Export MDD?

[HomeSlice]

I just noticed when I right click on a model in a chor and go to Plugins > Export, there is the option "Export MDD Data". I searched the forum for MDD but got no results. Does anyone know what MDD data is and how I can use it?

[Fuchur]

I just noticed when I right click on a model in a chor and go to Plugins > Export, there is the option "Export MDD Data". I searched the forum for MDD but got no results. Does anyone know what MDD data is and how I can use it?

 

MDD can be used to export animations on a cp-base. That means you can for example export an OBJ-file and attach to this obj-file in another 3d-software the animation. It is not editable and doesnt have a bone-hierachy, but it is quite near to the results and you can use A:Ms toolset (including smartskins, etc.) to animate characters (or whatever) and use it for example in Realflow to simulate the waterfall flowing around it...

 

Has been introduced for the Soulcage Department so they are able to use a fluid-simulationsoftware with A:M.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[nino banano]

I just noticed when I right click on a model in a chor and go to Plugins > Export, there is the option "Export MDD Data". I searched the forum for MDD but got no results. Does anyone know what MDD data is and how I can use it?

 

MDD can be used to export animations on a cp-base. That means you can for example export an OBJ-file and attach to this obj-file in another 3d-software the animation. It is not editable and doesnt have a bone-hierachy, but it is quite near to the results and you can use A:Ms toolset (including smartskins, etc.) to animate characters (or whatever) and use it for example in Realflow to simulate the waterfall flowing around it...

 

Has been introduced for the Soulcage Department so they are able to use a fluid-simulationsoftware with A:M.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

it sounds great...

[HomeSlice]

very cool. Thank you Fuchur.

[detbear]

That is very cool..... It doesn't export textures though....right. Is it kind of like a "prop" exporter which allows mesh motion? sounds interesting.

[JohnArtbox]

The texturing part of the equation is part of the obj file. The mdd file just moves the points around. In theory this also allows the use of external render engines.

[jakerupert]

So anybody around has renderman?

 

;>)

[Fuchur]

The texturing part of the equation is part of the obj file. The mdd file just moves the points around. In theory this also allows the use of external render engines.

 

And just to mention it:

Steffen is looking over the OBJ-plugin so that it can export textures too.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[JohnArtbox]

I managed to get mdd into zbrush as an experiment, it just happened to be the program with mdd import that I had to hand. Results looked pretty good, and because the model had a single decal, I simply reapplied it to the obj file

[HomeSlice]

Has anyone experimented with A:M > OBJ/MDD > animated COLLADA file? What programs did you use for the conversions? Would be really nice to have a pipeline to embed A:M models in web pages via webGL.

[detbear]

That is Fantastic you guys!!!! Thanks for sharing that.. This is really promising news. If Steffen can get the OBJs to export the "decal" mapping somehow....WOW... that would be incredible.. The .3ds exporter is suppose to do that but I havn't been able to get stable results in every case. Still...I'm very thankful for those export plugins.

 

 

HOMESLICE.....I converted to Collada into/ from Vue 7.5. It is surprisingly good....But that was after I exported an obj from Hash, imported it to Vue...then exported it from Vue as Collada. But that was for stills/ not animation... BUT I KNOW THAT VUE uses this type system for importing animated meshes from programs like poser.

 

William

[detbear]

John....

 

That is really cool about your Mdd export to Zbrush.. I did something similar to this in Vue...Re-applying the "single" texture maps. It works really well.

 

I'd love to see your results with that.

 

William

[Elm]

The whole MDD and OBJ export thing is really very very interesting.

Here are some of our recent tests - exported to octane render and Modo.

 

BTW - The Power sledge had its textures when it came over in to octane - as the ball still had its groups.

Also, Alan Wood still had his textures correctly when we imported him as an OBJ into Modo.

 

I see G R E A T potential in this export thing (obj and MDD)

 

All the best,

Elm.

Ball.mov

Schlitten_Turntable.MOV

[John Bigboote]

Wow Elm--- cool tests! Would love to see Alan Wood in motion. SO- Octane Render ($135- currently still in beta) accepts animation:Master's exported MDD and OBJ files?

 

This could be a catalyst to bring back many former A:M users who loved the modeling tools but left for other reasons. I'd like to try the demo of Octane Render but apparently my graphics card is not CUDA compliant.

 

Would love it if you could keep us up on your findings.

 

Was the 'Shlitten' modeled in A:M?

[HomeSlice]

SWEET Powersled! Where can I buy one?

[Fuchur]

Sounds cool! Thanks for the test... I will have a look at octane....

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Elm]

Wow Elm--- cool tests! Would love to see Alan Wood in motion. SO- Octane Render ($135- currently still in beta) accepts animation:Master's exported MDD and OBJ files?

 

This could be a catalyst to bring back many former A:M users who loved the modeling tools but left for other reasons. I'd like to try the demo of Octane Render but apparently my graphics card is not CUDA compliant.

 

Would love it if you could keep us up on your findings.

 

Was the 'Shlitten' modeled in A:M?

 

Yes, the "Shlitten" was modeled in A:M. If you haven't yet, you can see it in action here:

"Shlitten on Vimeo"

 

Well, Octane doesn't accept any MDD files yet (BUT it loads A:M's OBJs really well (including decals)). Basically, Octane deals with OBJ sequences. It's still a bit uncomfortable, but maybe the next version(s) of it even support MDD import? This would be great.

Plus: Otane doesn't have a timeline or something like that yet. to get a camera (or even a whole choreography) over to octane is still pretty impossible (only with workarounds).... Let's hope for future development!

[John Bigboote]

Well, Octane doesn't accept any MDD files yet (BUT it loads A:M's OBJs really well (including decals)).

 

 

How does Octanes accept A:M's materials? Do they need to be baked first, or reworked in Octane using Octane's proprietary materials...? Too bad about the MDD's... looks like Octane is primarily a 'still frame' renderer that is being made into an animation renderer as an afterthought. Things like field rendering and motion blur will fall thru the cracks, but what a great DOF it has!

[Elm]

Well, Octane doesn't accept any MDD files yet (BUT it loads A:M's OBJs really well (including decals)).

 

 

How does Octanes accept A:M's materials? Do they need to be baked first, or reworked in Octane using Octane's proprietary materials...?

 

 

What you mean with "baked materials"?

Well, I have reworked the materials in Octane. (The model's groups are preserved!!)

[robcat2075]

What you mean with "baked materials"?

 

Most material parameters (color, transparency, ambience, reflectivity...) can be converted into a bitmap with the same appearance on a model with the "Bake Surface" command.

[Elm]

What you mean with "baked materials"?

 

Most material parameters (color, transparency, ambience, reflectivity...) can be converted into a bitmap with the same appearance on a model with the "Bake Surface" command.

 

this is new to me - how can I do this?

[John Bigboote]

V-16: Once you have your materials and decals all set, you would on the model in the PWS and select 'Bake Surface'... A:M will work for a minute or so (it hasn't crashed)... and then you will notice a new decal in your decals folder, and new 'bs' images in your images folder (bs_color, bs_specular intensity, bs_specular size, bs_ambience intensity, bs_bump and bs_transparency)

 

You should then delete all your materials and other decals (for they are now double represented) and SAVE AS and test for render similarity and speed increase. GLAD TO HELP YOU, I feel we owe you, Elm!

 

 

EDIT: Actually... you should be able to delete most all of your groups at this point. I would'nt delete groups that have hair, SSS, and I'm wondering how an environment or matcaps work...prolly save those groups too.

 

AND- Baking is a powerful feature (I suppose) when used in conjunction with AMPainter.

[robcat2075]

EDIT: Actually... you should be able to delete most all of your groups at this point. I would'nt delete groups that have hair, SSS, and I'm wondering how an environment or matcaps work...prolly save those groups too.

 

I don't think it can bake those on since those depend on a "reflection" off the surface for their effect

[robcat2075]

let's see...

Bake does color, specular intensity,specular size, ambience intensity, bump, and transparency.

 

 

It doesn't do other things like reflectivity, but those can had by making a grayscale color material in place of it, baking that and then changing it to whatever to was supposed to be.

[jakerupert]

> baking that and then changing it to whatever to was supposed to be.

 

not grabbing this. How does this bring reflectivity?

[Fuchur]

> baking that and then changing it to whatever to was supposed to be.

 

not grabbing this. How does this bring reflectivity?

 

A reflectivitymap is only driving reflectivity value of a surface (so at which point the surface should reflect how strong) through a greyscale-texture.

An environmentmap fakes something that is reflecting with a color-map. A:M is not creating an environmentmap on the fly when you bake the material.

It will create a map, which drives the reflectivity (defined in other decals or surface properties of groups / models)

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

> baking that and then changing it to whatever to was supposed to be.

 

not grabbing this. How does this bring reflectivity?

 

 

Suppose I made a checkerboard material with half the squares very reflective and half zero reflective. But Bake can't capture that.

 

Change the material to make the reflective squares white and the non-reflective squares black. Bake that then change the map that gets created from "Color" to "Reflectivity".

[Elm]

Whatever.

 

I think that, whenever exchanging models etc. with other software pakages, I think that in most cases you'll have to rework surfaces and materials, or at lest tweak the imported results. This isn't hard and in octane, it's even fun. What counts (imo) is correctly exchanged decal coordinates.

[John Bigboote]

Change the material to make the reflective squares white and the non-reflective squares black. Bake that then change the map that gets created from "Color" to "Reflectivity".

 

 

Works for me. Wonder why the reflectivity aspect missed the 'bake-boat'.

[robcat2075]

Change the material to make the reflective squares white and the non-reflective squares black. Bake that then change the map that gets created from "Color" to "Reflectivity".

 

 

Works for me. Wonder why the reflectivity aspect missed the 'bake-boat'.

 

Steffen has looked at it in the past, for some reason transparency couldn't get in.

[Elm]

Guys -

 

Currently again dancing around with exporting stuff et cetera.

The baking surface thang is REALLY cool... B U T :

We're living in HD times, and the baked image maps are way too small for serious use.... Is there a way to increase the baked-map - resolution?

PLEASE!!!

 

Thanks in advance!

Elm.

[robcat2075]

If you hold down the shift key when you do "Bake Surface" a dialog box come up that lets you set "resolution"

 

I think the number is like a power of 2

[Elm]

T H A N K Y O U S O M U C H !!!!!!!!

 

[John Bigboote]

T H A N K Y O U S O M U C H !!!!!!!!

 

Elm... please keep us informed of your findings. Have you played with the new OBJ exporter yet?

[Elm]

Hi!

 

Well, I can't find a difference to be honest.... Or am I blind?

 

It's working out REALLY great so far. I'm "exporting" one of our commercials to MODO at this time (for RENDERING purposes - MODO's Renderer is really outstanding.) No Problems so far - it's fun, and Modo IS quite intuitive in handling - unlike most of those polygon apps out there.... I can't wait to finish this project (which WILL take some more time...)

 

Greets,

Elm.

[John Bigboote]

A colleague brought up an interesting question... are you exporting to Modo model/obj by model/obj one at a time and rebuilding in Modo... or are you able to export the entire choreography. (?) Are you re-lighting and re-setting the camera in Modo as well?

 

REALLLY CURIOUS

[Elm]

A colleague brought up an interesting question... are you exporting to Modo model/obj by model/obj one at a time and rebuilding in Modo... or are you able to export the entire choreography. (?) Are you re-lighting and re-setting the camera in Modo as well?

 

REALLLY CURIOUS

 

I haven't tried yet to export a whole choreography yet, but I think this wouldn't make that much sense (I think it's easier to export model by model at one time and then 'apply' the corresponding *.MDDs)

It's not really nessesary to reset the camera in Modo - there's this MAXSCRIPT file written by steffen gross, which can export a camera (with all parameters, also animated) to 3DSMax. from there you can export the camera as an *.FBX file to modo.

It's quite a workaround, but it works well so far. Concerning lighting: Yes, I completely re-do that in modo, as you have other/more options there (the IBL and Global Illumination are simply amazing).

 

Can anybody once more explain the 'new' OBJ exporter?

 

Greetz,

Elm.

[ernesttx]

I've had a chance to play with the new export in 16 RC2. I'm loving it.

 

I've been able to export .obj files of my models and be able to import them into Fusion 6.1 for compositing. I've also been able to export an .obj sequence into Fusion, as well. The Groups in a model also transfer making it easy to re-material, texture or shade a group in Fusion, as well.

 

Other things I've been playing with, .obj export model, export .mdd and import both into messiah 5. Also, works with the .lwo exporter too. I was testing messiah to be able to export out .fbx, but I'm not sure animation of .mdd files follow through on that. Also, playing with Blender 2.56 as well.

 

But, it's nice to have A:M models playing nicely with other programs. Don't get me wrong, I love A:M and it's features, and with the new .obj exporter I can model and animate in A:M, and now export out to Fusion for compositing. That is nice. Plus, can always export .exr as well. but it's nice to composite with "real" model in 3D environment.

 

My biggest area of exploration is in UV mapping and texturing (as I'm not that well versed yet and I have some personal learning to do to correlate from A:M to Fusion or messiah or other programs) and being able to apply, resurface, texture, use shaders in the other programs. But, it's fun learning.

[Elm]

can you describe how exactly the *.obj export has been changed ? - Just to make sure - we're talking about right klicking the model, then Plug-Ins -> Export , aren't we?

 

Greets,

Elm.

[ernesttx]

Elm, I wouldn't know what has "changed" code wise in the .obj exporter. I have just been recently testing it out with various programs that I have, since there has been talk here about a new version of the exporter.

 

But, yes, I right click on model > plugins > export .obj or .lwo. Only .mdd uses the front camera view only (or as far as I can tell).