UVMap issues, and ideas..

[micheus]

Ah, btw.. Never have worked out how you get a .beam file. This old thread, on the old site:

http://nendowingsmirai.yuku.com/topic/6707

The seventh article includes the "plugin" for baking normals, when generating textures, but either I have no idea how you actually install it (it definitely doesn't show up in the list of plugins when I look), or.. it has to be packed into a .beam somehow to work?

It's very simple and is well explained in the post #7. You can use any text editor (like notepad) to create those files (wpc_normal.auv, normal.vs and normal.fs) and put then into the autouv folder as said (usually C:\Program Files\wings3d_2.0.1\lib\wings-2.0.1\plugins\autouv). That took me only 5 minutes to create them (copy and past).

As it was said that, the space normal is probably useless, but that is the result:

I thought this was really cool when I implemented it but noone ever used it :-( (in the old post)

dgud, that is really awesome. I never spent time looking on those files until now.

[ggaliens]

Thanks for the ideas Micheus. Yes ... a roll-your-own stitch for tetrahedrons was not that hard to do ...

And I'm very happy to have AutoUV just to preview some of the UVs I have made.

[Kagehi]

Actually, did create them that way, then dropped them in the right folder, (in all three copies, since I never got around to cleaning out the old copies of the program). Where is the option? Because "create texture" doesn't seem to provide me with an option of what sort of texture to produce, it just makes one...

[Kagehi]

Ah. Ok. Found it. lol Never realized it even "had" the option for different texture types. :bangs head:

Now, just need to import all the gems I need, slice them the right way, then slap those on a surface, and.. lol Still, much better off than I was prior. Maybe go back and see what I can do with the last thing I built. Was trying to semi-recreate a bot from an old POVRay hall of fame image "Drunk Patrol", but the result was like 10 PE, or something, when done. Since I was aiming for like 3-4... it was, needless to say, a total design failure.

[micheus]

Good to know you found it.
I was about to tray explain how to do that.

[dgud]

Hmm did not remember that I had done that, nowadays since I have implemented showing normalmaps,
we could get access to the Tangent space and produce real normal maps in TN space, cool.

I.e. we could uv-map a lowres model continue to add geometry and bake a normal-map of the highres model and then apply it to the low res model. Needs some more code in autouv, and a better shader.

[Kagehi]

Yeah. One huge drawback using Wings to do this is that you can assign a texture, but, not any other sort of map. So, your using it to generate the map, but you have to load it in something else, to see the result. But.. at least its not some of the supposed "pro" applications. I have Rhino (bought it using my tax returns last year, since I liked the demo from ages back I once played with, and had always wanted a real copy), but to do this sort of thing you also need to install the AIR plugin for it, which is another almost $300, over the already over priced application. Guess that is what you get for something that has tool bars, drop menus, and sensible ways to do thing - unlike Blender, which was developed with the old theory, "It works for us, since we wrote it for our production company. What do you mean its hard to find things, or learn how to get to them?" lol

Still, the issue of trying to work out how to "match" the uvmaps led me to keep hunting, and I found xnormal. http://www.xnormal.net/ It claims to be able to convert a high res mesh to a normal map (among other things), and to match them up **even if the geometry differs**. No idea how it does this, since I haven't played with it yet, never mind how well.

Its too bad its not open source. And, I don't think it has an API interface for calling from another application either, otherwise it would be an interesting thing to be able to access from inside Wings itself, or to recode so you could... Always the problem with CG, or raytracing, or both - 40 different tools, all of them that do "one" thing well, no intergration between them, or.. you have to pay an arm and a leg for "professional" products, which people still end up using "third party" apps with, to do certain things... Its like the late 1980s all over again (back when, more or less, I bought a book on POVRay, and it came with a dish full of.. semi useful "tools" none of which where part of the programs actual editor). One would think, by now, we could get past this tendency. lol

[micheus]

Still, the issue of trying to work out how to "match" the uvmaps led me to keep hunting, and I found xnormal. http://www.xnormal.net/ It claims to be able to convert a high res mesh to a normal map (among other things), and to match them up **even if the geometry differs**.

I thought to suggest you to try it. I use it and it's a really good tool and designed to that purpose - it do that well.

Always the problem with CG, or raytracing, or both - 40 different tools, all of them that do "one" thing well, no intergration between them, or.. you have to pay an arm and a leg for "professional" products, which people still end up using "third party" apps with, to do certain things...

That happens in the real life too. You probably can be an expert in one or two things, but just good doing others. There is not way to think someone could produce an application that can be excellent in everything.

The way is to try to know what we have available and find a workflow that can bring us the desired result.

Think of that, we have a session List 3D Software (Freeware/Open Source) where you can find some useful tools listed by our users.

[Nova]

I know it's a paid program, but as an alternative to XNormal (Which is quite good, although hard to get a hang of), there's ShaderMap (http://shadermap.com/). It's $50 which makes it pretty useful for hobbyists. I've messed around with it a little bit and it's a little simpler to get the hang of, and modifying the cage is not nearly as complicated as XNormal.

As for doing these things in Wings; that would be great! Although, I think you'd have to make the hi-poly model first, UV that and then scale down. Wings doesn't handle UVs for added geometry that well (Especially if you start moving it around). Unless you guys meant some kind of process where the Hi-poly model wouldn't need UV maps, only the low-poly (Which is how it works in XNormal and ShaderMap).

[Kagehi]

Hmm.. Ok, that could be a problem, if that is how xnormal and shader work. I planned to make a cabinet, as a single unit, not several pieced, so.. open back, three glass panes, the base and supports, and the "only" part that needs to be normal mapped is the "display shelf". Only, I do need to uvmap the parts, because I need to apply a texture to the shelf for the stuff on it, and the normal map, but the rest of it.. well, I might distress the case a bit, or something, which might need one, it is a post apoc world its going to go into, but for the most part, its going to be 3 textures, so 3 uvmaps. Making it three different objects might, or might not, add LE (though, I can make parts be "no shape" in world, so in principle cut the LE, by removing the physics requirement, but... Like I said, going to have to play with it. I mean, if it lets you select the parts that need to be mapped from one to the other, then great. I would guess that is the case, which is to say, hope to hell that it is. lol

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Hmm. Yeah, as usual, over thinking. Should be able to just do a box, one of which has all the bits one it I want to translate across, then just "keep" the part that has the side I want on it, to be dropped onto the real object in world. In theory. lol