Fuchur Posted July 30, 2011 Author Posted July 30, 2011 >If the obj importer could identify a single vertex on an edge and create a hook and interpret a 5 point n-gon and create a 5 point patch I think this would solve most of the issues. This was the main reason, why Hash retracted from cg talk, because he was fed about about these endless discussions and lack of understanding, why A:M doesn`t fit into the polygon world workflow. I don`t know of the status of today. Maybe we could ask Yoda and Fuchur, if some featurerequests in that direction would make sense. It seems to me, if a bridge could be build (and the new mdd is promising), there could be a pipeline for building gameassets in that form: model highpoly models in one of these specialised sculpting apps>retopology that to lowpoly> bake and transfer all the highpolymaps to the lwopolymodel> import that into A:M > ANIMATE ALL GAMEMOVEMENTS EASILY IN A:M >and export as FBX to the gameengine. As I said, its possibly out of the range to achieve this, but why not ask? What I already asked for as a feature-request is the Retopology-Tool for A:M. I think this is the easiest way to get this pipeline working... If you have a model done outside of A:M, bring it as 3d-Rotoscope (more or less a prop-object) to A:M, use something like "Snap to 3d Rotoscope" / "Snap to Polygon-Surface" in A:M (done already by for example 3d Painter) and model your new geometry around it with splines. The next thing would be to transfer the UV-cordinates to the newly created patch-model (a bit like TransferAW does it with Weights only the other way round) and we would have a very fast and workable pipeline from the polyworld to A:M and of course out again. Any automatic importer has problems with the continuity of splines, but this would be a great way to get around that problem by letting these issues be solved by the user, who is the best guy for the job anyway. The cool thing about it: Most stuff of it is already to some extend available. There are algorithms to track a surface (>Surface-Constraint) there is the possibility to import Polygon-Object (> Props). The UV-part may be a little bit more difficult, but should be techniqually doable too. What needs to be implemented for that would be the possibility to import a prop (uneditable) to a modelling-window or if that is too much trouble: We can although model in the Chor using the prop... so the first thing would to do would be "Snap to Surface" for the mouse. Steffen is working on OpenCL-implemetation these days and very ocuppied with that, but he did assign the featurerequest already... and maybe we would need that to slide over the surface with the mouse... This would be a way to open the two worlds to eachother and I am very sure that this would be a great way to attract more people to A:M and giving us many opportunities to work on projects with other guys, create amazing stuff and be a source of great inspiration... I'd love to see that! But it will certainly still take some time before this can be done. Keep in mind: Steffen is already working very hard on A:M and he does it as a hobby... anway, it may be possible and is the only way I see to connect both worlds (Patches and Polygones) in a useable way. See you *Fuchur* PS: I tested 3d Coat a little and I find it to be a very nice addition to A:M with the lowest price-tag out there for such features especially Voxel-modelling, etc. seems to be cool... So I cant test it, because this is still a little to pricey to just buy it and see how it works with A:M's importer... there were others here who did it... as soon as A:M has the retopolgy-tools I will however very certainly buy it to cooperate with A:M! Quote
jakerupert Posted July 31, 2011 Posted July 31, 2011 Hi Fuchur, In your workflow I see, how you will get from poly to patch/spline with A:M `s (would be) retopology tool, but then you have an A:M model. I don`t quite understand, how you will be able to get back to Poly then, besides from the allready exsisting ways of obj, mddd, x export? How can you take the animationdata and transfer it back to the basepolymodel you used for the A:M retopology? Quote
Fuchur Posted July 31, 2011 Author Posted July 31, 2011 Hi Fuchur, In your workflow I see, how you will get from poly to patch/spline with A:M `s (would be) retopology tool, but then you have an A:M model. I don`t quite understand, how you will be able to get back to Poly then, besides from the allready exsisting ways of obj, mddd, x export? How can you take the animationdata and transfer it back to the basepolymodel you used for the A:M retopology? You would not get back to the original model... that one would be very hard to animate, rig or transfer... but you could use it to create a displacementmap from it (ZBrush can do that... very likely 3d Coat can too) or you could use something like TransferAW to transfer the animated bones-data to your high-poly-model if you need to... anyway I dont see the big need for that... using a displacementmap and a well layouted object would be enough to create very astonshing things. Keep in mind: Using such programms creates tons of unneccessary polygons. for most models we are talking about 60 - 80% of not needed polygones or at least unneeded once for patch-based situations... so in most cases you should be able to create a very cool looking model quite easily to be useable in A:M. It would still be work, but it should make the process much easier. And keep in mind: We are talking about game-objects here too... high-poly-models with 500.000 polygones or more are not gonna be working with any kind of game-engine. (you normally need more than one and then we are very fast talking about several millions of polys...) See you *Fuchur* Quote
jakerupert Posted August 1, 2011 Posted August 1, 2011 -In my idea for a gameworkflow involving A:M as rigging/animation tool I was refering to this very interesting tutorial: http://videogameartist.wordpress.com/2011/...eling-tutorial/ This is quite interesting but strictly polybased with other apps, so please ignore if not apropriate. -Related to the problem, not being able to really use advanced rigs like TSM and squetch with the x-porter, I ask myself, if a "baking function" for bone movement would make sense, so that you would be able to just export the bonemovement together with the action? Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted August 1, 2011 Hash Fellow Posted August 1, 2011 -Related to the problem, not being able to really use advanced rigs like TSM and squetch with the x-porter, I ask myself, if a "baking function" for bone movement would make sense, so that you would be able to just export the bonemovement together with the action? The current bake doesn't do that? Quote
Vertexspline Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 Hey guys --this has been a very informative thread indeed and nice to know we have a pipeline from AM into Unity. Pretty awesome --wondered if there was any new revelations from those poking around with all this. Quote
Fuchur Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 Hey guys --this has been a very informative thread indeed and nice to know we have a pipeline from AM into Unity. Pretty awesome --wondered if there was any new revelations from those poking around with all this. Steffen is currently implementing the Retopology-Tool and he is quite far with it. It will be available in v17. If you are only talking about unity-games, etc.: I didnt find the time to create much more with unity at the moment, so I plan to do more in future. See you *Fuchur* Quote
jakerupert Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 >Steffen is currently implementing the Retopology-Tool and he is quite far with it. It will be available in v17. Seems, that means, you will be able to animate nextlevel gamecharas from Zbrush in AM, am I right? (that would be just too cool to be true) "So" I see, that you are still stuck in the so/though mixup trouble ;>) Quote
Fuchur Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 >Steffen is currently implementing the Retopology-Tool and he is quite far with it. It will be available in v17. Seems, that means, you will be able to animate nextlevel gamecharas from Zbrush in AM, am I right? (that would be just too cool to be true) At least you will have it very easy to create a character looking close to the one created with other modeling-software. We will see if transfering of Displacement-Maps is an option or not... but you will at least be able to use the high-poly-model as a 3d-template to create patch-models with it. And this alone is very huge... See you *Fuchur* Quote
jakerupert Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 >We will see if transfering of Displacement-Maps is an option or not Quote
Fuchur Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 We will see... it really doesn't matter which map we are talking about if the projection/transfer of the UVs from the reference-model to the patch-model is possible... after that it is easy. But as I said... lets wait if that is possible... See you *Fuchur* Quote
Vertexspline Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 Thanks for the updates guys----a retopology tool would be totally awesome indeed. Quote
Ilidrake Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 Got a question. I created my model, rigged it with simple skeleton, animated a walk cycle. So far so good. Export it to Direct X and appended animation to file. No problem. Open it in Unwrap. Opens fine. Checking animation! Skeleton animates but mesh does not. Any ideas? I follow Fucher's instructions to the letter. using version 15 of AM. **Solved!!! Have to select Left Handed Model!!!! By the way did a quick test and this works with TSM2. Quote
Ilidrake Posted March 10, 2014 Posted March 10, 2014 What am I missing? The model exports but it's backwards in the engine and does not animate. Quote
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