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Mudbox AppLink


Wayne RObson
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NEW INSTALLER IN NEXT POST

Andrew asked me to make a Mudbox plug-in to work with applink, so here's a beta for you to test out. This one is compield against the Mudbox 2011 SDK so will only work on mudbox 2011 and 2011 subscription advatange pack 64 Bit versions. The file enclosed is the raw plugin so a manual install is needed (the details are outlined in the readme file.) An installer version will follow. The big rule is you MUST save your mud scene file before use as it needs this to get the directory your mud file is in to work. If andrew add's the ability to import textures this is already in the plugin waiting to be exposed, but right now there is little point in exposing that portion.

Enjoy

Wayne...

Please log any bug that you come across in this thread.

Added:

Clean up files option in case you choose wrong option and don't have 3DC open.

fiels to support export back to mudbox now created automatically with correct contents.

Current known bugs:

Export as Alpha is not working

Export as voxel primitive overwrites the previous exported voxel primitive from mudbox and doesn't change the thumbnail.

Export back to mudbox very flakey and then only possible for subscription advantage pack version but still flakey

Clean up Files option will not delete the run.txt file

A crazy Cuda driver related error I still need to track down the source of.

Mudbox2011-SAPversion-AppLink.rar

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Version Update

some new stuff added although the sending to mudbox is VERY flakey at best at the moment. I'm also getting a cuda related error and I have no idea at the mo where that's coming form on my machine. I'm not sure if this will affect everyone or if its just a crazy thing to do with my nearly kaput dev machine. If you get it let me know in this thread.

Wayne...

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Hey Wayne, this is a bit off topic, but what's it going to take to get 3DConnexion device support in Mudbox? All the other Autodesk programs support them. If they see the benefit with Max, Maya and Softimage, why in the world could they not see the benefit in their own Sculpting/Painting application? Working without one in any 3D environment is like eating cereal without the milk. Sure you CAN do it....but why? It's the one reason I don't use MB very often. Here's hoping 2012 comes with it.

A whole bepoke driver has to be written just for that device as the mud dev team is very small (and far smaller than you'd assume!) its not on the top of the priority list, although I wouldn't count it out of appearing at some point. As I dont touch driver related stuff I've not added that myself.

Wayne...

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I tried dropping mudbox mesh to 3dc as voxel object: 3dcoat crashes and ask for save before exit.

3dc: 3.5.13A ogl 64bits cuda

mudbox: 2011 64bits

There does seem a few cuda related things, the 3dc side of things I don't touch apart from the actual creation of the right file types and options. So I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear for those errors lol. I'll pass Andrew over a few details from my side of thngs to see if we can track down where the cuda error is coming from and try and solve it.

Wayne...

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Wayne, if you go to the Voxel menu (in the Voxel room/woorkspace), you can turn CUDA off (checkbox). Can you try that an see if you're still having the same error?

Yep still getting it I'll attach the error that comes up in caae any one has a magic solution (Its also happening to me every time I try to export a FBX normally as well.)

Wayne...

post-6065-0-00273900-1298749729_thumb.jp

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If I try to send to 3DC for Per Pixel Painting, Mudbox crashes. If I try to send it to voxels, 3DC crashes. If I try to send it to Microvertex, UV's or anything else, I get nothing...just the standard splash screen.

Thats odd as you should be able to get it easily from mud to 3dcoat as thats A1 solid code wise (very similar in fact to the code I've used for MudWalker for about 2 years now in that plugin.) Do you have UAC enabled by any chance? as that can interfere with a lot of stuff in many 3d apps, especially anything that sends info or data baack and forth.

Wayne...

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Drop to PPP instantly crashes MB 100% of the time. Dropping to Voxel's crashes 3DC 100% of the time. I have had UAC turned off since I installed Win 7. I learned about that with Vista. I've rebooted and re-installed the newest build of 3DC (3.5.14 Win w/CUDA). Here is a screen grab. Every time I try to drop something to 3DC, I either get a crash (as mentioned) or just the standard 3DC splash screen.

Video Capture:

http://www.screencast.com/users/dnashj33/folders/Default/media/83923fff-0831-44cd-af69-78e3354469b7

http://vimeo.com/20536850

Thats it doing the transfer on my dev machine.

Wayne...

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I tried a couple of different objects and was finally able to get one to work. Strange though...I couldn't get jack out of the default cube in Mudbox. The same crashes are still happening with 100% regularity...and I turned the darned 3DC splash screen off in preferences. When the model came in, as you can see in the video, I still had to import manually all the texture/normal maps, just as I would importing any other OBJ manually.

http://www.screencast.com/users/dnashj33/folders/Default/media/00a49048-4d8a-4f43-802a-4a576b8ce3c5

Yep that'd be because andrew didn't want / ask about importing of textures supported. His plan is for the textures to be supported on export back to mudbox, at least thats what he's contractd me to do anyway.

Wayne...

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I see, said the blind man... :p: didn't know that. I thought the idea was to have a 2-way street here. Oh well...BTW, why not put your website link in your signature so anyone interested in your training material or services can easily find you? I'm going to have to check some of it out myself.

Lol well I thought it bad manners to be honest as 90% of them are on mudbox. But I'll add a link if thers no objections.

Wayne...

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I tried to manage all problems described there.

I installed Trial of Mudbox 2011, but pressing 3D-Coat AppLink's buttons do nothing. Is it trial limittions?

No files are created in 3D-CoatV3/Exchange/ folder

Yep it proabbly is.....

The files are created this side but testing a simple fbx export is producing a mesh with unwelded points (that was the build fomr early last week, I've been away so haven't been able to check for any recent builds).

Wayne...

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 8 months later...
  • Applink Developer

Hello all. I'm coding Mudbox applink and it's starting to shaping up nicely. I think that in 2-3 weeks I'm ready for close beta testing. If there is someone

who wants to test this applink when it is in beta please let me know that...

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  • 2 months later...
  • Applink Developer

Hi!

Here is a quick report. I had a great day today. I had one major problem with mudbox applink I really didn't know how to solve it. But today I found a way to do it :)

These are the moments that I really love when coding. The mudbox applink works already with fbx objects. I hope that I can have something to show very soon...

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  • Applink Developer

I think that it's possible to use UV tiles together with multiply uvs sets. In the future I could write a code into applink that changes the tile order into uv sets and vise versa.

This way we could use 3d-coat and mudbox together without doing any changes into them.That is not so hard to code. But it's not in the first mudbox applink version.

We need to lay basic functions first.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Applink Developer

Hi everyone!

Here is the first beta version of mudbox applink. It's a real beta so there is a lot of issues. This is only Windows 64bit version. Also fbx is disabled for now. Fbx is built into applink script

already but there is some small issues to be fixed still. And real benefit of fbx files are multi uvs and at the moment 3d-coat can't import multi uvs (when using fbx)

so I don't see any rush to include this feature into applink. But surely it will be done in the future.

Right now what should work is to take obj object into 3d-coat and bring it back into mudbox with textures. Displacement is not supported because I need to do it diffrently

than other textures. Displacement maps needs to create a sculpting layer. Also 3d-coat -> mudbox workflow works but with meshes only no texture support yet.

If you want to test this version, you can find applink menu in File -> Send to 3D-Coat.

When you bring new textures into mudbox, you need to actually click all the layers that they show up in screen. I don't know yet why this happens. And you only need to do this ones.

When you update scene later textures are updated automaticly. Just copy ApplinkCore.mp into your Mudbox/plugins/ folder.

ApplinkBeta.rar

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  • Applink Developer

Hi again!

Here is updated applink version. Now all the main functions should work. Still only win 64 version. Here is quick demo how to use it:

https://vimeo.com/38268717

This is not release yet. Just another beta but everything looks really good right now :)

Just copy ApplinkCore.mp into your Mudbox/plugins/ folder.

ApplinkBeta.rar

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  • Applink Developer

Thanks AbnRanger to take a look at this. About taking textures from mudbox to 3d-coat, applink seams not to support that yet. But I agreee that would be really dynamic workflow if we could

share layers between mudbox and 3d-coat. It could work someway like this when 3d-coat reads import.txt:

[texture: Diffuse] = says that we want to import texture layer into 3d-coat

mudbox_diffuse = Layer name. If same name layer already in 3d-coat it would only update that layer. If not same layer it would create it

c:\texture\mudbox_diffuse.tga = path of the texture

And if there is no mesh part in import.txt it would mean that it adds textures into active scene in 3d-coat otherwise adds new mesh and includes textures into it.

because exporting specifics layers using mudbox is quite easy task to do. It only needs that some changes must be done 3d-coat applink api to support this.

Right now it's important that main functions work but we can start to collect info how to make applink api better. And when we have clear picture how everything should

work I can create a document for Andrew to read, if he likes to add some of those features. Thanks again.

One important thing about mudbox applink is that retopo workflow needs to work really well. I think that we can win some mudbox users it this workflow works well.

I have red from mudbox forums that is really needed feature and mudbox users want to find a good way to do it. I hope that this applink could be a interest option

to use it in this situation.

Have to say that I really loving mudbox sdk. The so much what I can do with it. I remember I said in the past that mudbox would have not a good SDK. But it seams

that I couldn't be more wrong. Mudbox SDK is really a fun to play with and it ables to code almost anything into mudbox. long post sorry :)

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  • Applink Developer

After solving that one big problem everything has gone very smoothly. Right now I have Release candidate 1 for you. Also if everything goes well, applink is released in couple of days.

I was able to put one very neat feature into applink. Now when you create displacement map in 3d-coat. It takes that map and transfer it into sculpting layer in mudbox. Here is a Installer and I will

record a small tutorial very soon too.

Mudbox 2012 64bit Installer

Mudbox-AppLink.rar

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  • Applink Developer

I re-installed mudbox and now the applink works again. So this is quite a interesting issue. I would like have some more feedback from other users.

Does anyone can have this applink to work. I know that there might not so many mudbox users here but You can download mudbox trial and install applink into it.

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