Bake normal map from voxel to new retopologied mesh question

[TLE]

I created a voxel hi res model. then go to reotopo tool to create lowres model ontop of it. Unwrab UV lowres model. How do i bake the detail from voxel model to the lowres topology model?

thanks

T

[akira]

Almost there, just one more step:

Retopo commands menu -> Merge into scene

[TLE]

if i do that it will project the lowres model which i just repotologied into the hires model and make it loose all the detail..

Please show me how you do that? Thanks

[akira]

if i do that it will project the lowres model which i just repotologied into the hires model and make it loose all the detail..

Please show me how you do that? Thanks

Hi, please show us a screenshot of the result.

[TLE]

here is what i did

sculpt voxel object

go to retopology tool and created lowres model on top of high res model, Uv unwap it.

click on Merge into scene

hide the lowres model and what i saw was a version lowres model has been projected and merged on top of hires model. All the details from hires model has been "blur" out

If i baked now the normal map will be not very details as the hires model.

What heppened? What did i do wrong?

Thank you for your help.

T

[TLE]

I am having problem to bake high res model to lowres model (repotology mesh) with all the details transfered. Seems the normal map comes out very blury.

What setting i missed? Any one here can show me a tutorial (steps) from creating hires voxel mesh to baking the normal texture?

Thank you

[akira]

I am having problem to bake high res model to lowres model (repotology mesh) with all the details transfered. Seems the normal map comes out very blury.

What setting i missed? Any one here can show me a tutorial (steps) from creating hires voxel mesh to baking the normal texture?

Thank you

Maybe you need to set higher triangle count and larger texture size when merging into scene.

ex. 4 mil of triangles with 2048x2048 of the texture size and leave the carcase value as it's default.

Hope this helps.

[TLE]

i tried different setting but still no help. seem to me that when i hit merge into scene, it merged the lowres model on top of hires and wrap the lowres around the hires. As the result, the details will be covered and lost. When it bakes the normal, it bakes the mesh with the new version that has the mesh covers all the details. So the normal texture are very blury.

I still have no i deal how this thing work in term of baking normal map. Can anyone show me how to do it step by step or any tutorial out there?

Thanks Akira for helping me.

T

[akira]

i tried different setting but still no help. seem to me that when i hit merge into scene, it merged the lowres model on top of hires and wrap the lowres around the hires. As the result, the details will be covered and lost. When it bakes the normal, it bakes the mesh with the new version that has the mesh covers all the details. So the normal texture are very blury.

I still have no i deal how this thing work in term of baking normal map. Can anyone show me how to do it step by step or any tutorial out there?

Thanks Akira for helping me.

T

Sorry I don't understand clearly what you need:

1. A low poly mesh that has clear normal/displacement map baked from high poly voxel mesh?

or

2. A high poly mesh that represent the shape of high poly voxel mesh?

or

3. An automatically generated mid poly mesh that has normal/displacement map baked from high poly voxel mesh?

Maybe you can upload that sample file for us to test.

akira.

[mwgrafx]

The only thing I can add is make sure your uv's arent mirrored.

[TLE]

I did a illustration here. Please open the files from 1 to 7. those are the steps i did.

Thank you for your help.

T

[kay_Eva]

I think 3dCoat is at the point where andrew can hand out free copies to people like Akira and Juan Carlos in exchange for video tutorials ?

[akira]

I did a illustration here. Please open the files from 1 to 7. those are the steps i did.

Thank you for your help.

T

Ok cool! Thanks for showing your steps, they are all fine. Now I see where the problem is:

To capture the hard edges from high poly mesh, you need to place the low poly faces "beneath" the high poly edges, or it will result in soft edges.

Please have a look at the picture below.

You can lower the value of z-bias or additional extrusion to adjust the position of the retopo mesh.

Hope it helps.

akira.

[TLE]

thank you for the good tip on that. Yes.. i agree to avoid the lowres model "cover" the hires one when doing the "merge into scene" action we have to lower the lowres model. However, if that the only way to do it in 3dc then i think it won't work for longterm because there will be alot complicated objects in the future (as in my work). Not easy to avoid all the dedails being "blur" out by doing that way.

I personal think this "issue" have to be fix inorder to help "game artist"(like myself) to use 3dc.

Thank again.

T

[Thomas P.]

thank you for the good tip on that. Yes.. i agree to avoid the lowres model "cover" the hires one when doing the "merge into scene" action we have to lower the lowres model. However, if that the only way to do it in 3dc then i think it won't work for longterm because there will be alot complicated objects in the future (as in my work). Not easy to avoid all the dedails being "blur" out by doing that way.

I personal think this "issue" have to be fix inorder to help "game artist"(like myself) to use 3dc.

Thank again.

T

I am a game artist myself and can only stress the importance of a good workflow. zBrush and Mudbox is heavily used by the game industry and so I would urge the creator of 3DCoat to have a closer look at the workflow/pipeline for game artists.

Thomas

[jnothing]

I need help. I built a space ship using voxels / tinker objects, and I really need to get UV/details/normals and paint it up for export. Can someone please help me? I don't want to waste tons of work doing it wrong. I could use PTex, but I don't feel it has enough layers/features yet in 3DC for my use. I will gladly pay someone to help me.

[Psmith]

When converting from Voxels or Surfaces to polygons, it helps to capture all the crisp detail on hard surface models by using "Res+" or by resampling the Voxel or Surface mesh (to a higher resolution) first.

 

If you haven't tried AUTOPO (automatic topology), give that a try first - setting the resolution of your polygonal mesh as desired, but leaving the other adjustments and dialog settings at their defaults.  You may be surprised at how good the topology looks, automatically.

 

Make sure, when you "Merge" your new topology into the Paint Room, that you give your object a texture resolution that is high enough to capture the details you need (I wouldn't go lower than 2,000 by 2,000).  If you are painting with "Materials", (like a rust texture), make sure that Material texture is also of high resolution and not enlarged too much for details to start dropping out.  Per-pixel painting is usually a good choice for most hard surfaced models.

 

If none of this makes much sense to you, better get a solid background of how 3D-Coat does things from the many videos on our YouTube Channel.

 

 

Greg Smith