129 replies to this topic

[Taros]

I didn't see that icon at first either. I'm actually just now uploading a video showing it's usage. I'll post a link when it's up.

The usage is very easy and clear, if you found it. The only problem is just "the seeking for new functions" ...

[philnolan3d]

So I'm not understanding how to export the model out of Ptex. I saw Polyxo did it and posted his results in the update thread.

[spacepainter]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GxNlAlOuQQQ

[spacepainter]

So I'm not understanding how to export the model out of Ptex. I saw Polyxo did it and posted his results in the update thread.

Can't be done yet as Andrew states in his update comment, isn't it?
How did he export it then? :-) Is he kidding?

[philnolan3d]

Can't be done yet as Andrew states in his update comment, isn't it?

Well the update release info says "Supports export/import in standard formats" Not to mention, like I said Polyxo did it and rendered in C4D I believe is what he said.

[spacepainter]

o yes I see now, sorry. So it must be feasable somehow.

[simmsimaging]

Well the update release info says "Supports export/import in standard formats" Not to mention, like I said Polyxo did it and rendered in C4D I believe is what he said.

Ptex looks pretty awesome, in potential anyway. It's a bit buggy for me at the moment, and the documentation is a bit thin on the ground so not really sure how the resolution really works, but cool so far! At this point it looks like some of the best fine detail I've seen out of 3DC - just need top find out how to get it out of 3DC and into Vray to try some render tests.

Great work so far Andrew - thanks!

b

[pbowmar]

Just FYI for everyone following this, Ptex isn't just a way to texture something without applying UV coords, though of course that is attractive too.

Once Andrew adds native .ptx exporting (and presumably importing) then any renderer that supports Ptex natively will be able to render very large detailed texture maps with minimal memory usage and much speed improvements.

Renderman is the only renderer right now with official support, I'm under NDA and can't discuss other upcoming renderers that will have this support but at least one more major renderer will support this very soon.

There are lots of challenges with Ptex that hopefully Andrew will have time to look into. One of the biggest is topology changes since the texture is tied directly to the topology. It's a solvable problem (Disney's internal 3D paint package has ways to deal with it) but of course it's one more thing for overworked Andrew to fit in

Support for Triangles (instead of just quads) is highly desirable as well but not essential IMO.

Cheers,

Peter B

[philnolan3d]

Support for Triangles (instead of just quads) is highly desirable as well but not essential IMO.

Just wanted it to be clear, Ptex in 3DC handles triangles just fine. I purposely made a bunch of oddly shaped triangles on this mesh and it painted just the same as quads.

[splodge]

Just wanted it to be clear, Ptex in 3DC handles triangles just fine. I purposely made a bunch of oddly shaped triangles on this mesh and it painted just the same as quads.

If your model is made up entirely of triangles then it'll look bad after merging/baking. As you've shown, you can probably get away with just a few triangles here and there. I suppose it'll depend on their location.


ps - To answer your earlier question - to export your ptex model you simply go to File/Export? Or did you mean something else?

[philnolan3d]

Oh I see it exports the model with the tiny squares as a UV map. It didn't export any textures though (I did have the boxes checked)

[splodge]

Oh I see it exports the model with the tiny squares as a UV map. It didn't export any textures though (I did have the boxes checked)

I've only tried the .obj export and it worked fine.

[haikalle]

I'm under NDA and can't discuss other upcoming renderers that will have this support but at least one more major renderer will support this very soon.

I really hope it's Vray...well anyway, this is a feature to must have in any renderer.

[Taros]

Oh I see it exports the model with the tiny squares as a UV map. It didn't export any textures though (I did have the boxes checked)

It works perfect here. Tested it with the diffuse map, and have perfect results. Rendered in softimage then. No problems. But it works only in a resolution of 2048x2048 pixels. Unfortunately no higher resolution can be exported.

Best wishes
Chris

[philnolan3d]

Hmm strange, I've tried exporting the model pictured above several times and I only get the model, no images.

[Andrew Shpagin]

It works perfect here. Tested it with the diffuse map, and have perfect results. Rendered in softimage then. No problems. But it works only in a resolution of 2048x2048 pixels. Unfortunately no higher resolution can be exported.

Best wishes
Chris

I re-uploaded 3.2.02 and it supports multiple textures.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Just wanted it to be clear, Ptex in 3DC handles triangles just fine. I purposely made a bunch of oddly shaped triangles on this mesh and it painted just the same as quads.

Yes, but 3D-Coat subdivides all at least once to leave only quads. So there are actually no problems with triangles if you are not against subdivision.

[philnolan3d]

Yeah I did notice that my exported model was much denser than the one I imported.

[Marc Wakefield]

Hey People.

I am trying to get a voxel sculpt which I have retopo'd (with perfect quad's by the way) to work in ptex but I am having issues.

I have tried all of the options in the retopo room "merge model into scene with ptex", "merge hull with ptex", "merge patch with ptex" but they all hate me.

The model appears in the paint room as it should with its normal map but when I paint it, it's ugly. I opened up the UV room and I noticed a massive chunk of squares diddn't exist.

The same process works great with the per pixel painting method.

Ptext works amazingly if i import a mesh on its own.

Any ideas comrades?

[philnolan3d]

I mentioned on the official Ptex message board how we'd love to hear some feedback from Disney about the 3DC implementation of this. I got a response from Brent Burley at Disney:

People on the 3D-Coat forum have brought up that it would be really cool to hear what the folks at Disney think of the way Ptex was implemented.

It's great to see how fast the implementation in 3D-Coat is
progressing and how positively it has been received.

One of the questions that seems to come up is whether the Ptex file
format is needed or not. You can certainly pack the faces into
traditional UV textures. That's how we work internally in our paint
tool (though the packing is dynamic to allow face resizing and is
never exposed to the user). We tried sending these packed textures
directly to Renderman at one point (before Ptex) but it didn't give us
the performance or filter quality that we wanted. For us, the Ptex
file format and rendering performance is critical.

Our version of Ptex can paint on layers just like Photoshop but including color, specularity, and depth.

We have not had much call for implementing 3d layers in our paint tool
(apart from being able to display one read-only reference layer). Due
to the large number of layers and the arbitrary ways that they can be
used in the shaders it's not practical for us to visualize the final
image in GL. Artists here also seem more interested in using
available memory to load extremely large textures and/or lots of
geometry rather than having many texture layers loaded at once.
Having layers could be useful in some cases, but it hasn't been a
priority.