MAYA to MudBox THREAD! How to's, workflow, questions!

[Anonymous]

MAYA to MUDBOX WORKFLOW

PLEASE POST!!

Well Ive Just about Read every thread on here that may help me with using Mudbox in my workflow. I figured I would create a thread specifically for that reason as I dont think every MAYA user should have to go through what I have been doing and should find a place that caters to a MAYA -- > Mudbox workflow.

With that said. If the moderators or those that understand MUDBOX inside and out and understand MAYA inside and out can post in this section, that would be great!!

I currently run MAYA 7.0 and am trying to use MUDBOX 1.0.4 as my choice for displacements. With that said, most of us in the animation industry will need to know this basic workflow in great detail as a solid high poly model exported from MUDBOX just wont do, I and im sure many other maya users need a step by step example of creating a low poly mesh in maya, UV mapping a certain way and why, then exporting to .obj, then importing to mudbox and understanding the ratio of sizes between the two and if that has an effect on the final displacement map, to then showing basic mesh changed in MUDBOX, EX: show a long horn created on a sphere, and then showing the steps to get the best displacement map from Mudbox for MAYA, what setting people use and why, to the final creation of the map. And lastly how to apply that map onto the same exported sphere in maya showing the process needed to set that up in Mental Ray to get the best renderer. I know getting the displacement to fit and render out right in MAYA has been a real pain in the arse, so it would be great if someone could go through that process as well showing there steps in MAYA after they have a completed displacement in MUDBOX, to get the most out of the displacement as far as matching your mudbox creation on screen..


If all this can be summed up in either this discussion board with picture files showing everything like a detailed tutorial, that would be great. I know once this MAYA to Mudbox workflow is created and followed to a T, there will be many more amazing works coming from this great program. A great displacement is so key to a model going out to be rigged for animation. I would myself love to contribute where I can and will once I get all the info. I need and all my questions answered.

Thanks and I hope we can get more MAYA people involved with this process!



A simple sphere from MAYA would be a first good tut on the process I described above.....

1b7aec63b00825dc811e15179970ce4f.rar

[Anonymous]

Xskorpion,

You had the following issues with the mesh that caused your problem.

-Model scale: The model was total height 4.8cm the lip area was 0.2cm with the bump around 0.02cm which may have lead to raytrace errors. Perhaps. Its good to work to scale.

-UVs: Did not give the right amount of space for each face most likely because the tools you used to layout the UVs were fooled by no evenly spaced edges in the mesh.

-Edge flow: Works against you when you subdivide. Huge faces on the forehead small ones on the nose. And you had star intersections in areas like the nostril corner which can cause issues. The goal is to try and have all the faces the same size/proportion within say 15%.(*you also need a lot more topology around the ears if you want to extract good maps from there. Build the ear completely in the lowRes )

-Exported the lowRes after sculpting and use that mesh to render with the 16bit displacement map I created.

Those are my suggestions. What I did was to scale your mode up by 10 and redo completely the UVs as well as delete un-needed polys under the model because they are not seen and take up UV space. I also added a few edge rings around the neck. Then I re-sculpted.

Results: No issues at all with the maps or render.

[Anonymous]

my first reaction was "that's not what my model looks like at all!!" until i read that u resculpted it hehe

thx again, back to work with your suggestions!

[^Emil_02]

...
You had the following issues with the mesh that caused your problem.

-Model scale: The model was total height 4.8cm the lip area was 0.2cm with the bump around 0.02cm which may have lead to raytrace errors. Perhaps. Its good to work to scale.

-UVs: Did not give the right amount of space for each face most likely because the tools you used to layout the UVs were fooled by no evenly spaced edges in the mesh.

-Edge flow: Works against you when you subdivide. Huge faces on the forehead small ones on the nose. And you had star intersections in areas like the nostril corner which can cause issues. The goal is to try and have all the faces the same size/proportion within say 15%.(*you also need a lot more topology around the ears if you want to extract good maps from there. Build the ear completely in the lowRes )

-Exported the lowRes after sculpting and use that mesh to render with the 16bit displacement map I created.

Those are my suggestions. What I did was to scale your mode up by 10 and redo completely the UVs as well as delete un-needed polys under the model because they are not seen and take up UV space. I also added a few edge rings around the neck. Then I re-sculpted.

Results: No issues at all with the maps or render.

Thank you for the important information Dave.
I think these suggestions are very essential and believe that general topology recommendations and requirements for good displacement map extraction should be included and emphasized in the help pages. In fact for me this is more important than anything else I

[Anonymous]

Xscorpion,

Just to reiterate/ agree on what Ken and Dave said - the 7 point intersection's a definite "No No." In most production character geometry a 5 poly intersection is the max you want to have, and sparingly at that.

Emil,

I think Dave

[^Emil_02]

Thanks for you input Xscorpion, (edit: sorry I meant jkushwara):o
Hmm, May be I didn

[Anonymous]

Emil,

This isn't a great example of topological flow, as it's a starting generic basemesh that I'd use for modeling then retopologise for a final mesh. It could use more edgeloops around the eyes, the 5 point intersections on the brows are bad, as are the nose wing/ noslabial fold intersections to name a few problems.

I thought it might help the discussion on polygon distrubition. I focused on the nose/ forehead area, the distrubition over the rest of the head and neck is about the same.

[^Emil_02]

Thank you for the example jkushwara, (I apologize for putting Xscorpion

[Anonymous]

Emil3D,

I did not mean to scare you with the "15%" difference between polys. 🙂 This is not a hard rule maybe its more like 15%-30+% for organic forms. And this is not just for Mudbox it is a must for proper production quality models for a great number of reasons for games or films. And for hard surface models forget about that 15-30 number. But you need to know what a triangle or a vertex that has more that five edges connected or any topology will do when you subdivide it and what that means for any texture you assign.

Perhaps I will post an example for you.

Or you can post a screenshot our your model and I can suggest yea or nea 🙂

[Anonymous]

I would also really appreciate if Xskorpion agrees to post different angles screenshots with wireframe on shaded of his original topology in Maya and the modified topology from Dave so that we can compare and learn.

Thank you in advance


Hey Emil,

i don't have the mesh that Dave corrected, but he did mention how he solved it-
enlarging the model to 10 cm, twice it's original size, and redoing the UV's (i used the pelt tools before, wasn't the best way to approach it in this situation) and adding a few more loops around the very low res areas.
seems like he didn't change the star intersections, but was suggested to do so.

[Anonymous]

I was reading through the thread and thought you guys might be able to help me. I have a similiar problem to Xskorpion's. I think my Uv layout is alright as i modeled the basemesh in maya and then exported it as an object into mudbox. I played around with the model and made the displacement map but when i checked if it worked in mudbox through the mesh displacement option i got wierd results.
I used the same settings off the "Rendering Displacement maps in Maya" thread.
www.mudbox3d.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2241
My explanation is really bad so i made a picture. If anyone can help please post.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to diagnose the problem without more info ie. a pic of the base cage and UV layout. Assuming there aren't overlapping UV's in the ears and eyes regions.. my first guess was that the vertex id's on your mesh got re-ordered either from exporting from mudbox or from your export settings in maya so thier out of sync. Atleast thats what i'm use to the problem being when a mesh explodes.

My second guess would be that the base mesh has poles/stars in the ears and eye sockets from the way the stray polys seem to all be converging in those areas.

[Anonymous]

Yer i thought so. Ill post up my basemesh so you can have a look at the uvs and model if you have maya. Also the uv's dont overlap i think but i do have one 5 edged star on each eye. But the ears are fine. Although im not very good at making uv maps.

[Anonymous]

Hi Bateman,

This looks like simple mismatch between hiRes and lowRes. Always be careful of open edges. Either close out the back of the eye for extracting maps or if the mesh is hiRes enough I sometimes delete the last row of edges on the lowRes just before extraction. So your issues are because of rays being misfired off the back edge of the eye most likely.

We use a raytrace solution for extraction as it give the best quality maps and allows for the user to create creases and pinches in the mesh without problem and the resulting map wil not render with that crease opened up. It also allows for the user to extract between multiple objects and arbitrary objects for example when you have made a UV change or changed the topology of the lowRes. The only draw back is that you need to be slightly carefull on open edges and alignments between the lowRes and hiRes. But raytracing gives the best quality maps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks dave that could be the problem. But why do the ears also artifact if there are no open edges on them?

[Testure]

Thanks dave that could be the problem. But why do the ears also artifact if there are no open edges on them?

Because ears are tangent protrusions. A common problem is when your base mesh contains little or no ear geometry, and you fully sculpt it out in mudbox. In this situation your base mesh doesn't match your finished mesh closely enough, and the rays 'shoot past' the changed geometry causing spikes and other artifacts during the texture baking process.

[Anonymous]

That could be it Eldee but i did model simple ears in maya on the basemesh. But maybe they werent well enough defined. So should i just begin again but model eye sockets and more defined ears on the basemesh in maya.

[Testure]

Well, that's one option.. the other option is to export your Level 1 subdivision from mudbox and use it in lieu of your base mesh in your rendering application (maya). The drawback here is that you will need to redo any rigging or whatever that you might have already done on your original base mesh. But if you're considering starting over, I'd say that's a viable alternative.

The reason why the Level 1 subdivision should work is because as you sculpt on higher subdivisions, it pulls your base geometry around into the shape of your high resolution mesh. So long as you've got enough geometry in your Level 1 subdivision, this should work fairly well. If not, you may have to step up to level 2 and try that.

For future reference, however, you'll want to model all of your ear's geometry, along with other tight areas like lips, the nose, and eye sockets (in addition to things like fingers, toes, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Alright i think i will start over. I need the practise anyway. Thanks guys.

[mcgergs]

Hello. I have been working on a project recently that I am trying to share my full work flow from Maya to Mudbox and back. I have illistrated my modeling process and UV mapping process in detail before I go to Mudbox. Then I Show my sculpting process and then a displacement map tutorial. I did this in Mudbox 1.0 and see settings have changed since then but it should help clarify some things.

If you would like to view the full thread you can go here.

www.mudbox3d.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2454&highlight=Validen

I have included screen shots of my settings and work flow in that thread. If there are any faults in my process, feel free to let me know. I may have just gotten lucky with getting it all to work right.

Final Render With a few more shader and light tweaks
http://validen.christopherwcook.com/forum_images/mordren/displaceRenderTest2.jpg

[Anonymous]

Hi Bateman,

This looks like simple mismatch between hiRes and lowRes. Always be careful of open edges. Either close out the back of the eye for extracting maps or if the mesh is hiRes enough I sometimes delete the last row of edges on the lowRes just before extraction. So your issues are because of rays being misfired off the back edge of the eye most likely.

We use a raytrace solution for extraction as it give the best quality maps and allows for the user to create creases and pinches in the mesh without problem and the resulting map wil not render with that crease opened up. It also allows for the user to extract between multiple objects and arbitrary objects for example when you have made a UV change or changed the topology of the lowRes. The only draw back is that you need to be slightly carefull on open edges and alignments between the lowRes and hiRes. But raytracing gives the best quality maps.

I get this problem every once in a while and i figured this might be it. asuming that deleting the last row of edges isn't an option, how would i go about closing up holes in a fully sculpted mesh without losing my levels?