UV Mapping problems and workflow

#1

Hello,
Well, this is my first time posting on here, So I’d like to say hello and thank everyone who’s ever asked a question I’ve had and gotten an answer. I’m loving what I’ve read so far in this community and I really hope to be a part of it more.

I’ve got a 2 parter here:

 1)  I'm having a problem with working XSI and Mudbox together.  I've been working on a character, had the base modeled in XSI and it has it's UV stamp made and texture projection set up.

 I've imported the character in an OBJ file to Mudbox and did some minor moves, did one level of subdivision and did a bit of sculpting and smoothing.  Since I'm new to using Mudbox, I've been learning a lot from what I could find online.  However, the problem is when I export the character back out as a new OBJ file, import it into XSI, his UV stamp is a bit of a mess.

 When I first stamped the UV, it was in seperate pieces, naturally.  Now after bringing it to and from Mudbox, it's made the whole mesh merged together.  Basically, it took what I did for it's UV, and healed any cut lines I have so I have these large distortions and lines stretching to keep the seams healed on the UV map.

 Is there a way to maintain this data of the UV map better?  Did I miss something that would keep the stamp the way I want it to when I export from XSI as an OBJ?  or something in stamping it in the first place?


 2)  Can anyone suggest a better workflow idea?  I'm currently working like this:

  • modeling low poly things in XSI

  • UV stamping

  • setting up texture projection

  • exporting as OBJ

  • importing to Mudbox from XSI

  • detailing/sculpting

  • exporting as OBJ from Mudbox

  • importing to XSI

  • texturing with Photoshop/XSI

    I thank you for reading through my situation and would really like to hear peoples input.

#2

i think youa re using an old mud version…
this issue should be sloved in version 1.07…

#3

i think you are using an old mud version…
this issue should be solved in version 1.07…

#4

Well, Yes, I’m still on Mudbox 1.0… but I figured out what I was doing wrong, in a way. See, I was kind of hoping that after doing the detail on the first level, I could export the model already subdivided once and keep the UV map updated and intact. Only the base level, the very mesh I imported into Mudbox, could be exported with the UV map kept as is. Any higher level, and it seems to heal any seams or broken lines.

 So, I was able to bring back in the base mesh after I did my work in mudbox.  Brought it back in to XSI as an OBJ, UV map was fine.  Now I'm having trouble hooking up a Normal map and Displacement Map to it.  Had the maps made in Mudbox to capture all the detail and work I did, but when I put them in, they seem awfully fragmented and the detail looks really bad on 'em.  I'm not sure how to trouble shoot this.
#5

When applying the Maps in XSI, are you applying it to a model imported from Mudbox, or the original XSI model that you exported?

Try applying the maps the the original XSI model. One that has not touched Mudbox but still retains the UV’s you had setup.

Also, in Mudbox, when exporting maps, maybe make them larger than the default? And remember for the low resolution mesh, choose Level 0, or Level 1 with “good” subD. For the high, choose the highest Level of the object, but with “none” for subD. Also try saving as TIFF 16bit. And under advanced settings, try smooth UV’s.

I use Max, so I don’t know XSI. But the above are what I check to do when exporting a baked map.

Hope some of it helps. You probably know all the above anyway :shrug:

#6

Well, thanks for your input Greg. The problem has been solved, I thought a conclusion on that would be good.

I’m sure Mudbox would work well with Max and Maya, given the partnership and integration in companies, so they’ll be able to make baking maps work better.

I found that to work it in XSI, it was better to make two new OBJ files in mudbox, one of the character at base level 0 (I found the UVs stayed intact as they were when I brought it into mudbox) and one OBJ of the hi poly version.

When I brought them into XSI, I used Ultimapper. Never really delved into texture setup before, nothing complex really, so it was new to me. Ultimapper was able to generate the maps needed, I just need to tweak the settings on it still.

Not to mention tweaking with the render tree in XSI is quite a challenge.

#7

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