easier to put together GUI when the size is fixed, it will totally be scalable though in some future release
I can't
- it now autoscales and positions your models, so no more being unsure it it loaded right or not.
- .obj files made in 3DsMAX now load fine.
- can turn of the automatic seams/margins if you prefer to clean them yourself
- should go longer without crashing!
and some new features added for pro:
- can output lighting when taking snapshots
- can load normal maps to effect lighting
- can make the window bigger
- can output larger resolution snapshots
> Pixexix website
it's still in alpha and not perfect but it is getting better. so I'd appreciate more feedback from you guys if you don't mind. it's been very helpful so far
Right now, the only things that I think it lacks is the wireframe viewer, and that's coming in future releases.
Keep up the great work!
I mean it can't even take me to Mordor, what a rip-off...an Eagle can do that, and that technology as been available for years.