Multi Object Posing Issues - Mudbox 2011

[oglu]

in the upcoming mud advantage pack there is a special flood option for posing multi objects...
very handy feature...

[nbreslow]

Hi oglu,

Thanks for replying - appreciate it. :)

I checked out the videos relating to the new release and I am looking forward to testing it out to see if it fixes my problem.

Flood would be useful for sure but in this particular case I simply can't paint on a single fingernail. And the fact that I can delete, then undo and paint weight is just ODD. What is your workflow for multi-object posing with the current release? Do you think my problem is related to scale? I did scale up my hand/nails before exporting from Maya. Is there something I maybe forgot to do like freeze transforms or delete history? Really at my wits end as I have the same issue using the built in Mudbox meshes.

Thanks,

-NBreslow

[oglu]

scale could be a problem... how big is you model compared to the mudbox man..?

the weighting itself is also much better in the new version...
if you are able to reproduce it in the new version submit a bug for it...

[nbreslow]

Hi oglu,

Thanks - I am attaching an image of the scale of my original & rescaled hand and the mudbox man & head inside Maya. As you can see my resized hand is LARGE - is it too large?

It would be great to nail down the scale thing once and for all so you aren't fighting brush size/strength or weight painting issues down the road. You (and a lot of others here) have said to 'use the mudbox man as a reference' for size within Maya before exporting geometry as an OBJ and importing into Mudbox, correct? And all of the supplied models inside Mudbox seem to follow this convention, i.e. the bull, the car, etc. is properly real world sized compared to the mudbox man. The EXCEPTION is the mudbox head - why is this? To make a really detailed face with expression you should have the extra size?

I had read about scaling my model up before flipping it to Mudbox but never heard anyone mention that if I wanted to make a really detailed model I should scale up MORE. I kind of just arbitrarily scaled large and went to work in mudbox...

Anyways, any more insight on this would be great. I am going to post some more about scale in another post because brush size/strength is also becoming and issue in the final detailing phase of my sculpt. Good to know the new version is better in regards to weighting and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Thanks,
-NBreslow

[robinb]

Why did you scale it big? It was already the right size compared to the Mudbox man. If you model in real world scale with units set to cms, then you should be fine for person sized models.

You only need to scale up if you work in meters. Then your person sized model would be about 2 units big, not 200 units and that's too small.

And just to be clear, you scaled the model before importing it to Mudbox right? Scaling in mudbox won't really help as the model is still considered to be at it's original scale, then scaled up or down for display.

You're right that the Mudbox head isn't to scale though. That's tripped me up before.

[nbreslow]

Hi robinb,

Thanks for replying, appreciate it. I did scale up in Maya before exporting.

I think I over thought the process when scaling. I knew that scale was important in Mudbox but didn't know how important it was to make it close to real world size. I figured that as long as it wasn't tiny (below 1 unit) I could scale up as large as I wanted. Also I am still programmed from my 2D digital art background to make everything a bit bigger to add more detail and scale down a bit for presentation. I have since corrected the sculpt by exporting lowest & highest level OBJs to Maya and scaling proportionally to the mudbox man, reimporting to mudbox and reconstructing the subdivision levels.

The scale thing in mudbox really kind of sucks..why can't the brushes/stencils/etc. size/strength/etc. be purely a function of intensity within a given numerical range? Is there some advantage to being bound to scale in mudbox that I am missing? In maya I work with the default settings and assume 1 unit = 1 unit of whatever my measurement scale is (inch, cm, etc.). If you are making anything really large you must have to make custom stencils/stamps to add high frequency detail, right? I couldn't paint a proper bump map for the skin on my hand when it was large. Just wondering..

-NBreslow

[nbreslow]

Oh - I forgot that 32-bit displacement is baked to scale. Is this the sole reason for scale being so important in mudbox? Couldn't brush properties still be divorced from this? Just wondering..

-NBreslow

[robinb]

I agree the things like brush intensity and size could and should indeed be based off the size of a model. But they aren't.

I have the same problem all the time in Max. Things like clipping planes, extrude and chamfer settings all default to nonsensical values in Meters which we have to use in games. I had to make a special version of Weld for instance that defaults to 0.001 rather than the current default of 0.1 as 0.1 in meters destroys geometry all over the place.

I haven't had any problems in Mud with intensity not behaving though when working to scale.

[nbreslow]

Maybe I just need more practice with the tools. I did some testing with different size objects, played with the grid settings in Maya a bit and now I think I have a much better understanding of what to expect when I make a base mesh in Maya and flip it into Mudbox.

Maya is the same and I think that is why a lot of people don't change the default units. A lot seems to get 'broken' if you switch from centimeters.

Here is a list of values for the Maya/Mudbox grid that might help someone out who is trying to make sense of it all:

Mudbox
Default Unit: Centimeter
Gridlines: 100 Units (100 Centimeters or 1 Meter)
Default Brush Size Radius Max: 100 Units (100 Centimeters or 1 Meter)
Default Brush Strength Max: 100 Units (100 Centimeters or 1 Meter)

Maya
Default Unit: Centimeter
Grid Settings for Working with Meters
Length and Width: 250 Units (250 Centimeters or 2.5 Meters) *Can be whatever you want
Grid Lines Every: 100 Units (100 Centimeters or 1 Meter)
Subdivisions: 10 Units or 100 Units *Depends on accuracy needed
Grid Settings for Working with Feet
Length and Width: 152.4 Units (152.4 Centimeters = 5 Feet) *Can be whatever you want
Grid Lines Every: 30.48 Units (30.48 Centimeters = 1 Foot)
Subdivisions: 12 Units *Depends on accuracy needed

They work for me and since I work in feet I get better results when I open the model in Mudbox.

-NBreslow

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