Ptex to MAX - problems with Skin Wrap

[lowedennis]

Well the SpaceJockey model is pretty much there and as this was my first attempt at Ptex I finally worked out the 5 layers of maps (each for normals, bump, colour and specular)- Phew....my disk is filling up. The rest of the structure I did with Microverts as they were more simple in the texture realm.

On to the animation and I made a low poly version (I use Poly Cruncher) to animate the vertices at the sub object level. I went through the pain of the SKIN modifier in 3D MAX and found it too crude to get the vertex weights correct - not subtle enough.

I went for animating the vertices on the low poly model and all went well as I only needed a breathing movement, I applied the skin wrap to the high res model and pointed it to my low res model.

All went well and I did a test render to find that the mapping was destroyed.

I know that this does not relate solely to the Ptex techniques as I had a similar problem when I was animating other models after using Microverts and really never got down to how the problem could be fully solved, I managed to fudge it but I easn't reaslly happy with the result.

I am now on the search for any ideas of how to correct this problem.

My normal maps are tangent space (I've tried all the other alternative normal maps space configs) and I believe this is right for animated models, but admit I am no expert on the normal map scene.

Any ideas?

[digman]

You are correct on the tangent space normal maps, They are the ones to use for animation. I'm not a Max user so what is breaking your maps I do not know.

P.S. On a side note Messiah Studio seems to handle animating microvert displacement maps well. At least on the couple of videos I saw.

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x6/gallery.html

Scroll down to the Dingsdale,People,Neckling Change,Neckling videos.

I been considering myself to get this piece of Software...

[Tony Nemo]

You are correct on the tangent space normal maps, They are the ones to use for animation. I'm not a Max user so what is breaking your maps I do not know.

P.S. On a side note Messiah Studio seems to handle animating microvert displacement maps well. At least on the couple of videos I saw.

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x6/gallery.html

Scroll down to the Dingsdale,People,Neckling Change,Neckling videos.

I been considering myself to get this piece of Software...

Check out Taron's anims on the same page.

[Roger_K]

If you want to do breathing in max use a sphere Displace space warp and animate its strength. I use shrinkwrap alot and ive never seen it mess up mapping. It should be going anywhere near that data.

Id check that your low res model is set not to render in the scene as it could still have your displacement map on it, causing it to poke through the high res model in places.

[lowedennis]

If you want to do breathing in max use a sphere Displace space warp and animate its strength. I use shrinkwrap alot and ive never seen it mess up mapping. It should be going anywhere near that data.

Id check that your low res model is set not to render in the scene as it could still have your displacement map on it, causing it to poke through the high res model in places.

Thanks for that tip Roger - I never even thought about that way of doing things, I've dumped my animation (of vertices) and gone for the Displace warp and it works brilliant. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

The low res was hidden and not renderable so the search goes on, it's one of those niggling things that keep me awake at night.

Anyway the rendering is on it's way and tomorrow I'm hoping for a nice little present from my renderings.

[Roger_K]

Thanks for that tip Roger - I never even thought about that way of doing things, I've dumped my animation (of vertices) and gone for the Displace warp and it works brilliant.

No worries, glad it helped. Max has lots of stuff like this.back from when you had to fake everything and do it the hard way i guess

[lowedennis]

No worries, glad it helped. Max has lots of stuff like this.back from when you had to fake everything and do it the hard way i guess

I remember it when it was 3D Studio.

[Roger_K]

I remember it when it was 3D Studio.

I hear Autodesk are offering reparations for the victims of 3D Studio DOS.