PLUGIN: Render to Texture: Light Maps, Normal Maps, AO

[bdkhoops]

Lisa, this is an amazing addition to the software. Up until this point I haven't been concerned with having my texture coordinates overlap. In fact, I had purposely overlapped them at times. Is there an easy way to unwrap an objects texture map so that every face is mapped without overlapping? I also find it difficult to get angled surface to map flat. Any ideas?

One more question. Is there an option in your GUI to burn the texture into the shadows and everything but delete all of the unused portions of the texture?

THANK YOU

[lisa]

Originally Posted by bdkhoops

Lisa, this is an amazing addition to the software. Up until this point I haven't been concerned with having my texture coordinates overlap. In fact, I had purposely overlapped them at times. Is there an easy way to unwrap an objects texture map so that every face is mapped without overlapping? I also find it difficult to get angled surface to map flat. Any ideas?

I usually map it in sections. There's another set of plugs I wrote that will break up the model by crease angle that you might find useful: http://www.independentdeveloper.com/...ap-by-material

For angled surfaces, sometimes I will rotate the model, apply the mapping so I get the projection I want, then rotate the model back to its original position.

I don't know of any way to do this completely automatically within AC3D, but I just learned this morning that Ultimate Unwrap 3D will create a unique atlas. The atlas looks a little odd, but it is non-overlapping.

Originally Posted by bdkhoops

One more question. Is there an option in your GUI to burn the texture into the shadows and everything but delete all of the unused portions of the texture?

Hmmm. I'm not sure I follow you. Do you mean to mask just the mapped parts? You could, I guess, create an alpha mask by setting your surface material to white and using render "Material Colors" to create a map of which areas are used, then use the alpha mask within your paint program to clip the shape. Is that what you mean?

[virtualalias]

If this works, I may have to ask you to marry me.

[lordfly]

I'm a new AC3d user, hoping to use AC3d for the upcoming mesh features for Second Life (yes, they're getting honest to god meshes now, instead of sculpties).

Anyways, when using this renderer, perhaps I'm using it wrong, but the output is either one of three things:

1) A basic texture output (no lighting, shading, or UV mapping)
2) pure black
3) pure white

On one shape I was testing on, I did get an interesting half-texture/half black thing going, but that's about it.

Lights seem to have no effect on any of it. :/ What am I doing wrong?

[lisa]

Originally Posted by lordfly

(yes, they're getting honest to god meshes now, instead of sculpties).

*woot*

Originally Posted by lordfly

Anyways, when using this renderer, perhaps I'm using it wrong, but the output is either one of three things:

1) A basic texture output (no lighting, shading, or UV mapping)
2) pure black
3) pure white

On one shape I was testing on, I did get an interesting half-texture/half black thing going, but that's about it.

Lights seem to have no effect on any of it. :/ What am I doing wrong?

Hmm. What does your render setup look like?

Also, is your object UV mapped? You need a unique atlas.

[lisa]

Oh! Also, are your lights bright enough?

You may need to turn up the intensity, which you can do by adding a color statement to the object properties. Try turning it up to 50 or so, see if that helps.

[lordfly]

Originally Posted by lisa

*woot*

Yeah, i'm pretty excited. There's more immediate reasons I'm trying ac3d that are "future version" related, but unfortunately i'm under NDA. Basically I want to use something lightweight-yet-useful like AC3d instead of say, Maya or Blender, which is total overkill.

Hmm. What does your render setup look like?

This is probably my main problem; I don't think I have a render setup.

Also, is your object UV mapped? You need a unique atlas.

Well, I suppose it's just a basic UV setup (ie no input by me)... I have a simple square texture repeated over all the faces, I suppose that's not the right way to do things, else this would be cake.

[lisa]

Originally Posted by lordfly

Well, I suppose it's just a basic UV setup (ie no input by me)... I have a simple square texture repeated over all the faces, I suppose that's not the right way to do things, else this would be cake.

The UV map is the problem. What the render to texture tool does is write the lighting information to the texture map. If more than one face is sharing the same area of the texture, the lighting will get overwritten.

You need a "unique atlas"... all that means is that each part of the map is used by one and only one face. You can create one yourself with the TCE built into AC3D, or there are some tools that will make one for you. There's a texture tool called Ultimate Unwrap 3D that will make one automatically. There's also a freebie command-line tool from Microsoft called UVAtlas that will do it. It used to come with the DirectX SDK, dunno if you can download it separately.

[DRAKELOT]

Awesome Lisa, thanks !

[Toronto]

Has anyone besides DrakeLot been able to get this pluggin to work ??
Still can't get this pluggin working.