Problem with materials and clusters

#1

hey guys, I new to XSI and I have a problem with my textures. I need to take a high res model and reduced the number of polygons. On the high res model, this is 4 textures (head, arms, body, legs).

When I analyse mesh in the explorer, I see that there are Clusters in the polygon mesh(EnvelopWeightsCls, Head, Arms, Legs, Body). All those clusters have a material into their cluster.

Then I created my low res model from this one (I did it in 3Dsmax). Then, when I imported it back to XSI, of course, I didnt have those clusters in my mesh but I still had all the unwraps. Now, I’m not able to associate the high res textures to my low res model. I created new clusters with the same name on the loew res and I dragged the high res material on my low res model through the explorer. Then I saw the low res model becoming a pale shade of grey but I still dont see it on my low res model (I see it on the high res one tho - they are in the same scene)

Anything I don’t get there? How could the same texture be visible on a mesh on not on the other?

thanks!!

#2

I cant answer your question, but the stuff you described -transfering materials between lo-hi/hi-lo meshes is easily done by GATOR. pick low-res mesh, property-gator, pick hi res mesh, done.

#3

You’re right and that’s what I did.

But after using Gator to transfer the High Res UVs to my Reduced low res version, I needed to fix many parts and for this reason I brought it into 3dsmax and fixed it.

Gator did a great job but since the low res and high res doesn’t have the exact same topology, the clusters ended out a bit different on the low res and I need to keep the original textures.

After fixing the UVs in Max and importing it back to XSI, The only thing I needed to do was to re-create the clusters and re-assign materials. It worked but they don’t show in viewport… :frowning:

In max when you don’t see your map you need to click ‘show map in viewport’ in the mat. editor but now I just don’t know what yo do.

#4

If you already have the highres model in XSI, why go back to MAX to do a lowres version? The polygon reduction tools in XSI will get you a good result, and will keep all the clusters intact as far as that is possible with the reduction going on.

Now you’ll have a self inflicted mesh (pun intended) :wink:

I don’t know how you imported/exported the models (CrossWalk??) but my guess is that the clusters:
-don’t have the original material anymore
-still have the original material but cannot see the texture due to file path issues.

For the first, just reassign the original material to the clusterset
For the second, you can have a look at the ‘external files’ option in the File menu to see if the path is still correct. Or open up the material on the cluster and reassign the texture from the clips dropdown.

With Gator, be sure the models line up as much as possible before GATORing over the stuff you need.

I hope this helps, and keep in mind XSI isn’t MAX/Maya isn’t XSI :wink:

#5

Hi,

first, thanks for your answer. You are totally right when you say that max/maya is not XSI. I was just worried about re-learning how to manipulate the UVs in XSI since I work much faster in 3dsmax. That’s the reason why I brought it into Max.

When I open XSI, I got both my model on the screen. Then, when I open the poly meshes on each version, they have the exact same texture names in each clusters. Even, when I click on the material in the explorer in both version… it opens a window and i see my textures in it! So, why it doesnt show in viewport?

I may have to start over and create everything in XSI 8(

#6

You probably have already tried this, sometimes I overlook the obvious myself, but do you have your viewport in Softimage set to “textured” or “textured Decal”?

#7

yes I do… I have both models in my viewport… i see the texture on the high res and I see a shade of gray on the low res… they both have the same textures + same clusters + same UVs + same weights points :frowning:

#8

The other thing I might suggest, is that if you really need this done fast, rather than doing the whole thing over or waiting for someone to respond who has a solution, is if you are on Maintenance, I would just call up support and tell them what is going on. They (Manny) has helped me out numerous times, and if they dont have the solution at that time, they always look for the answer and get back to you. Best of luck in finding your solution.

#9

Thanks for your answers I might do this

#10

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.