1786 replies to this topic

[wailingmonkey]

thanks again, marupura!

It appears you are luckier than me!

At any rate, I've uploaded a video of what I've encountered with
trying to bake. Perhaps it's machine/video-card or CUDA specific?
(My vid-card is GTX 560ti running drivers 301.24 and I've got
CUDA 4.2.1 installed)

Attached Files

•  bake_texture_error-process.mov   6.67MB   36 downloads

[digman]

The texture baking tool function has been broken on linux for number of past versions. All I get is a grey image as the video showed. You could in the past import a model as a ptex model. Do your work and then use the texture baking tool to bake the textures to the same model that had a regular uv map.
At one time Andrew said the texture baking tool was buggy and it now appears to be broken completely.
Use Mantis to report the bug with a link to your video as it shows clearly the problem. I get busy and cannot take the time to write up a bug report for everone I find.

[Zeddicus]

Do smoothing groups work correctly? 3DC will not preserve original indices of groups, it creates one grup per cluster of smoothed vertices. Maybe Max assigns same index fo 2 groups that don't have adjacent faces.
And it is strange regarding performance. Nothing in this area was changed. Do it works slower on the same scene?

If I understand correctly, and this is just a guess, I would say yes regarding 2 groups that don't have adjacent faces. Say I have a 6 polygon cube in Max. I can select the top polygon and bottom polygon and add them both to smoothing group #1. I do this a lot because of the turbosmooth modifier, which can subdivide/smooth based on those smoothing groups. It's also orderly and efficient to apply a single smoothing group to multiple areas, especially on parts that look the same. Here is an example:

1) Low poly mesh with several smoothing groups assigned (no turbosmooth).
2) Turbosmooth applied, separate by smoothing groups option is turned off.
3) Turbosmooth with separate by smoothing groups option turned on.

The effect is a bit like creasing edges before subdividing. I prefer smoothing groups for this though because it allows me to easily reselect a group (or groups) of polygons for further editing if I find it's needed later on.

About performance, I loaded my last .3b save from 3.7.09 into 3.7.10 so that I could finish up the last little bit of retopo work it needed. The difference in performance was very noticeable. No trouble panning/rotating/zooming in 3.7.09, but doing so is nearly impossible in 3.7.10 and nothing else about my PC has changed (no new software, driver, or hardware).

Attached Thumbnails

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[Andrew Shpagin]

thanks again, marupura!

It appears you are luckier than me!

At any rate, I've uploaded a video of what I've encountered with
trying to bake. Perhaps it's machine/video-card or CUDA specific?
(My vid-card is GTX 560ti running drivers 301.24 and I've got
CUDA 4.2.1 installed)

Ok, reproduced, I will fix it asap.

But you may do it through retopo tools. Just import as retopo mesh and bake for ppp.

[Andrew Shpagin]

If I understand correctly, and this is just a guess, I would say yes regarding 2 groups that don't have adjacent faces. Say I have a 6 polygon cube in Max. I can select the top polygon and bottom polygon and add them both to smoothing group #1. I do this a lot because of the turbosmooth modifier, which can subdivide/smooth based on those smoothing groups. It's also orderly and efficient to apply a single smoothing group to multiple areas, especially on parts that look the same. Here is an example:

1) Low poly mesh with several smoothing groups assigned (no turbosmooth).
2) Turbosmooth applied, separate by smoothing groups option is turned off.
3) Turbosmooth with separate by smoothing groups option turned on.

The effect is a bit like creasing edges before subdividing. I prefer smoothing groups for this though because it allows me to easily reselect a group (or groups) of polygons for further editing if I find it's needed later on.

I can't keep original groups. But I may decrease amount by assigning same number to non-ajacent groups. Not sure it will be useful.

About performance, I loaded my last .3b save from 3.7.09 into 3.7.10 so that I could finish up the last little bit of retopo work it needed. The difference in performance was very noticeable. No trouble panning/rotating/zooming in 3.7.09, but doing so is nearly impossible in 3.7.10 and nothing else about my PC has changed (no new software, driver, or hardware).

It could be very good to get scene that works slower in 3.7.10 to understand the reason of problem. Please send it to support.

[wailingmonkey]

Ok, reproduced, I will fix it asap.

But you may do it through retopo tools. Just import as retopo mesh and bake for ppp.

Excellent! Thank you, Andrew.

FYI, I can't bake with 'Texture Baking Tool' with the method you've described above...I had tried
that technique as an option earlier, but it fails as well. (produces pure grey texture file) Hopefully
you'll kill the bug that's affecting the tool as a whole!

[Andrew Shpagin]

Excellent! Thank you, Andrew. FYI, I can't bake with 'Texture Baking Tool' with the method you've described above...I had tried that technique as an option earlier, but it fails as well. (produces pure grey texture file) Hopefully you'll kill the bug that's affecting the tool as a whole!

Ok, fixed baking. Will reupload probably tooday. But usual baking retopo->paint should work.

[Zeddicus]

It could be very good to get scene that works slower in 3.7.10 to understand the reason of problem. Please send it to support.

I can send you the file, or any OBJ which has been exported from ZBrush (where my own current project originated). After more testing, it turns out that any sufficiently high poly mesh which is imported as a reference mesh will do it (the one I just created 5 minutes ago for test purposes is approximately 1 million quads). Just to clarify, panning and zooming are unaffected. It's only rotating that stutters badly in 3.7.10 x64 CUDA DX/GL.

PS: I just tried importing as a big mesh instead of as a reference and discovered that option doesn't work at all anymore. I get a popup describing how it works (import low poly retopo mesh first, then the big mesh second) but that is it. No file dialog appears. Either something is wrong with the import functions relating to retopo or I need to redo a clean install.

[Andrew Shpagin]

I can send you the file, or any OBJ which has been exported from ZBrush (where my own current project originated). After more testing, it turns out that any sufficiently high poly mesh which is imported as a reference mesh will do it (the one I just created 5 minutes ago for test purposes is approximately 1 million quads). Just to clarify, panning and zooming are unaffected. It's only rotating that stutters badly in 3.7.10 x64 CUDA DX/GL.

PS: I just tried importing as a big mesh instead of as a reference and discovered that option doesn't work at all anymore. I get a popup describing how it works (import low poly retopo mesh first, then the big mesh second) but that is it. No file dialog appears. Either something is wrong with the import functions relating to retopo or I need to redo a clean install.

Ok, found reason. Now fixed. I will reupload asap.
Thanks for pointing!

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 3.7.10A

- fixed slowdown when rotating viewport with ref mesh or ppp/mv
- voxel fill tool improved - now it will close holes over thin surfaces much better. It is very important to fix scan errors.
- fixed broken Textures->Baking tool

[cookepuss]

First off, Andrew, I want to thank you. Few developers work as tirelessly as you do. Even fewer respond to criticism with such aplomb. Thanks.

That said, 3DC has been giving me nothing but headaches since v3.708. Really.

Starting with v3.708 and going all the way to v3.709, 3DC would automatically import all of my OBJ models in flat shaded mode. I had to manually click 1 go get into relief display. (Thanks to johnnycore for pointing that out.) This was what was happening by default. Knowing that I could just click 1 after import eased my misery some. It added one more step to my process, but it was totally doable. It was a bug I guess I could live with.

v3.710 and 3.710a are just so much more unpredictable though. Starting with a fresh 3DC session, importing an OBJ gives me one of 5 results:

1. Imported just fine (in relief mode, which should be the default)
2. Imported in flat shade mode (without ever having set it to that mode, mind you)
3. Imported in some crunchy, mangled, and ill-rendered manner. No way for me to fix this other than restarting 3DC and reimporting.
4. Imported as being semi-transparent, which I can't change out of mode or fix it in the same session. I have to restart 3DC again. (Couldn't snag a pic of this. It's a totally random occurrence.)
5. 3DC just hangs.

There's no predictable pattern. I've tried it with different object, with and without UVs. Which result I get is totally random. Getting a normal, perfectly displayed OBJ does rank with low probability. I can only get a well displayed OBJ import 10%-20% of the time. It's a crap shoot.

Knowing that ATI systems can be touchy, I've tried various display drivers, but none have offered me any relief. I've even nuked my whole system, thinking that maybe THAT was corrupt. No such luck. Given how much I use 3DC, it is really disconcerting. Not to offend, but I really do feel that 3DC seems to be at fault since the problem started with v3.708. Earlier versions didn't give me such a hard time. I can roll back to v3.707a, but I don't see that as much of a solution.

My current PC setup is as follows:

- Intel Core i7 980 Extreme (6-core) @ 3.33GHz
- 24GB RAM
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
- Windows 7 Pro x64

I've tried just about every ATI driver version from Catalyst 11.1 to 12.3 ... ... No help.
Tried different OBJs ... ... Same results.
Tried different 3DC versions ... ... ... Only pre-v3.708 versions seem to be stable and predictable when importing and displaying OBJs.

That I'm only one of the few people this is happening to makes it that much more frustrating.


EDIT>>>>> I'm using the SIMP64 versions, btw. The problem appears in both DX and GL versions.

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[cookepuss]

Got a picture of the semi-transparent one. Again, appearing at random for imported OBJs on a clean 3DC session

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[wailingmonkey]

yay! Baking is back! Thank you for fixing it so quickly, Andrew.

[Andrew Shpagin]

...

Seems there are some shaders issues since shaders was changed recently.

First, please check if "Edit->Preferences->Show beta tools" enabled.

Second, I attached shader obj_tbn.hlsl - please copy it overwrite installation_folder/Shaders/onj_tbn.hlsl
Then try to import anything fot ppp. Will anything work better?

Do same problem appears in all modes - reference mesh, ppp, microverts?
Try all this on DX version.

[cookepuss]

I'd try, but there's no attachment to your post. Sorry.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Excuse, I forgot. There is file:
 obj_tbn.zip   1.48K   51 downloads
check if file is overwritten over existing one.

[Zeddicus]

Ok, found reason. Now fixed. I will reupload asap.

First off, Andrew, I want to thank you. Few developers work as tirelessly as you do. Even fewer respond to criticism with such aplomb. Thanks.

^ +1000

Rotational performance with high poly meshes is silky smooth once again. Thank you very much, Andrew!

Edit: Is it just me, or is it actually working even better than it used to in 3.7.09? I suppose it could be a placebo effect after dealing with the awful stutter in 3.7.10, but rotating my reference mesh in 3.7.10A really does feel super smooth now. No stutters at all, not even tiny ones.

[cookepuss]

Excuse, I forgot. There is file:
 obj_tbn.zip   1.48K   51 downloads
check if file is overwritten over existing one.

It's a partial solution. Let me explain.

The problem with OBJs importing and displaying in all sort of random states? That's fixed. Imported models now display predictably. I don't worry about it randomly importing as some blotchy or semi-transparent mess anymore. Having said that, the reason why it's a partial solution is as follows:

1. Importing an OBJ for PPP works beautifully. The default shading mode is a smooth relief and everything displays as expected. Every time.
2. Same perfect and and predictable results with microvertex
3. Importing an OBJ as a reference results in a default shading mode of flat. Every time. I can click "1" to get back into relief mode just fine. After that, every other model imported in that 3DC session will be in relief mode too. However, if I restart 3DC, it reverts my default shading mode to flat again. This is the same exact problem I've been having since v3.708.

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[Andrew Shpagin]

Thanks for testing!

Now try to replace 2 files:

1) I reverted obj_tbn.hlsl back because probably problem is in other file
2) I add missed file emptygrey.dds

 Files.zip   1.94K   42 downloads

[cookepuss]

That looks like it did the job. Works reliably and predictably in PPP, Microvert, AND reference mesh now, Thanks a lot, Andrew.