http://forums.cgsociety.org CGTalk, the CGSociety's official forum for digital artists 120 en-us http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1107568 Posted By: Stevovo
Post Time: 05-17-2013 at 08:43 PM
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Hello

I've always had soo much trouble not knowing what the Maya utility nodes do and what situation calls for which one to be used. For example these: Array Mapper, clamp, condition, contrast, hsv to rgb, luminance, remap colour, remap Hsv, remap Value, Set Range, the math nodes ect.. (also please expalin if u can, what type of Data shader slots accept in term of the Input being RGB or just a single Alpha. Because sometimes maya shaders dont accept the nodes i plug into them and this reeeeally is annoying because i dont know what the issue is)

For those brilliant texture/shader Artists out there, could u please be so kind to explain what these Maya Utilities do. (Or refer Links to tutorials that explain them)

You dont have to explain all of them, just what you use the most and comfortable with.
Do it this way: Name the utility, explain its function, and tell us what situation you'd use it in.

kind regards
stephen]]> Fri, 17 May 2013 15:43:05 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1107367 Posted By: CyberGolem
Post Time: 05-16-2013 at 06:06 PM
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I was hoping someone could elaborate about overlapping UVs.

If I'm modeling a camera, is it necessary to have all the UVs of every object in the model avoid overlapping each other even if they're separate from each other? For instance: If the lens is a single separate object from the camera body, can its UVs encompass the entire 0-1 space or should it be scaled down so it won't overlap other objects in the scene (UVs of the camera body) even though they use different shaders and materials?

I hope my question is clear enough to understand. Thanks for reading.
~CG]]> Thu, 16 May 2013 13:06:18 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106804 Posted By: Greenleaf47
Post Time: 05-12-2013 at 08:10 PM
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Helow
i started making my own racing game with udk and there is something bothering me and i cant really figure it out for more than a week searching in internet .
for example this mini game that comes with udk :
http://www.unrealengine.com/files/s...e/udk/jazz7.jpg
it has a terrein which is a mesh . i exported it and imported in 3ds max !it seems that they selected some polygons and created a curved road !
after that is seems that they made materials IDs for each peace of the road that should have the same texture .
for texture they used a tileable road texture and i can just select road material ID in UDK and set its material to tilable road and its fits propely
the question is how it fits? mesh UVs are just a planar uv mapping and nothing special !
how can i create a road in my terrein mesh and use some tilable road texture which i can find in cgtexture or etc.]]> Sun, 12 May 2013 15:10:40 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106732 Posted By: pancak
Post Time: 05-11-2013 at 11:07 PM
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I was wondering what kind of bit depth is generally used for textures in film production.
And if for instance an 8 bit vs a 16 bit diffuse map influences the render in a way that is noticeable in composting/post.

Any knowledge shared will be greatly appreciated.]]> Sat, 11 May 2013 18:07:28 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106645 Posted By: hardvibez
Post Time: 05-11-2013 at 03:31 PM
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I'm trying to unwrap a cylindrical shape for a project that I'm working on but it doesn't seem to be working whatever method I do.

I've tried putting seams around parts and cutting it off at certain points so it can unwrap but it just acts wierd everytime.

Here are some images

This is the object I'm trying to unwrap.


This is the section I am having problems with, i want the texture to evenly unwrap over this without having seams?


A Closer look at the seams I have in place.
]]> Sat, 11 May 2013 10:31:19 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106261 Posted By: pixalgrafix
Post Time: 05-09-2013 at 02:59 AM
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I have been trying to create a realistic toad skin. I used body paint to make bump map, spec map and diffuse map. Some where I am not satisfied. I kept this model here]]> Wed, 08 May 2013 21:59:50 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106223 Posted By: Aazv17
Post Time: 05-08-2013 at 07:56 PM
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Hello, I've been having a problem that is making me want to throw my computer out the window. So here is the problem, I made polygonal hair for a character, and it's nothing too complicated, just some plane strips and planes for beard etc. So now, I uv unwrap them with no problem and make some textures in photoshop. that's the diffuse map and then ofcourse I need an opacity map which is the Alpha layer And they look fine to me, just as they should don't they? But then I put it on UDK and I get this crap So basically I get what looks to me like a faulty alpha chanel, or something of the sort because it is not hidding the parts as it should. It does hide some of it barely, but it leaves those white edges around, and for some parts like the beard, it's not doing anything, I can still see the polygons. I have tried saving the texture as a png and udk won't load it, it just crashes, so I used targas. On photoshop I save I first tried to save it as targa but it doesn't let you, so I you apparentyl have to change the image mode to 8bits channel in order to save it as a targa, so I don't know if changing that has to do with the damaged quality. When I import it to UDk, it looks uncompressed, the image is just like the one in photoshop. I have also tried, just selecting the diffuse layer and desaturating it and changing the levels so that I get the hair to be white and the background black, but that doesn't work either for the mask in UDk, it just does the same thing. If anybody can help me I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.]]> Wed, 08 May 2013 14:56:37 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1106061 Posted By: mykiscool
Post Time: 05-07-2013 at 07:40 PM
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I'm wondering what the trick is to make objects in Maya appear soft. I've created a foam tile and it just doesn't have the softness. I've attached my two target sourceimages as well as my render. Would appreciate any tips.]]> Tue, 07 May 2013 14:40:13 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105703 Posted By: sherkhannabi
Post Time: 05-05-2013 at 01:06 PM
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i heart about normal map which is very gr8 for 3d model and i search a little and found out xnormal and crazybump software but the problem is non of these work for my system. i am using 32bit system and i don't know if older version work for 32bit.
plz guys if you have any advice than share it]]> Sun, 05 May 2013 08:06:15 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105537 Posted By: Seejaynix
Post Time: 05-03-2013 at 10:20 PM
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I am just beginning to use Mari and the model I am trying to import is encountering some issues. I modeled it in Maya and it's fairly low poly and unwrapped it with no overlap, then sculpted on it in Zbrush and made a displacement and normal map. I am first only trying to import the model and make a colour map, but when I click "OK", I get a pop-up window that says "Mari is unable to make the shader. This could be due to an openGL error." and then when it takes me to the project there are only images that say "rendering error". Is this due to my graphics card being insufficient or.....? I'm just not familiar enough with what openGL is.

Thank you in advance.]]> Fri, 03 May 2013 17:20:52 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105474 Posted By: santal
Post Time: 05-03-2013 at 02:06 PM
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Hi,

I am in particular phase of the project and I need some advice.
I have a 3d scanned character with nice texture applyed on not so great uvlayout. I created new topology model for this character and projected details from 3d scan to my new model. But now I need to transfer the texture map [color information].

I can reProject the color information from the scan to the new model [in Zbrush]. But in this procces the information is going to be applied on points of the mesh [not to the texture]. After that I can extract the vertexColor to the texture. This is pretty simple procedure but i dont like "baking" the color to vertexes. I think there may be some information loss. Texture of the scan is 10k and zbrush can export textures 8k maximum.

Any suggestions how to do it without information-loss ?]]> Fri, 03 May 2013 09:06:54 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105303 Posted By: scgrimm
Post Time: 05-02-2013 at 06:22 PM
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Hi, my first post here.
I'm using Mental Ray for Maya and I'm trying to create a gel-like material for a Real Flow mesh.
I've setup an SSS into an mia material. Everything is looking fine so far, but I would really like to add small stationary bubbles inside. These are present in most viscous liquids I've seen online.

I've seen some Vray materials that look like they do this on vray-materials.de .

They don't have to be as defined as the bubbles there, since it's further away. Just something procedural.

Thank you!]]> Thu, 02 May 2013 13:22:59 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105264 Posted By: Intenditore
Post Time: 05-02-2013 at 02:14 PM
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Hi!
I create wet asphalt shader. It's my first serious experince and I want to ask you for evaluation of my work, what I did right and waht I did wrong. I apologize for wrong renders, my machine is very weak...
This is the test scene - https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3l0r3xs3tdiwh6/Studio.zip
This is one of renders - http://www.render.ru/forum/images/upload/3104025.jpg (the white spot is a vray light on the back)
This is the scheme of setup http://www.render.ru/forum/images/upload/3104022.jpg
First I want to ask - is my approach correct? I try to use just a few procedural maps and apply adjustment to them as needed. Is this good? Does this approach decreases or increases render time and quality, may be better to use pitmaps, and get rid of color correction nodes? Sorry for (maybe) stupid questions, there's a lot information about basics and advanced technics, but just a few examples of complex shading. Will it flicker if use it in animation? I can't verify it...
Also there's a problem. When I was really close to result I needed I noticed huge trouble - this material does not work correct with VraySun for some reason. Instead of light spot I recive white overbrighted pixels.
http://www.render.ru/forum/images/upload/3104023.jpg
There's a lot of topicts about this problem, I tried everything I could. Only Sub-pixel mapping and Clamp otput help, but when they are on the reflection of the Sun dissapperars at all. How to solve it? Why does this problem appears?
I have one more thing to ask. When Fresnel reflections is locked (I still don't know what vray does when it's locked) in Material editor I can see shader like it will look in rendered image. When I unlock fresnel reflection material starts to reflect background in unusual and very strange way, you just can't understand how it will look on render. Is this normal?
Also when I use fresnel reflection a strange artifacts appear, like a pothole or a gap. It increases as I increase IOR. It also can't be produced by geometry or maps. What is this?
http://www.render.ru/forum/images/upload/3104024.jpg
I hope you'll answer me, I tired to try to solve this issues so much, a few days already, and no results, just new problems...

Sorry for bad English, I'm not a native speaker.]]> Thu, 02 May 2013 09:14:20 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1105058 Posted By: Aazv17
Post Time: 05-01-2013 at 02:43 AM
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Hello, I have been working on a character for a while now, and it was time to texture it. I unwrapped the head in 3dsMAx and it doesn't have problems, the checker map, as well as the baked lightning map and normal map are working. Now, I wanted to create a diffuse map with polypaint and so I exported it to zbrush as an OBJ (ZbrushPreset), and when I import the obj into zbrush and I create a texture, wether it's from polypaint or whatever, it creates all this artifacts with the UVs. Does Anybody know why this happens or how to fix it?

]]> Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:43:20 +0000 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1104758 Posted By: oihadsf
Post Time: 04-29-2013 at 03:27 AM
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I'm trying to render a simple wood deck texture in Max 2013 via mental ray with the latest nitrous driver. After what would be only a few feet in space the texture gets too blurry for no reason I can tell. I've checked filtering methods and the blur option in the material map to no avail. It doesn't make any sense. The closer my view angle gets the worse the blurring gets and the farther away it gets the worse it gets. I'm at a loss for what the problem could be. It seems to be something based on the viewport or the camera, but I don't have anything set any different then I always have. Any insight would be greatly appreciated... thanks.]]> Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:27:32 +0000