My current list of mudbox bugs/oddities.

[indigosm]

Hey there. This is Seneca Menard from id software..... First off, I've gotta say that I'm just competely in love with mudbox.. I never really thought it would be that different from Zbrush, but boy was I wrong.. There's a number of things that have made me fall in love with it, such as selective subdivision, the precious flatten tool, a polygonal display mode that shows you EXACTLY what you'll get in any other 3d app, a pinch tool with exponential falloff that thus doesn't destroy all the surrounding geometry, etc, etc.... 🙂

Reason why I'm writing is to report the bugs and oddities I've noticed while using it.. The version I tested them against was build 1.0.2...



MUDBOX BUGS / REQUESTS

(B1) : HOTKEY WINDOW SLOWDOWN :
If the hotkey window is onscreen, every time I hit ALT, I get a 4 second pause. Every time I switch between the main window and hte hotkey window, I also get a 4 second pause.

(B2) : WHEN YOU OVERWRITE A HOTKEY, YOU COULD OVERWRITE A WHOLE BUNCH ON ACCIDENT!
Mudbox's hotkey overwrite system really needs to be changed. When you overwrite a hotkey, mudbox doesn't unbind that old hotkey in one step. It actually unbinds that hotkey in a step by step process and comes into hotkey conflict after hotkey conflict!!! For example, say I want to overwrite CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-LMB. When I do that, mudbox will overwrite all of these other hotkeys as well!
-CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-LMB
-CTRL-ALT-LMB
-ALT-LMB
-LMB

(B3) : HOTKEYS DISPLAYED IN THE TOOLBAR ARE HARDCODED.
The toolbars need to display each tools' current hotkey, not the hardcoded default hotkey. This leads to a lot of confusion.

(B4) : NAMES DISPLAYED IN THE TOOLBAR ARE NOT UNIVERSAL
I had a lot of trouble finding hotkeys in the hotkeys window, because their names are not the same in the toolbar menus and the hotkey window. For example: ("show all" != "unhide all") ("stroke on curve" != "draw on curve")

(B5) : HOTKEY WINDOW NEEDS TO BE ORGANIZED
I've had a lot of trouble binding hotkeys in mudbox, where I'll literally look for a hotkey for over 10 minutes and still not find it! Half, because there are a lot of commands that aren't in the hotkey editor, and the other half because the editor's unorganized. There's a number of ways to improve that. First off, there should be submenus in the hotkey list, like there are in photoshop and maya. All the hotkeys should use universal names and be in groups, such as camera, viewport displays, tools, presets, toolbar menu groups, palette menus . For example:
----------------------------------
CAMERA CONTROL>
DISPLAY OPTIONS>
----------------------------------
TOOLS>
FALLOFF>
STAMP>
etc
----------------------------------
FILE>
EDIT>
CREATE>
etc
----------------------------------
LAYERS CONTEXT>
OBJECT LIST CONTEXT>
etc
----------------------------------

(B6) : IT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER IF WE COULD RIGHT CLICK ON MENUS OR TOOLS AND BIND THOSE TO KEYS.
The best way to create new hotkeys is to click on a tool or command and click "bind to key". It's uber fast because you don't have to load up the hotkey window and search through it.

(B7) : THERE ARE A LOT OF TOOLS AND COMMANDS THAT DON'T HAVE HOTKEYS
As I just mentioned, I ran into a great number of cases where I couldn't find the hotkey I was looking for, and that's because it didn't exist. For example, here are a few: erase , flatten layers , merge layers , mask tool, etc.

(B8) : HOTKEY CONFIG IS VERY FRAGILE FROM BUILD TO BUILD.
With almost every new MB build I got, I had to rebuild my hotkey cfg from scratch, and that was a nightmare. The hotkey cfg really needs to be able to be loaded flawlessly on different builds.. I looked at the cfg and I don't know what exactly could have been corrupting them in the new builds, because the hotkey indices should be the same from build to build, but what I recommend is that the hotkey cfg doesn't use indices, but literal text instead (for example, Grow selection: "alt-shift-]"), that way it'll always be safe to load that cfg in every build (plus, us users would be able to modify our configs ourselves in textpad. That's actually very handy. I've swapped stuff around in my modo cfg many times and have loved being able to do that)

(B9) : SOME HOTKEYS DON'T WORK FOR UNKNOWN REASONS.
I bound "Grow Selection" to "shift-]" and hitting that hotkey does nothing. When I bind it to "]" it works though.... ?? Also, I tried binding "Freeze" to "F11" and that doesn't work either.

(B10) : TRYING TO FIND KEY NAMES IS SOMEWHAT DIFFICULT..
In other apps, if I want to bind a command to "Ctrl-alt-shift-Space", I'll just click in a field and press that button. We can't do that in mudbox and thus must type in the name. Trying to find the name's a bit difficult, actually. Is page down "page down", "pageDn"? "pgdn"? "page down"? ect..? I was recently trying to bind space, and couldn't find it. Luckly I was able to ask a friend and he told me it was "SPC"..

(B11) : IF MUDBOX CRASHES, YOU LOSE ALL YOUR CFG CHANGES YOU MADE THAT SESSION.
Mudbox needs a "save cfg" button. 🙂

(B12) : WE NEED A SELECT CONNECTED BUTTON.
I know this has been requested before, but we need to be able to select all the polys on multiple meshes quickly, and the best way to do that is to select a poly on each and then hit select connected..

(B13) : WHEN YOU SUBDIVIDE A SELECTION, IT SHOULD RETAIN YOUR POLYGON SELECTION.
There's been a number of times where I had to subdivide a selection a couple of times in a row, but every time I'd subdivide it, the selection would be dropped and so I'd have to select it again and it was a little tough in some of these cases, because I was raising the subD level up to a level that already existed and so I couldn't select all in that subD level...

(B14) : WHEN YOU SUBDIVIDE A MESH, SHOULD IT SUBDIVIDE THE FROZEN POLYS?
It's just a small oddness I noticed. I thought that because some polys were frozen, they wouldn't get subdivided..

(B15) : OBJECT TRANSLATE TOOL + SCREEN AXIS
It'd be good if hauling in empty space would translate the selection in the screen axis.. It's just the little things, like having to click on a small handle in order to move an object that slows us down little by little...

(B16) : OBJECT LIST : RIGHT CLICK MENU DOESN'T GET APPLIED TO ALL THE SELECTED ITEMS
So if you have 20 curves you want to delete, you must delete 'em all with 20 right clicks-->deletes... 😞

(B17) : IT WOULD BE NICE TO BE ABLE TO DELETE OBJECTS BY PRESSING DEL
This is just a small subliminal thing, but I always try to delete objects by pressing del or backspace and am surprised I can't..

(B18) : ZBUFFER ISSUE?
On the past couple of meshes, I've noticed some weird drawing artifacts and I apparently get them because I'm too close to the geometry.. I dunno if it can be fixed, but figured I'd show it anyways
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/zbuffer.mov

(B19) : 16 or 32bit DISPLACEMENT IMAGES
I tried creating some displacement images in both Zbrush and Photoshop and failed with both. I also tried a number of different file formats and all failed.. What 32bit displacement format does Mudbox accept?
failed attempts:
16bit BMP
32bit BMP
16bit TIF (greyscale)
32bit TIF (greyscale
16bit TIF (rgb)
32bit TIF (rgb)
this is what they look like in mudbox:
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/displacement.png

(B20) : TRACKBALL ROTATION!!!
I'm constantly getting tangled in gimble lock with mudbox's camera rotation system, so I'm begging that we get trackball. Here's a video that shows the difference.(as you've probably seen a million times)
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/trackball.mov


STAMP AND STENCIL ISSUES.

For my alien, I was trying to place eyeballs onto him with a displacement map and ran into a number of issues. Here's a vid that shows those issues, which are the next 7 bugs:
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/stampsandstencils.mov

(B21) : STENCIL DOESN'T WORK WITH SYMMETRY
1) Turn on X symmetry for brush tool
2) Turn on stencil
3) paint on the stencil and you'll see it only applies it to one side of the head.

(B22) : STENCIL WORKS GOOD WITH FLOOD, BUT UNFORTUNATELY CAN'T BE USED BECAUSE STENCIL SHOOTS THROUGH MESH
1) Turn on stencil
2) flood fill (to get a perfect displacement)
3) rotate around object and you'll see your stencil was displaced on the backside as well, so I guess stencil needs a backface cull option.

(B23) : IF YOU RESIZE A STENCIL, IT WON'T PROJECT PROPERLY
1) Turn on stencil,
2) paint on object,
3) now change the stencil's size to 0.5
4) paint on object and you'll see it's using the old size.

(B24) : STAMP'S ACTUAL POSITION NOT VISIBLE REALTIME
I think it would be really handy to be able to see the current stamp drawn in the current brush handle, that way we can see realtime exactly what kind of stamp we're going to perform before we stamp it. I had a hell of a time trying to get my alien's eyeballs rotated exactly how I wanted them and had to do it with trial and error.... 😞

(B25) : MOVE TOOL IGNORES STAMP
1) turn on move tool
2) turn on stamp
3) use move tool and it won't use stamp

(B26) : MOVE TOOL IGNORES STENCIL
1) turn on move tool
2) turn on stencil
3) use move tool and it won't use stencil

(B27) IMAGE IMPORT : I CAN'T IMPORT ANY TIFs AS STAMPS RIGHT NOW.
If I convert any TIF into a stamp, I get a blank stamp.


Anyways.. That's the long list.. I love this app! Later folks! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hello seneca,

Sorry, hadn't read through your whole post but just saw the Mov on stamps.

I’ve notice that you had the soft brush selected for stamping, try the stamp brush and see if that makes a differences.
Also you can drag out and stamp an image with stamp drag .


http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/5255/stamptoolqa0.jpg


Btw, hope you can help us Modonauts with a 32 bit tiff import. 🙂


Garrick,

[Anonymous]

Hey thanks so much for this well defined list, videos and the Mudbox support! I

[Anonymous]

great bug list there seneca, agree on all of your points. Regarding the bug B15) I think he must mean translating the object without fiddling with the manipulator handles. I..e like when you MMB drag an object in maya with translate tool open, it moves the object in screen space.

[Anonymous]

Re: B15)

Please try the following.
Press and hold the X ( for xform )

X+Left mouse button = Rotate
X+Middle mouse button = Move
X+ Right mouse button = Scale

[indigosm]

thanks for the tips everyone! Here's the response/update:


B12) Try floating your brush tip over any set of connected faces and press shift+a to select them all.
Here's a vid to illustrate why a select connect tool is needed:
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/MB/selectConnect.mov

B13) Try floating your brush tip over any set of connected faces and press shift+a to select them all.
As I mentioned, shift-A wouldn't solve the problem if you've already used that subdivision level on other places of the mesh. Here's a vid illustrating that.
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/MB/subdivide_keepSel.mov

B15) We may need a bit more clarity on this. Yes we do Thanks
Yup. Rebo's right. Actually, a good example would be Mudbox's rotate tool.. If you drag on one of the rotate handles, it will rotate on that specific axis. If you drag anywhere but on the rotate handles, it will rotate in screen-axis space. That's the same thing I'd like for the translate tool. I'm the kind of guy that never uses tool handles unless I must, because using handles makes the job take twice as long as not having to use the handles. (1-get the mouse cursor precisely to handle. 2-move handle). I just like skipping part 1. 🙂 🙂

Re: B15) Please try the following.
Yes! That's awesome! That tool's friggin sweet! Thanks for the tip! Man, there's a number of tools I missed out on because they're not in the GUI.. I need to research all the commands in the hotkey list better.. 😛

B17) Hmm you should be able to do this?? We will have a closer look.
The reason why you can't do this is because "Del" is bound to "delete faces". And thus if you select a light, curve, material, etc and hit delete, they won't get deleted becuase they're not faces.

B18) The first is an issue with how we render the screen and the second I have a question for you? Is your model very very small or are you in a orthographic camera? But it should not be happening.
The model is 35 modo meters tall. (which I believe is 35 OBJ units) This brings up a _VERY_ interesting point, which I'll talk about in (B28)

B24) Try the Stamp Brush. Its designed for placing stamps in a specific locations.
Wow. I can't believe I missed that tool! Duhhh. That's exactly what I was trying to execute.. So ignore B22, B24, B25. 😛



ADDITIONAL BUGS/NOTES (1-7-07)


(B28) : HOW SHOULD MUDBOX HANDLE OBJECTS OF ARBITRARY SCALE?
In the video for B12, I found that adjusting the brush size worked extremely wel on the 3m cube guy and didn't work very well on the 35m goofy alien.. I think this is something I'm going to want to bring up, in that I'd always hoped that all of mudbox's tools would perform exactly the same on a 0.0003m sphere vs a 3,000,000m sphere. The reason why I think this is important is because I think there's a number of different measurement units that come into play, from all the different 3d apps and all the different cg genres.
For instance, in both Epic and Id video games, 1 modo meter == 1 video game unit.
1 game unit == ~1 inch (kinda, theoretically.. our 6' tall characters tend to be around 74modo meters tall)
So that's roughly saying that a meter is an inch in some video games (surely not all video games) and thus our objects tend to be much larger than what cg folks use.. The CG humans will theoretically be 6 feet tall, but ours will be 19 feet tall, which is a lot of discrepency. Plus, what if the cg artists are working on an insect or a mountain? CG artists tend to love working with physically accurate measurement units, and so aren't they going to want to have their insect be 0.5 inches big and their mountain be many miles wide? Prolly, who knows for sure...

I guess all I do know, is that we've run into a number of problems in zbrush every once in a while because our sizes were not what zbrush liked, and you wouldn't be able to paint small brush strokes onto the model, becuase the brush strokes were smaller than zbrush thought were physically possible (even though it would happily draw the brush cursor of that size correctly), and in order to fix that, we'd have to scale our models up to try to get zbrush to work properly with it. I had hoped we'd be free of all the problems associated with file scales, but I dunno. (I haven't been using MB very long, and I haven't noticed anything bad yet except for the brush size controls, but figured I'd better talk about it..)

(B29) : STAMP TOOL GETS DROPPED IF 2nd ROTATION POINT IS OUTSIDE MESH SILHOUETTE
As you'll see in the vid, if your second stamp point is outside the silhouette, your stamp will not get applied.
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/MB/stampToolIssues.mov

(B30) : STAMP TOOL DISLAY IS FLIPPED IN SYMMETRY MODE
uses vid from (B29)...

(B31) : STAMP TOOL : IF SYMMETRICAL HALF OF GEOMETRY IS NOT VISIBLE TO CAMERA, STAMP NOT APPLIED.
As you'll see in the vid, when I drop the stamp onto the alien, the symmetrical half doesn't get the stamp fully applied, and that's because it's not visible to the camera..
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/MB/stampToolSymmProb.mov

[Anonymous]

I guess all I do know, is that we've run into a number of problems in zbrush every once in a while because our sizes were not what zbrush liked, and you wouldn't be able to paint small brush strokes onto the model, becuase the brush strokes were smaller than zbrush thought were physically possible (even though it would happily draw the brush cursor of that size correctly), and in order to fix that, we'd have to scale our models up to try to get zbrush to work properly with it. I had hoped we'd be free of all the problems associated with file scales, but I dunno. (I haven't been using MB very long, and I haven't noticed anything bad yet except for the brush size controls, but figured I'd better talk about it..)

Yes Mudbox works in true world space and so I understand the problem. Currently the brush strength and size hotkeys work in 10% increments to try and address scale issues. But since this is not enough we can look into an auto increment adjust/multiplier based on a bounding box of the scene or something. We will have a look.

Thanks again for all the feedback.

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to give you a thumbs up Seneca for supplying such a great bug report! I hope we all learn something from this - I certainly have! 🙂

[indigosm]

ADDITIONAL BUGS/NOTES (1-11-07)


(B32) : IF (HIDE ALL CURVES) IS ON WHEN YOU TURN ON THE CURVE TOOLS, IT SHOULD TURN THAT OPTION OFF
I noticed this the other day where I turned on the curve tool and started drawing, but nothing was happening. I thought that the curve tool was broken for a couple of seconds and then realized it was my fault because I had curves hidden. So I suggest that when the curve tools are turned on, they check if the hide all curves option is on, and if so, turn it off. 🙂

(B33) : STROKE ON CURVE FAILS ON LARGER CURVES
In the vid, I can get the curve stroke to fail it's bigger than a certain size and one of the two ends is outside the silhouette of the mesh
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/strokeOutside.mov

(B34) : STROKE ON CURVE FADES IN/OUT
As you'll see in the vid, the brush stroke fades in it's opacity or size, even if you clamp the minimum values to 100%.
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/strokeFade.mov

(B35) : STROKE TO CURVE SHOULD REMEMBER IT'S LAST USED SETTINGS
I think that the tool should remember the last used settings, that way you don't have to type in your adjusted values every time...

(B36) : HOTKEY ISSUE : IF YOU BIND 'STROKE TO CURVE' TO ALT-C, IT WILL LOCK DOWN C
1) Bind Alt-C to "stroke on curve"
2) close the hotkey window and create a curve
3) hit Alt-C and it will popup the stroke window as it should
4) now hit Alt-Lmb to rotate the view. When you do that, it will re-fire the stroke window.
The reason why that's happening is because C gets locked down when the stroke window is spawned and the only way to unlock C is to hit it again. But of course, you wouldn't know to hit it again and when you tried to rotate the view, you would actually be pressing ALT and C and fire that command on accident. (In order to reproduce this bug, C might have to be bound to the curve manipulate hotkeys. I haven't tested it without those hotkeys assigned...)


WINDOW UI BUGS/NOTES


(B37) : ADDED OR REMOVED TABS AREN'T SAVED WHEN YOU CLOSE THE APP
It appears that mudbox's UI is locked to a hardcoded default state, and if you add or close any tabs and close/reopen mudbox, they revert to the hardcoded state.

(B38) : THE TABS CAN'T BE CLOSED IN MOST OF THE WINDOWS
If you look at the pic, it shows which of the tab sets can and cannot have some of their tabs closed. If you right click on the ones that cannot, All you'll get in the RMB popup menu is "NEW TAB" and none of the others, such as RENAME TAB, CHIP OFF TAB, etc.
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/lockedTabs.png

(B39) : ABILITY TO CREATE OR DELETE WINDOW SETS
This is a feature request, not a bug of course... I've gotta admit that I've been totally spoiled by modo's interface. You're allowed to customize pretty much everything, and thus my UI is very different from the standard interface and I love it. I was thinking about what kind of UI I wanted mudbox to have, and what I wanted was to have everything onscreen at once. So if you look at the pic, everything that's commonly needed is onscreen at the same time. You don't have to have to open any new windows or click on any tabs to get access to anything.. (well, except for the image browser, which isn't used often anyways)... So I'm just requesting the ability to add/remove windows (and of course, they get saved to the CFG and so when you close and reopen the app, you've still got your UI)
transfer.idsoftware.com/private/seneca/mb/newLayout.png

(B40) : ABILITY TO HIDE TABS
feature request again. As you saw in the pic for B39, I'd like to not have multiple tabs in the same window for pretty much all of the UI, and thus want to increase screenspace by hiding the tabs. So I'd like the ability to hide tabs on a per-window basis. (modo lets you hide window titles and such, and I've turned it off for everything and it's allowed me to cram in a lot more stuff into the same physical space)