Maya <--> Mudbox

[oglu]

here a test i did a while ago...
maybe useful...

and here ashmans script ive used...
http://www.pixelcg.com/blog/?p=88

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/6172/treey.jpg

[PascalR]

Excellent stuff, thanks for sharing :dance:

[oglu]

and here an other test...

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9900/testcubess.jpg

[tonytrout]

Thanks Oglu, I use Ashman's script too but just working my way up to multiple texture maps on a current project so your info is timely, cheers :beerchug:

[El Burritoh]

I didn't know Mudbox could do so well with UV tiles. Thanks for sharing this.

[oglu]

uv tiles are one of the core features of mud... its all about uv tiles in mud...
mud is able to read, bake and paint them in different channel and layers...

im affraid most people dont know it... :(

[El Burritoh]

That's impressive.

[Ken]

Hey Oglu, thanks for sharing! It would be very helpful for us.
If I could have tip/tricks about mudbox, I'll post on here!

about the multiple uv tile...
you can toggle tex on/off using hotkey, such as "ctrl+up", "ctrl+down" and so on, please check hokey editor.
Mudbox has some secret features, however you can use/access them using hotkeys.
for example,
"shift+s" single select face
when you'll use "set topological axis", it would be useful, easily to select each faces!

Of course, I know, you already know about them, just in case...

cheers,

[oglu]

here an other great mudbox feature... uv tiles...
you can paint hundreds of textures seamless onto one object...
or bake normalmaps, displacement, VDM, AO into...
this is also working with layer and blendingmodes...
you can hide those tiles you dont need...
not new in 2011 but there are only a few people out there they know about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro_Ruhu-SGs

[oglu]

ive made this weighting image plane... maybe its usefull for someone...
its an interlaced .PNG you could use as colorpicker image plane... shortcut "i"

download --> http://area.autodesk.com/mudlife/stencils/weighting_image_plane

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1443/weightplane.jpg

[tonytrout]

hmmm..that looks crafty, I will have to try it out. Thanks Oglu.:thumbsup:

[oglu]

workflow for vector displacement brush creation...


1. create a plane with only one face in maya… (i will upload one in the mud community)
2. sculpt these plane in mudbox… but dont move the four vertices on the corners..!!
3. bake your VDM…


http://area.autodesk.com/mudlife/basem/plane_for_vdm_sculpting

[oglu]

for a tileable texture...
import a plane with 4 faces into mudbox...
make sure that the uvs are overlapping...
paint...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4sfcJuKrCY

[oglu]

texturing test... 25 2k textures...
also baked 25 512er ao maps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPXJUK3ekgE

[El Burritoh]

Thanks so much for posting this!

[oglu]

this is an old one... but with some interesting infos...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxoGn1qPhYA

[PascalR]

Cool thread, thanks Oglu!
:sw:plugged:sw:

[oglu]

doubleclicking sliders in mudbox will set the current value to max...
to set the value back type it in...

2225

[MikeANash]

Nice stuff !

So whats the deal with mudbox2011 lagging so much with real-time painting ? I gave up with trying to paint anything realtime.

[oglu]

what do you mean by lagging..?
how much/big textures..?
wich graphics card did you use..?

[MikeANash]

I'm using 280gtx with 6500 texture size.
Whenever I switch my brushes it lags and also starts to lag with the brush strokes.

[oglu]

i would say thats the 6k texture...
in the right bottom corner you can see the Vram usage...
if you ran out of vram mud is really laggy cause its using the vram only during texture painting...

try to use two 4k maps...
or 8 2k maps... more smaller maps are much faster...

[michel.g]

another cool feature,when you need precise stokes, is the sculpt using curves (http://download.autodesk.com/us/mudbox/help2010/index.html?url=WS1a9193826455f5ff-6d855556117c4584e54-284c.htm,topicNumber=d0e10027).
Very usefull for hard surface modeling, 'cartoon clean modeling' and painting. It could be a more interactive feature for the future but the base is here.

[companioncube]

I'm using 280gtx with 6500 texture size.
Whenever I switch my brushes it lags and also starts to lag with the brush strokes.

i have an nvidia 285gtx which is a little higher spec but i use multi UV tiles like oglu said, usually multi 2k maps which my card seems to be really comfortable with and i find it better for rendering in your target 3D app as its only rendering the UV tiles that it needs instead of loading a whole giant map and eating up memory.

thanks for all the cool tips oglu!!!

[oglu]

here some tutorials to work with uv tiles in max and maya...

http://www.pixelcg.com/blog/?p=88
http://www.pixelcg.com/blog/?p=75
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/multiple_uv_tiles/multiple_uvs_tiles.htm
http://www.pixolator.com/showpost.php?p=691657&postcount=80


...



http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/200/mayatilena0.jpg



...

[gal]

another logical tip:
create hard surfaced or organic details in mudbox or maya, normal map bake it on a plane.
(but u need to bake in 6 different rotations (6 faces of a cube), ill explain why in a sec)
then in mudbox create a normal map layer, use the projection brush to place your baked detail maps on the model to be added to your final normal map export.
why 6? because normal maps are baked based on their direction in space in the relationship of your target. so you need to bake the plane and it's detail 6 times: once facing up, once facing down, sideways.. 6 cubical directions(just group and rotate the whole thing each time by 90 degrees) and create 6 baked detail maps.. as you project in mudbox select the logical map in relationship to the surface/direction your detail should be.
this step could be avoided if mudbox could re-normalize a normal map based on it's direction(nice wishlist) so you only need 1 baked normal detail map like a 32bit displacement projection process. -> super useful for game artists.

P.S.
would be nice if you could use the curves to create a solid shape to use a stencil... for painting specifically.

[gal]

with minimal detail loss/spikes.
you can export your lowest and highest level from zb to objs and import it in mudbox using the uv matching with low fresh-hold. HOWEVER that will most likely give you random spikes(single vertexes floating in space that didnt get placed right), this usually happens where the object has an opening on the surface, edges.
trick to solve this:
export from zb each level as obj from 0-to highest. import it in mudbox 1 level at a time until you reach highest. that alone should solve 99% of the spikes.
what i do to fix the edges, open surfaces is first import level 1/2 or until the spikes start to happen. mask the areas that get spiked.. and continue importing the higher levels. it may result in a bit of flattening effect since the surface wont bloat to the final shape but it should be minimal if even evident. and it's much easier to fix than a floating in space point.
same trick applies when importing to zb from mudbox.

[gal]

if using mudbox to paint and not sculpt hard surfaced models with ngons or 5 sided+ vertexes/polys ...booleans or what not.

subdivide your model in maya without smooth, basically tessellate it without affecting uvs. then export to mud to paint. otherwise mudbox will not paint on ngons/messy tris. and even then it can act flaky on those parts, i wish it wouldnt.

[El Burritoh]

Thanks to oglu for posting those links to the Max and Maya tuts. There is also a workflow in XSI for multi-channel setup. Not much info on it out there, but I could create a tutorial for it if need be. And I'm working on a python script to automate the shader tree setup. Mighty even work it into a custom plug-in for XSI later.

So anyway, you can totally do this in XSI as well, and I just wanted to add that to the conversation.

[Manuel Poehlau]

with minimal detail loss/spikes.
you can export your lowest and highest level from zb to objs and import it in mudbox using the uv matching with low fresh-hold. HOWEVER that will most likely give you random spikes(single vertexes floating in space that didnt get placed right), this usually happens where the object has an opening on the surface, edges.
trick to solve this:
export from zb each level as obj from 0-to highest. import it in mudbox 1 level at a time until you reach highest. that alone should solve 99% of the spikes.
what i do to fix the edges, open surfaces is first import level 1/2 or until the spikes start to happen. mask the areas that get spiked.. and continue importing the higher levels. it may result in a bit of flattening effect since the surface wont bloat to the final shape but it should be minimal if even evident. and it's much easier to fix than a floating in space point.
same trick applies when importing to zb from mudbox.

What I usually do, when i import a zbrush mesh into mudbox, is..

Import the zbrush lowres, subdivide it to the highest level that you had in zbrush. Then import the hires mesh from zbrush as a layer, via UV position. Keep the tolerance setting at 0.001 with "Delta to base layer" turned ON.
You may now have a lot of spikes and distortions on your mesh.
Now repeat the step. Import the hires as a layer again, but this time, turn OFF "Delta to base layer" and set the tolarance to 0.00001.
If you have very clean UV´s, you should now have your zbrush model with all the levels in mudbox. You can flatten the layers now, if there aren´t any errors in your mesh.

[oglu]

if you are working with uv tiles you could select the faces of a tile with the "shift+A" shortcut and hide them with H...

[tingles]

I'm starting to warm to Mudboxes awesomeness ... i still feel to comfortable sculpting in zbrush ...
Thanks for the great thread, some nice tips in here!

[oglu]

texturing tutorial by Jonas Thornqvist..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB5KGwxKqjc

[PaulAdams]

That is absolutely awesome!

Autodesk should ask more established artists to do mini-tutorials/workflows like this.. it would help sell Mudbox to a much wider demographic.

[oglu]

quik test... work fine...!

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/2958/transy.jpg

[Lapaev]

Is this features from advantage pack? Total killer

[Gagan Jain]

quik test... work fine...!

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/2958/transy.jpg
Did't get workflow
can you give more details
what is going on above image
Part 1 From above image i can see that you want to transfer you sculpt to new mesh better uv
But did't get Part 2 and Part 3
Or i am missing her something

[oglu]

jep those are features from the upcoming advantage pack...

those are two new features...
on the left the topology transfer...
on the right the texture layer/channel transfer...

[El Burritoh]

That's pretty sweet!

[Lapaev]

is there anymore features which wasn't covered in preview video?

http://lesterbanks.com/2010/09/mudbox-2011-subscription-new-features

[oglu]

the freeze from texture is missing... and for me thats a really important feature...
now most of the time im painting the parts i want to freeze to a texture and convert them... cause i can reuse them in higher levels... or load a texture for freezing...

and lots of bugs are also fixed... clap

[companioncube]

i'm so glad that mudbox keeps getting better and better

[tonytrout]

Dang ...I can recover some of the better texture files from abandoned reworked geo now that was just too much work before. Sweet.

[oglu]

Dang ...I can recover some of the better texture files from abandoned reworked geo now that was just too much work before. Sweet.

and it is also working with paint layer...
if your source has 10layer the target will also have 10layer...

[tonytrout]

Thanks Oglu, I realise I can generate new ones but will this also work with recovering/recalculating old displacement files

[Luki]

:welcome:

Hi oglu. Thanks for the tips. It really changed my workflow. Why i didn't know about this earlier? :banghead:

But i've found one problem. I don't know how to load to mudbox for example 2 different textures on one model, and place them in the 2 different tiles.
I want to have 1 texture on the head, and 1 on the body, so i could fix seams, check resolution of details etc. I haven't found any info about that in mudbox help. Is it something with file names?

Awesome forum btw.

[oglu]

you have to use the right naming...

texturename_u1_v1.tif
texturename_u2_v1.tif

you cant use body and head for the naming... the name have to be the same for the texture...

paint on a new layer...
save the scene and take a look at the naming of the textures mud is creating to see how the naming should look like in your case...

if you do a import layer just pick the first one and mud will load the other automatically...

[Luki]

Thanks Oglu.
Just like i thought. But somehow i missed that i have to add both, u and v in filename. :o Thanks once again.

[oglu]

freeze from paint layer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhW_vUPouM

[tonytrout]

Looks pretty useful Christoph, i shelled out for subscription today :)

[oglu]

tip:
the s icon in the image browser is to load the image as stencil...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7KBfXAfYu0

[oglu]

curves in mudbox...
great for straight strokes...
works for sculpt and paint brushes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvO2oQJXGtQ

[Ken]

Thanks oglu for sharing good tuto vids.

I found MentalRay shader available to use PTEX file on Maya.
http://www.nico-rehberg.de/shader.html#Ptex

I haven't used it yet..so not sure about the shader has any problems or not.
I just wanted to share it on here :thumbsup:
If you know or have a good mentalRay shader for ptex, please let me know!

[oglu]

here is one for max...
http://www.mankua.com/Ptex/Ptex.php

and vray for maya is also able to render ptex files...!
http://polygonspixelsandpaint.tumblr.com/post/988352372

[companioncube]

here is one for max...
http://www.mankua.com/Ptex/Ptex.php

and vray for maya is also able to render ptex files...!
http://polygonspixelsandpaint.tumblr.com/post/988352372

thanks so much oglu, was really hoping for a 3ds max version, hope its fully supported in max 2012

[oglu]

no more stretched projections...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebPTCE0Nv4M

[oglu]

new clone and blur brush behavior in 2012...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5x_53YD0gQ

[El Burritoh]

That's pretty sweet! Looks like Mari's Edge Masking. It's a great feature to have!

[Gagan Jain]

New mudbox is sleek
Found bug save with mirror on then close mudbox open scene again mirror will be off don't know if it bug or not....it does not bother me
It has lot of improvement in it :love:

[oglu]

paint across different shader/objects..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-oWC_QObE

[cgfbcyj]

Hi,

Just found this awesome thread! Thanks oglu for sharing all this tips and tricks. clap

A quick question, is the multi-channel setup MEL compatible with Mudbox 2012?

[oglu]

i think its working in maya 2012 cause its only mel code...

[cgfbcyj]

Thanks for the reply, oglu. I will stay with Maya 2011 for now as I found that I couldn't load the displacement maps extracted from Mudbox 2012 in Maya 2012. Even just create a file node and specify the displacement map in an newly created empty scene is enough to crash Maya 2012.....:banghead:

ps. I installed Maya 2012 with clean preferences.

[oglu]

found a tutorial about vector dispmaps..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vgluLg9WM

[cgfbcyj]

nice found, oglu. Test the vector displacement between Maya 2012 and Mudbox 2012. It works great! However, is there a way to extract vector displacement maps for multiple objects at once? I got an error message when trying to extract from multiple objects.

[oglu]

this is a mari tutorial but works also for mudbox...
rendering mari texture patches in max and maya...


maya
http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?vid=513
max
http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?cid=339&vid=512

[companioncube]

oglu maybe you can help with this.

one thing that dissapointed me with 'send to' in mudbox 2012, specifcally 'send to max' is that when your using multi patches it creates a seperate material for each patch in 3ds max, does it do this for maya and softimage does anyone know?

its kinda anoying because i then have to make a new material with a composite map in each channel then connect (which is a bit quicker using slate editior) each map into the compiste map. i was hoping to find someone who could make a max script that automatically creates a composite map in each channel and then imports each patch. i'll make a diagram later because i'm not sure if i'm explaining it properly.

[oglu]

the send to is doing the same for maya and soft... and dont like it too...


but there is a script for maya and one for softimage...
http://www.pixelcg.com/blog/?p=88
http://dynamiclens.com/wordpress/?page_id=136

and vray for maya is able to read mudbox tiles and mari UDIMs native...

but no love for max....

here a great rename tool if you need to switch UDIMs to tiles...
http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Screenshots.php

[companioncube]

ye i've seen those for maya and softimage. no love for max, i'm sure there are plenty of studios out there that have written their own scripts but not made them public. i would write one but i'm useless at script.

its just when i first saw 'send to' in 2012 i thought it would work like those scripts but it sucks that it doesn't. i'm going to make a request to the mudbox dev team, but i guess i better try learnign to script or at least get some help from someone that nows how to script.

thanks anyway oglu, hope to see some more youtube vids from you soon

[oglu]

in mud you are able to mask a paint mask... also blending modes are working..!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6ta5BaWud4

[oglu]

video from sig...
http://area.autodesk.com/siggraph2011/demos/datasets?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=650&width=650

[oglu]

hint...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqgRWXgFwqU

[companioncube]

nice, so looking forward to the SAP

[oglu]

in mudbox 2012 SAP you are now able to rename materials on creation and delete unused materials... the material name is also shown on top of the paint layer tab...

skull scanned with photofly...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd2CLSDDgVY

[oglu]

mudbox support now hard edges and edge creasing...
it supports also hard edges during baking...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH0qUgZkI9Q

[companioncube]

thanks for the vids oglu

[oglu]

Rendering Mudbox vector displacement with V-Ray


http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/maya/150R1/tutorials_vector_displacement.htm


http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/maya/150R1/images/tutorials/vector_displacement/vray_render.png

[oglu]

some more vray love...
http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/200R1/tutorials_mudbox_ptex.htm