UV Mapping ??

[createo]

Hello,
Do you have on youtube (or other), a simple example of UV unfolding with a cube?
I understood a procedure but I am not sure:

1 - Create groups
2 - create poses where we unfold these groups
3 - Grabbing the unfolding screen
4 - create your UV from the grab
5 - place the image as a decal on the "open" pose.
6 - remove the pose so that the character returns to its initial shape.

It would seem logical but relatively ... artisanal

 

greats

[robcat2075]

13 hours ago, createo said:

Do you have on youtube (or other), a simple example of UV unfolding with a cube?

A cube is the absolute worst-case example for trying to unfold a spline model.

I'm still thinking of a good answer.

 

13 hours ago, createo said:

1 - Create groups
2 - create poses where we unfold these groups
3 - Grabbing the unfolding screen
4 - create your UV from the grab
5 - place the image as a decal on the "open" pose.
6 - remove the pose so that the character returns to its initial shape.

3,4,5 are no longer necessary

Once you have the Pose with the unfolded mesh visible in a window, do RMB-->Apply Snapshot

It will prompt you for a save location and resolution.

That will grab the screen, save the image with the splines on it, import it back into your project AND... stamp it back on your model! Wow.

 

6 is also not necessary. Poses only affect your model if they are set to ON or some non-zero slider value. You can leave them in your model in case you need to revisit them for some reason.

 

[createo]

Thank you

I'm trying tomorrow, because in France, we're going to sleep!
And tomorrow is my last day of vacation

I will devote less of my time to exploring and using AM 😭

good day

[createo]

If I understand correctly, we cannot have a single unfolding to create a UV for an object.

There is no definition of seams as in 3D polygonal? So an object cannot be "opened".
If we want to make a UV projection on the entire object, we must define at least two poses and export them?
With AM, no algorithm will automatically flatten surfaces for us, being careful that there are no overlaps!
Finally, what is good is that the mapping system is based on only one principle: decals, UVMapping, or not!
Can you confirm me?
thank you

[createo]

Is 3D painter still "in the race" of 3D painting?

Because it seems to have not evolved for a long time !?
Should it allow a complex object to be painted more comfortably?
Do you have any user experience with this software?
Thank you !

[Fuchur]

There are several different methodes to do a texture mapping in A:M.
(and the great thing about it: You can combine them as you wish)

Many only use stamps in the viewport and just do a little bit of stamping with transparent decals there.

3d painter is no longer under developement, but in general everything works, that can import objs and export textures without changing the toplogy of the polygones to the texture underneath. I really like 3dCoat (very powerful: https://3dcoat.com/) for that.

This is a video tutorial/overview on some of the most common methodes if you really want to do a UV map / unfolding way in A:M.
As mentioned before, it is often not necessary to do a UV mapping in the traditional way but you can do it if you want to.

The tutorial is really just something I've put together in a couple of minutes and there are a lot of things I might not cover in this, but just to give you a small overview). I am trying to show you how you could do a UV map in this, but I am more often going with a 3d painting software like 3dCoat or am just doing everything with stamps itself.

The images show for instance a chamaelon I did with A:M & 3dCoat with color, bump and displacement maps.

And if you'd  like to see the stamp way in A:M, I would recommend watching the last part of this tutorial session:
https://www.patchwork3d.de/modeling-the-panzer-66-en

If you've got any questions let us know.

Best regards
*Fuchur*

PS: At around 20:40 I am searching for "Apply Snapshot" which is no longer done by hand but can be done form the modelling window/action window/pose window instead and shortens the process of getting a texture with UV tiles on it out a little bit.

PPS: While importing into 3dCoat you can set UV Set Smoothing to "Full UV Set Smoothing" which might help with the seams when you are trying to export displacement maps later on too. If you want to work with this, use 256 (or something very high) when exporting the OBJ from A:M. The closer it matches, the better. But the longer and larger the export / export file will take / be.

 

[createo]

Exactly what I'm looking for as explanations!
Thank you very much!
Greetings

[createo]

Hello,
Thank you for all these explanations !
What is the procedure for exchanging 3d files between AM and 3DCoat? 3D Coat supports the mdl natively ??
Is this work also possible with "Armor Paint"?
Greetings

[robcat2075]

  

Gerald, is there a tut on how to get the 3DCoat painting back in to A:M?

4 hours ago, Fuchur said:

The images shows for instance a chamaelon I did with A:M & 3dCoat with color, bump and displacement maps.

 

9 hours ago, createo said:

If I understand correctly, we cannot have a single unfolding to create a UV for an object.

There is no definition of seams as in 3D polygonal? So an object cannot be "opened".
If we want to make a UV projection on the entire object, we must define at least two poses and export them?

Because splines are continuous across CPs, and the shape on one side depends on what the shape is on the other side It is not practical to make a split between patches and spread them apart.

Try this: Lathe a vase. Make a Pose slider for it. In the Pose, go to Muscle mode. With the Pose slider at 100%, do a "Flatten".

Now slide the Pose slider from 0% (original shape) to 100% ("Flattened").

VaseFlatten.prj

You can see that Flatten does a good job of unwrapping most of the mesh around the vertical axis but one set of patches at the back have to be stretched way, way, way out for the rest of them to get flat. That stretching also distorts the splines of their neighbor patches.

The Flatten method is good for decaling the patches that are not the very stretched patches or their immediate neighbors.

So, yes, with Flatten you would need at least two decals, one for your flattened front and another for your flattened back. You could include some patches in both and use an alpha channel to fade between them.

 

Quote

With AM, no algorithm will automatically flatten surfaces for us, being careful that there are no overlaps!

I like to use Cylinder mapping instead of flatten. If a shape can be arranged around the vertical axis, cylinder mapping lets you cover all of it with one decal and just one seam at the back.

 

 

 

Quote

Finally, what is good is that the mapping system is based on only one principle: decals, UVMapping, or not!

I'm not sure what this is asking.

[robcat2075]

Here is a quick overview of using Cylinder mapping on a more complex shape...

 

Here is the PRJ if you want to look at the Pose sliders and stuff...

PunchMapping-->E--->_BI_Projects-->hash 2-->SockPuppet-->Punch

PunchMapping.zip

[Fuchur]

1 hour ago, robcat2075 said:

  Gerald, is there a tut on how to get the 3DCoat painting back in to A:M?

Have a look at the video tutorial. You will only exchange 3d data from A:M to 3d Coat. As shown in the video above (starting from about 30:00) you are going to export to OBJ which will have an UV map on the exported obj file. 3dcoat will import the obj file and work with it. When you draw on it and save the textures in 3d Coat (without changing the topology of the polygones... just drawing on it => this is called "Import Model for Per Pixel Paint" in 3dCoat) and bring them back to A:M, the UV is still available in A:M on the original model and should still match the textures. (that is the same process as 3dpainter used internally too)

Exporting 3d data back to A:M is only possible using OBJ export from 3dcoat and import back to A:M, but that has the usual problems.
Best way is to do retopology in A:M then, but that will loose the UVs.

There was a plugin for import/export of even object data but it is no longer working
(and had a problem with the toplogy too... so it was pretty close to working)

Anyway:
Best way is to only manipulate the textures with the other programm and leave everything else as it is.
That works perfectly and is what I do there.

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[Fuchur]

2 hours ago, createo said:

Hello,
Thank you for all these explanations !
What is the procedure for exchanging 3d files between AM and 3DCoat? 3D Coat supports the mdl natively ??
Is this work also possible with "Armor Paint"?
Greetings

3dCoat does not support the native MDL format. But it handles OBJ exports from A:M just fine and that can be used there.

I do not own armor paint. If it only changes the textures and not the polygones or UV set it should be fine.
However it costs money and I do not have a credit card so somebody else needs to check if it works out.

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

47 minutes ago, Fuchur said:

...you are going to export to OBJ which will have an UV map on the exported obj file. 3dcoat will import the obj file and work with it. When you draw on it and save the textures in 3d Coat (without changing the topology of the polygones... just drawing on it => this is called "Import Model for Per Pixel Paint" in 3dCoat) and bring them back to A:M, the UV is still available in A:M on the original model and should still match the textures. (that is the same process as 3dpainter used internally too)

That is news to me! I didn't know anyone had gotten that working.

I'll give their 30 day trial a trial when I have time.

[createo]

Thank you again for all this information !!
I will "digest" them during this week ... of work (no more holidays !!).
I would really like to integrate AM into my freelance workflow (when I'm not a teacher or trainer
I really enjoy working on the characters and mascots. AM's workflow seems to match a lot.
I'm going to try to "finish" an (old: started in 2005) character for the "finish the unfinished" contest. The indications you have given me should allow me to do so.
I return to the forum as soon as possible!
Thank you to all

[robcat2075]

I look forward to seeing your entry!

[createo]

10 minutes ago, robcat2075 said:

That is news to me! I didn't know anyone had gotten that working.

I'll give their 30 day trial a trial when I have time.

Ohoh, interesting. If it works this way with 3D Coat, it must work great with Blender!
I'll try ... when I have some time ... later ...

[createo]

It will really be at the end of the week. Not before

[createo]

Hello,
I could finally watch the video "way to texture mapping in AM" because my internet connection is very bad in the countryside!
It says it all for me! Now I just have to practice with AM.
See you soon

[robcat2075]

@Fuchur Something is wrong with OBJ exporting. When I export to OBJ there are always gaps or overlaps at the edges of 5-point patches. It's not supposed to be that way, is it? You wouldn't be reliably able to paint on that.

[Fuchur]

Yes, that was always a problem with the exports.
What size is your model?

Anyway hooks and 5-pointers should be made small and used rarely, which is a good idea anyway.

The good thing: If you use something like "UV set smoothing > Full UV Set Smoothing" and the right margins for Bake Surface, it works pretty well anyway, since the surface underneath it is very close to the one covered by the patch. If you might see a small distortion there, but if the 5 pointers are not extremly large, it should not be very visible.

But yes, it would be better if that could be fixed.
Malo had some nice ideas in that direction but I do not think they ever got fully worked out.

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

More subdivisions doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that 5pointers are exported with only straight edges and more polygons doesn't make them any less straigth.

 

This 256 has all the same gaps in the same places and the same sizes. And there seems to be a problem with corrupted polygons in the middle of each 5 pointer.

[robcat2075]

Here is a 16 exported from v18. This version has all the edges properly meeting. However, with a 64 the gaps are back.

[yoda64]

If You scale the model with factor 1000, before exporting !, the problem will not longer exist.

The problem is that the precision for float type are to low for splitting the 5 point patches .

See #0006973 for a more detailed explanation (in german)

[Fuchur]

Ah yes, there was some info on that...
@Steffen: Would there be an option to scale it while exporting?

So that the exporter would give an option like "scale by 1000 (better 5 pointers)"?

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

7 minutes ago, yoda64 said:

If You scale the model with factor 1000, before exporting !, the problem will not longer exist.

I presume by "factor 1000" you mean 100000%

That does work. Here is a 64 export.

[Fuchur]

The good thing about this work around: It really does not matter at all for this workflow if the model is 1000x bigger or not, since the UV set will just scale on the texture with it :).

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[CodyP24]

Where could we read this more detail explanation at?

See #0006973 for a more detailed explanation (in german)

[robcat2075]

21 minutes ago, CodyP24 said:

Where could we read this more detail explanation at?

See #0006973 for a more detailed explanation (in german)

It's at AM Reports

https://reports.hash.com/view.php?id=6973

You may need to register for a username a password, it won't be the same as the forum and since that is a v19 beta issue it may not be publicly visible anyway.

[yoda64]

18 hours ago, robcat2075 said:

I presume by "factor 1000" you mean 100000%

That does work. Here is a 64 export.

 

No , I mean "1000%" ..

 

[robcat2075]

1 minute ago, yoda64 said:

No , I mean "1000%" ..

 

So... really a factor of 10x, right?

If the model was 20cm wide it should be made 10x20cm... or 200cm?

[robcat2075]

I Deepl-ed the notes at 6973....

If converting the whole process to double precision float is undesireable, how about if the OBJ exporter created a temporary duplicate of the model, did a normal A:M scale on the duplicate and then performed the normal export on the duplicate? Then throw the duplicate away.

That would be transparent to the user.

[Malo]

Good evening everyone, 🙂

It is possible to create UVs, in a program external to AM, to re-import them into AM.
I haven't used AM for a long time. But from memory I used several steps:
I save my model in mdl file.
I import it into Blender via the Nemyax plugin (Blender 2.79)
https://forums.hash.com/topic/47778-am-importer-for-blender/?tab=comments#comment-409549
I create my UVs in Blender.
At the same time I convert the MDL file into a "special" Obj file via my little program without subdivisions.
https://forums.hash.com/topic/48836-some-tools-for-am/?tab=comments#comment-418077
I import the Obj file into AM while keeping the order of the vertices. I transfer the Uvs of the other model to him.
I export my Obj file keeping the order of the vertices.
I am using my little program for this time converting and transferring UVs to Mdl files.

Note : when we use polygonal UV tools, we loose the richness of the splines. For example for a circle with 4CPs, the UV will be a polygon with 4 sides.
We lose too the possible to use the same patch on several UVs.
Aside from its peculiarity at AM, it works well.

To paint UVs, this is another method.
In AM I export the mdl with its UV in OBj with subdivision (to have the shapes) in Blender.
I paint the model. The uv painte picture can be used after in AM.

[robcat2075]

Here is a complication for the external painting workflow

If I export a model that used Cylinder mapping to apply the decal, the OBJ can not reproduce that correctly. This has something to do with A:M using a 3x repeat on cylindrical decals.

 

If I take the exported map into Photoshop and 3x the "canvas" width, with the original image in the center, the OBJ can use that and it looks correct except for a portion missing on the back

 

If I tile the original image 3X we can see that the missing portion gets its imagery from one of the extra side images...

 

I presume that if this were used for painting in 3DCoat, as Gerald describes, not all the paint would land on the center tile. Some way would be needed to compile all the paint back into the center tile for use in A:M.

 

 

 

[CodyP24]

@FuchurHave you had this problem before texturing outside for animation:master?

[Fuchur]

No. But I am not using the cylindrical mapping method of Robert in most of the cases. If you want to get rid of the problem, do a Bake Surface before export.
That should get rid of it... otherwise, Robert would you like to file a bug report for it?

Best regards
*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

15 minutes ago, Fuchur said:

Robert would you like to file a bug report for it?

I brought it up with Steffen. It seems there is no way write an OBJ that uses cylinder mapping the way A:M does.

However, it should be possible to make a Photoshop "Action" that would automatically triple the original Cylinder map, as above, for use with the OBJ and another Photoshop Action that could un-triple it all back into one square, after painting externally, for use in A:M.

I like cylinder map because it doesn't force separate tiles for each patch, there's just one seam in the back of the model. The cylinder map is easy to work on in a 2D paint program.

[CodyP24]

I think it would be nice to maybe have a little note somewhere for that maybe in documentation so us trying to use external paint softwares have a problem can look it up.

[TonaHer]

On 3/7/2021 at 6:14 PM, Fuchur said:

There are several different methodes to do a texture mapping in A:M.
(and the great thing about it: You can combine them as you wish)

Many only use stamps in the viewport and just do a little bit of stamping with transparent decals there.

3d painter is no longer under developement, but in general everything works, that can import objs and export textures without changing the toplogy of the polygones to the texture underneath. I really like 3dCoat (very powerful: https://3dcoat.com/) for that.

This is a video tutorial/overview on some of the most common methodes if you really want to do a UV map / unfolding way in A:M.
As mentioned before, it is often not necessary to do a UV mapping in the traditional way but you can do it if you want to.

The tutorial is really just something I've put together in a couple of minutes and there are a lot of things I might not cover in this, but just to give you a small overview). I am trying to show you how you could do a UV map in this, but I am more often going with a 3d painting software like 3dCoat or am just doing everything with stamps itself.

The images show for instance a chamaelon I did with A:M & 3dCoat with color, bump and displacement maps.

And if you'd  like to see the stamp way in A:M, I would recommend watching the last part of this tutorial session:
https://www.patchwork3d.de/modeling-the-panzer-66-en

If you've got any questions let us know.

Best regards
*Fuchur*

PS: At around 20:40 I am searching for "Apply Snapshot" which is no longer done by hand but can be done form the modelling window/action window/pose window instead and shortens the process of getting a texture with UV tiles on it out a little bit.

PPS: While importing into 3dCoat you can set UV Set Smoothing to "Full UV Set Smoothing" which might help with the seams when you are trying to export displacement maps later on too. If you want to work with this, use 256 (or something very high) when exporting the OBJ from A:M. The closer it matches, the better. But the longer and larger the export / export file will take / be.

 

 

Exactly what I'm looking for as explanations!

[strato]

There was, or is, a great Tutorial by William Sutton (Zandoria) about creating a UV map In Hash after V 11. Upon export the model will have a correct UV map even with a 4-point  subdivision. I found the Lightwave exporters always more reliable than any OBJ ones in closing 4-point and 5-point patches. Unfortunately the best exporter was from Japan and part of a Mirror spline commercial plug in. It not only closed all holes correctly, it also exported the UVs and the bones with weight maps. Opening the model exported into Blender, if it was a single polygon per patch, required to use of  a negative Smooth and a SubD Modifier, but it would be really close to the original. I wish the newer versions had that functionality. I just bought two licenses for W7 and W10, but there are so many issues and crashes that I went back to V 13 on a XP 64. Fast and reliable.

 

[robcat2075]

7 hours ago, strato said:

 but there are so many issues and crashes that I went back to V 13 on a XP 64. Fast and reliable.

Crashes will get fixed if you can report the steps to make them.

I don't have many troubles with A:M but another user noted he was getting frequent, seemingly random crashes... when he ran his monitor at a non-native resolution.

He had a 4K monitor but was setting it to HD to use A:M. Check that.