Everything works just awesome, I'm very happy with marmoset, thanks alot guys.
Though got small problem here, shadows behave weird on some surfaces of my model.
Is there any quick way to tweak shadows or fix it somehow? Re-baking normals is not an option
Those problem parts are double sided polygons, copied and inverted face normals.
sorry if this was discussed before
ok here's more info about this problem, I've ran some tests, whole issue based around backface culling and alphas. Question is, how do I get proper shading using alphas and doublesided faces?
Sorry most of these are known issues that do not really have an easy fix.
You could try separating slightly the double sided faces(also do not disable culling, manually duplicate and flip the geometry). This might help a little, but not sure.
You could also try turning off casting/receiving shadows on just the chunks that use alpha test as well.
In general the shadows have some artifacts, a few things you can to is like noted about, try increasing the shadow resolution, try making your mesh smaller, or try playing with the shadow distance settings. Also the skin shader tends to have totally fucked up shadows, which there isnt any fix for.
[edit] Yeah looks like you're using nocull instead of duplicating manually, so try that, it may fix the problem(or atleast make it a little better). Also it should be lit correctly if you manually flip, because with nocull you'll get the backside lit the same as the front side.
Also, are you using the skin shader on the entire mesh? The skin shader tends to have some shadow issues that the standard shader does not, so maybe try playing with what sort of results you can get using the standard shader(or use the a separate chunk for the head, with the skin shader, and everything else standard). The skin shader/shadow problem is one of the worst things to deal with, sorry.
Awesome mesh btw, i saw this over on cgtalk.ru. Looks like one of the strongest entries from any forum that i've seen so far, really clean modeling and great bake.
Great looking renderer. Thanks 8monkey guys. :-)
HDR lighting just makes it look so much better.
I had a question on model size...how big is too big? Is there a recommendation? I work in just standard max units. As it stands right now I have to crank the shadows all the way to the max 1200 value in marmoset to remotely start seeing some shadows...
I have no idea how max units translates, but you can click on the "scale reference" and that should give you a good idea. Just scale your character/whatever down to a reasonable size compared that ref(you may have to zoom way inside your mesh to see it, its like a sprite).
hey guys i have a reall big and probably stupid problem.
i mirrored quiet a view uv shells. i had to flip those mirrored uv's and turn on mirror u in maya.
so it can show up propperly the normalmaps same as the diffuse.
now i found out about this crazy awesome program, but as it seems it doesn't like my mirrored uv's
wow this is wierd... ok i flipped the uvs and they overlap now... in the engine it works perfectly fine, but in maya i have now inside out normalmaps on the mirrored side... i am new to this so i might kinda have some understanding issues here hahaha
thanks again for this awesome engine!!!!
the seems are just there cause i didn't cleaned up my maps and still have also no specmap
but i like it so fare
no i am using actually maya 2008 32bit version....
i bet i just forgot to check something somewhere... at least its working in the engine and that's important for now, cause Monday is presentation time and my time is running out for debugging and i have to get the textures and the spec to a good standard.
thanks again for the fast help! i really appreciate it!
by any chance i got another question:
if i import multiple objects and if i do it by importing as a obj, it seems the engine doesn't like it if it has multiple uv maps.
how can i make sure to import my model and for example its "base" and their separate textures?
and is it possible to apply multiple textures as well, cause i saw the button add/overlay/multiply. if so how do i do it?!
hmm than i have a weird error... cause even the mesh shown above, is actually divided in about 30 pieces, so it should be shown in different mesh chunks, but its always shown as 1 mesh chunk
the other way to handle multiple obj is by using ref mesh ( on render tab )
on my dw entry i load my char model. and then load my pedestal as ref mesh.
thus i can assign different material on them. also i can hide/unhide it with ease.
cool trick binopittan. I tried that but when I assign my pedestal as a ref mesh, it automatically uses the diffuse from my character on it. Where can you assign a different material for the ref mesh?
You need to set up the material on the ref mesh first. But really there isnt much reason to do this, just have the meshes you want as separate objects in your app of choice when you export(a quick way to toggle mesh visibility is to drag the alphatest slider to max). You really would not want to rely on the reference mesh for anything, because its harder to actually edit the material of that mesh along with your "real" mesh. That fuction is really just for scale reference, or lining up particles to a mesh, etc.
I think people are confusing meshes being built from multiple chunks, and what the app actually considers an "object".
In maya you would simply select all of your chunks/objects/whatever that you want to share the same material, and go to mesh-> combine. Do the same for any extra materials. Then name this mesh something descriptive so its easy to pick out in the chunk list. When you look at the outliner, all you should see are the names of the chunks that need separate materials(and whatever default maya stuff is in every scene).
In max its just a matter again of combining stuff into objects, "attach" in max i guess. All you should see in the mesh list are the names of the chunks that need separate materials.
If your scene is made up of 9000 little objects, you're going to have problems. But that is the same for any game engine.
Hey guys just popping in to see if there's been any news of the next build, guess not huh :P Any chance of an updated release in the near future with user friendly goodies?
While using it this week, and touching on making my own light environments tonight, I'm wishing for better work flow in that area.
It would be very nice to have interactive control on fog and light direction too. Also one-click creation of the environment file would be awesome. I followed the write up from earlier in the thread and it sort of worked, but I don't understand a lot of how it works so can't tweak results easily like controlling light sources...
Also is there a way to make the skybox excluded from the bloom? I have an environment with a very bright sandy ground, and the bloom just explodes on that. So i'm having to choose between models with nice bloom on them but no BG, or models with a BG but then no bloom.
Still enjoying the tool despite its current limitations in the meantime. Just aching for it to get better!
ps: I was surprised to see the skin shader's SSS colour is global, from the environment, isntead of tied to individual shaders? What happens if you want object with different SSS colours in the same scene?
Sorry most of these are known issues that do not really have an easy fix.
You could try separating slightly the double sided faces(also do not disable culling, manually duplicate and flip the geometry). This might help a little, but not sure.
You could also try turning off casting/receiving shadows on just the chunks that use alpha test as well.
In general the shadows have some artifacts, a few things you can to is like noted about, try increasing the shadow resolution, try making your mesh smaller, or try playing with the shadow distance settings. Also the skin shader tends to have totally fucked up shadows, which there isnt any fix for.
[edit] Yeah looks like you're using nocull instead of duplicating manually, so try that, it may fix the problem(or atleast make it a little better). Also it should be lit correctly if you manually flip, because with nocull you'll get the backside lit the same as the front side.
Also, are you using the skin shader on the entire mesh? The skin shader tends to have some shadow issues that the standard shader does not, so maybe try playing with what sort of results you can get using the standard shader(or use the a separate chunk for the head, with the skin shader, and everything else standard). The skin shader/shadow problem is one of the worst things to deal with, sorry.
Awesome mesh btw, i saw this over on cgtalk.ru. Looks like one of the strongest entries from any forum that i've seen so far, really clean modeling and great bake.
BradMyers82 ,EarthQuake many thanks guys, that helped, awesome!
Puss, for the window size you need to edit it manually in one of the .CFGs. However it seems that if you do so, some of the UI buttons might not behave properly. But it's worth doing once you've got everything setup.
As for lighting, everything is cubemap-based so you have to mess with the skybox settings in the sky (or is it env?) tab. Then you can tint the overall look using the post effects sliders or load an existing one (metalgear post is kinda cool :P)
Ha ha, I overlooked the save post effects button too. I have been just manually resetting the settings I like there this whole time. A very handy feature
I believe i have gone through the whole thread,so here is my problem:-
it was working all nice and dandy before i downloaded vahls samples. But now, after even deleting the files from the folder, my normals are coming out as if they were doubled...
here is what i mean,Basically the image on the left is the phongenvironment (which is without normals) and the one in the middle shows with the skin shader and the one on the right is the shit in max. The middle shows what i mean when i say :doubled up normal:
what did i fuck up is pretty much what i am meaning to ask.I havent touched the normals/channels inbetween it working and not working.
I sincerely appologise if this has been addressed already
Thanks again!
I believe i have gone through the whole thread,so here is my problem:-
it was working all nice and dandy before i downloaded vahls samples. But now, after even deleting the files from the folder, my normals are coming out as if they were doubled...
here is what i mean,Basically the image on the left is the phongenvironment (which is without normals) and the one in the middle shows with the skin shader and the one on the right is the shit in max. The middle shows what i mean when i say :doubled up normal:
what did i fuck up is pretty much what i am meaning to ask.I havent touched the normals/channels inbetween it working and not working.
I sincerely appologise if this has been addressed already
Thanks again!
have you loaded the normal map into both the normals, and detail normals slot?
ok this is getting frustrating....
EQ:
yeah ive done all that, Ive tried flipping the green channel as well.
pior:
is there any way to tell that the normals were rendered at 30% ? i remember everything working before though
i really need this to work for me guys help!
EDIT:-
Ok so got it working
All i had to do to get it to work was re-exporting it
Marmo-eye candy
Is there any way to use/import .obj files exported from xsi? It doesnt seem to like the smoothing on the meshes.
I've turned off geometry approximation in xsi (should basically be like putting everything in SG1 in max). When exporting I tell it to include userNormals, but I still end up with hard edges.
I can import and then export it from max (with normals) to fix it, but max tend to fuck up the mesh.
I go t the similar effect using blender- and all i had to do was to tick option to export the vertex normal data- so maybe you should look fo somethink like this in XSI export options?
Been messing around with Marmoset, I found out about inverting the green channel, but I'm not sure if the lighting is looking right...? Vahl's models and EQ's guns looking really cool and I've learnt about the sensitive spec and to use darker diffuse maps. Maybe its something wrong with my model.
Replies
Sorry most of these are known issues that do not really have an easy fix.
You could try separating slightly the double sided faces(also do not disable culling, manually duplicate and flip the geometry). This might help a little, but not sure.
You could also try turning off casting/receiving shadows on just the chunks that use alpha test as well.
In general the shadows have some artifacts, a few things you can to is like noted about, try increasing the shadow resolution, try making your mesh smaller, or try playing with the shadow distance settings. Also the skin shader tends to have totally fucked up shadows, which there isnt any fix for.
[edit] Yeah looks like you're using nocull instead of duplicating manually, so try that, it may fix the problem(or atleast make it a little better). Also it should be lit correctly if you manually flip, because with nocull you'll get the backside lit the same as the front side.
Also, are you using the skin shader on the entire mesh? The skin shader tends to have some shadow issues that the standard shader does not, so maybe try playing with what sort of results you can get using the standard shader(or use the a separate chunk for the head, with the skin shader, and everything else standard). The skin shader/shadow problem is one of the worst things to deal with, sorry.
Awesome mesh btw, i saw this over on cgtalk.ru. Looks like one of the strongest entries from any forum that i've seen so far, really clean modeling and great bake.
what is happen...
As shown in above image, the modelling files crash when I open mesh(OBJ) in Marmmoset
sorry, i'm bad english..
(exported max 2009_guruexport)
Make sure to check your obj export settings, UVS, Normals on, compression OFF.
HDR lighting just makes it look so much better.
I had a question on model size...how big is too big? Is there a recommendation? I work in just standard max units. As it stands right now I have to crank the shadows all the way to the max 1200 value in marmoset to remotely start seeing some shadows...
heres xnormal
I tried marmoset and only get a pink model until I load an environment shader and then it gives me these wierd smoothing groups/normals
and my textures load as a mess of stripes.
please could someone help me with this?
I guess you used CS3...may be the cause.
:P
As for the 2nd, try reasaving TGAS as vahl suggests, and also make sure that the correct UV channel has been exported.
i mirrored quiet a view uv shells. i had to flip those mirrored uv's and turn on mirror u in maya.
so it can show up propperly the normalmaps same as the diffuse.
now i found out about this crazy awesome program, but as it seems it doesn't like my mirrored uv's
here is a pic:
here are my uv's in maya:
and here a render in maya itself:
You really just want to have the uvs overlapping, or offset your mirrored uvs 1 unit in UV space(too the left/right) for baking.
hmm i know what you mean, but if i just overlap or move my map by 1 in uv space, i get my normal map really weird... its going inside out then
does that mean i have to rebake? thank you sooo much again for that fast respond!!!!
thanks again for this awesome engine!!!!
the seems are just there cause i didn't cleaned up my maps and still have also no specmap
but i like it so fare
i bet i just forgot to check something somewhere... at least its working in the engine and that's important for now, cause Monday is presentation time and my time is running out for debugging and i have to get the textures and the spec to a good standard.
thanks again for the fast help! i really appreciate it!
by any chance i got another question:
if i import multiple objects and if i do it by importing as a obj, it seems the engine doesn't like it if it has multiple uv maps.
how can i make sure to import my model and for example its "base" and their separate textures?
and is it possible to apply multiple textures as well, cause i saw the button add/overlay/multiply. if so how do i do it?!
thanks again!!!
even if i use the exporter it makes in the folder over 100 chunks, but i just can always load just 1 chunk and not all of them together
i forgot to have it in the "base" root...
sorry about that!
on my dw entry i load my char model. and then load my pedestal as ref mesh.
thus i can assign different material on them. also i can hide/unhide it with ease.
marmoset is way too kool.
I think people are confusing meshes being built from multiple chunks, and what the app actually considers an "object".
In maya you would simply select all of your chunks/objects/whatever that you want to share the same material, and go to mesh-> combine. Do the same for any extra materials. Then name this mesh something descriptive so its easy to pick out in the chunk list. When you look at the outliner, all you should see are the names of the chunks that need separate materials(and whatever default maya stuff is in every scene).
In max its just a matter again of combining stuff into objects, "attach" in max i guess. All you should see in the mesh list are the names of the chunks that need separate materials.
If your scene is made up of 9000 little objects, you're going to have problems. But that is the same for any game engine.
While using it this week, and touching on making my own light environments tonight, I'm wishing for better work flow in that area.
It would be very nice to have interactive control on fog and light direction too. Also one-click creation of the environment file would be awesome. I followed the write up from earlier in the thread and it sort of worked, but I don't understand a lot of how it works so can't tweak results easily like controlling light sources...
Also is there a way to make the skybox excluded from the bloom? I have an environment with a very bright sandy ground, and the bloom just explodes on that. So i'm having to choose between models with nice bloom on them but no BG, or models with a BG but then no bloom.
Still enjoying the tool despite its current limitations in the meantime. Just aching for it to get better!
ps: I was surprised to see the skin shader's SSS colour is global, from the environment, isntead of tied to individual shaders? What happens if you want object with different SSS colours in the same scene?
BradMyers82 ,EarthQuake many thanks guys, that helped, awesome!
And how to change lightning in marmoset scene?
Puss, for the window size you need to edit it manually in one of the .CFGs. However it seems that if you do so, some of the UI buttons might not behave properly. But it's worth doing once you've got everything setup.
As for lighting, everything is cubemap-based so you have to mess with the skybox settings in the sky (or is it env?) tab. Then you can tint the overall look using the post effects sliders or load an existing one (metalgear post is kinda cool :P)
Good luck!
gotta try that out tonight!
WIP NS2 Railcar Arttest I'm doing for fun.
I believe i have gone through the whole thread,so here is my problem:-
it was working all nice and dandy before i downloaded vahls samples. But now, after even deleting the files from the folder, my normals are coming out as if they were doubled...
here is what i mean,Basically the image on the left is the phongenvironment (which is without normals) and the one in the middle shows with the skin shader and the one on the right is the shit in max. The middle shows what i mean when i say :doubled up normal:
what did i fuck up is pretty much what i am meaning to ask.I havent touched the normals/channels inbetween it working and not working.
I sincerely appologise if this has been addressed already
Thanks again!
have you loaded the normal map into both the normals, and detail normals slot?
and a question here, why if i disable culling it gets like the lower image?
EQ:
yeah ive done all that, Ive tried flipping the green channel as well.
pior:
is there any way to tell that the normals were rendered at 30% ? i remember everything working before though
i really need this to work for me guys
EDIT:-
Ok so got it working
All i had to do to get it to work was re-exporting it
Marmo-eye candy
I've turned off geometry approximation in xsi (should basically be like putting everything in SG1 in max). When exporting I tell it to include userNormals, but I still end up with hard edges.
I can import and then export it from max (with normals) to fix it, but max tend to fuck up the mesh.
The left is with object space unchecked with the normals, and the right is object space checked. Can someone clarify the problem for me?
but i have a question
how can i hide the menu to take a bigger shot
if someone could answer me...i will really apperciated!!