Vertex Color Channel

[FatAssasin]

This is something I've just started learning about also. This same issue was brought up in another forum...

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18598&perpage=15&pagenumber=2


If you're wondering how to see the effects of vertex painting in the viewport or render there's a couple step you need to take. Right click on the model and check the box next to "vertex color" to see it in the viewport. And add a "vertex color" shader to the diffuse slot of the material to see it rendered. As I find out more about this I'll post it here.

[Reality3D]

I know how to see the vertex color info in the viewports and how to use it like a mask(like lw's weightmap). But i wonder at what means the 100 vertex color channel's that are supposed to be, to how activate then and what the vertex color channel at UVW is supposed to do.

Thx !

[Chico]

OKay Ill try and help here but this stuff hurts my brain right now.

You can save out the vertex cvolour channels with the help of some free plugins (in th nature of max:p )

Here is a UVW copy tool that should help.
UVcopy Tool (http://www.scriptspot.com/download.asp?ID=455)
And youll need this too. look for the link to UVW to RGB and you may need the JBlib file as well.
UVW to RGB (http://www.footools.com/plugins.html)

and heres a tut on the use of RGB to UVW tools
RGB to UVW (http://www.footools.com/plugins/Documentation/UVWtoRGB_README.html)

Now its been a while since I used these alot. they took a bit of concentarton to get them working but they did in the end.

Im sorry I cant help more ....I suggest looking around at places like Gamestra and and game developer forums as there are alot of Vertex colour experts that lurk in there. even go to the discreet forum and I think it was Steve Green who gave me a really good run down on how to use these tools last year.

good luck:thumbsup:

[Reality3D]

Hmm, Uvcopy tool copies map channels(vertex included) from one object to other. And UVWtoRGB only seams to me like a visual guide for viewing uvw info or vertex channel than a tool to manipulate other vertex channel. I tried to search at discreet with no results. Jej, I think there is only a vertex color channel :thumbsdow

Thx Chico

[FatAssasin]

I haven't found any way of creating more then one vertex color channel either. You can assign numbers to map channels, but not vertex color channels, as far as I can tell. Where did you read that quote from your first post? Which version of Max?

[Bobo]

Originally posted by Reality3D
I was experimenting with vertex channels to see if they were similar to LW's weightmaps. They are, but i found that i had only a vertex channel(lw has "infinite" i think). I read the help and found this

"100 Vertex Channels are now available per mesh vertex for virtually unlimited texture mapping control and the opportunity to store all the vertex information needed by subsequent game environments"

I saw that UVW map modifier has an option to define the channel as a vertex color channel. Also, all the maps of the material editor in coordinates rollout has vertex color channel option
Well, i don't understand at all this option to define the "mapping" ¿?! as a vertex color channel. Someone knows?

P.D:If i paint a mesh with vertex paint and then add uvwunwrap with vertex color channel checked i can see how te painting affects the channel :?


You should see this in historical perspective (LW got its Weight maps and UV channels just recently in version [6] after all ;) )

In the early days, max had just the two UVW channels, one of them could be used either to store colors or a second set of UV coordinates. This was much more than 3D Studio DOS could do (just one set of UV coordinates, and just one texture vertex per mesh vertex - still a limitation of the old .3DS file format).

The quote you posted was added to the docs when max added 98 more channels for a total of 100 texture channels in R3. While all of them could store the same data types, only the Vertex Color channel (currently indexed internally as number 0) can show UV data in the viewport. But since a game engine wouldn't care where the data was stored inside of max, you could generate 100 vertex color sets and export them all to a game engine if necessary (not that it would be ever necessary, but...).
It is generally possible to apply an UVW_Unwrap modifier, save the data and load again under a different channel number. Plus all the plug-ins and scripts other people mentioned.

In addition, since max 4, there are some more internal data channels for storing Alpha data, user data etc., but they are not directly related and have a different format.

As long as you are applying Vertex colors inside of max, the vertex color channel is the only one that will work with the viewports and the respective modifiers, maps etc.

[Reality3D]

Oh, thanks, now i know ;)

[Steve Green]

My ears were burning :)

http://www.max3d.pl/download/r4stuff/modifier/copymap42.zip

this allows you to copy vertex colour channels from one to another within the same mesh, e.g. channel 0 to UVW 3.

Basically my workflow is to only use the vertex colour channel (0) as a temporary storage place, and to store any permanent data in 1, 2, 3 etc. by using the copymap modifier.

You can view the illumination and alpha channels in the viewport (as grayscale vertex colors) and they are stored in channels -1 and -2 if you need to access them.

Then if you want to use vertex colours in materials which are stored in channels other than 0, you need to use John Burnett's UVWtoRGB (www.footools.com).

This means you could have different vertex colours for diffuse, specular, shininess etc.

Hope this helps

- Steve

[Reality3D]

Thank you very much Steve, I finally understood the uvw info that "vertex channels" share, and the functionality of UVWtoRGB. So it was possible to define different vertex channels to use like masks :)

[Steve Green]

Yep, you can use them as blend masks for different types of materials, all sorts really.

- Steve

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