Community
Mudbox Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Mudbox Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular Mudbox topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

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

48 REPLIES 48
Reply
Message 1 of 49
Anonymous
970 Views, 48 Replies

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

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

48 REPLIES 48
Message 41 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

hi

ive just finished modeling in mudbox and i want to extract a displacement map. But like lots of other people, im having problems. I hope this is the proper thread to post.

I havent found anyone with my problem anywhere in the forum (yet).

So what happends is that my 32 bit map comes out to dark (and does not displace enough when i test it in MB on my level 0 mesh) .

I have tried different tutorials and settings from the forum but i still get the same result.

A related question, how come i dont have the middle grey checkbox. I have the latest trial version.

thank you
Message 42 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: 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 figured out another work around for this problem. you can just edit the dismap in photoshop. brushes aren't allowed on 32-bit maps in PS but the stamp works just fine. so you can just rubberstamp out the holes and the crazy artifacts are gone without having to delete the last row of edges. if you need more heavy edit of your 32-bit map, you can also bake a 16-bit version and convert it in PS to 32bits. then use it as source for doing minor touch ups on your original 32 bit map.

this of course isn't ideal, but it's great for minor touchups like artifacts from holes. which brings me to a question.... does anybody know of an editor for 32-bit images that allow you to use brushes?
Message 43 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Hey guys!
I was reading about bateman's problem with his base mesh and the open edges. I was curious about the open edges because I modeled my character similar to what bateman did with his eyelids, having pretty mush open edges.

Dave, I wanted to ask you if you have any other suggestions about modeling according to how raytracing works with the geometry, specialy when you have open edges?


Hi Eldee!
I wanted to ask you, what do you recommend about modeling ears for a low-res characters. Pretty mush what you saying is if you're going to use a morph target, have that morph target with the ear well defined before exporting it to Mudbox?

Thanks for you time guys!

Javier Loredo.
Message 44 of 49
blitzmaya
in reply to: Anonymous

Maybe this thread should become a sticky? Good info here. Not trying to steal anybody's thread, but I have a problem too. I made a mesh in maya and modified the mesh the way I wanted in mudbox. However when I exported the disp and low mesh in mudbox, open new scene and import the low mesh to test the disp map, my mesh starts to become crooked and uneven. What's causing this problem? Plus when importing hires mesh in maya, I tried to do a blend shape like the video tutorial pixelcg made..I get an error that says unable to deform the object or polygon not found in history. :confused:

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Message 45 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Hey guys, blitzmaya i agree this thread should become a sticky, its great. Anyway i had a question on bring displacement maps into maya. I made a model in maya, created uv map, brought it into mudbox, played around with it and i tested to see if the displacement works by using the mesh displacement tool in mudbox on the base mesh. It worked fine but when i brought the model into maya 7 it did not displace correctly, i used the phalasaurous tutorial video (which is great) to see how to set up mental ray. Here is a picture of maya and mudbox render.

The areas i used the pinch tool alot on dont render right and the eye lids look wierd. The detail isnt great but i know how to fix that. Does anyone know why this is happening. Is it my mental ray settings or uv map problems?

Message 46 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

this is a clever piece of software. modeling abilities are far more advanced and it is so easy. but some lacks also.

i just finished sculpting a model. and i like it much. i was so happy, after that i tried to get the displacement maps started with 1024 res. when i get the results from maya whole the world collapse on me. it was such a mass. problems in opening edges. lose of details and pretty long render time.

i must say that photoshop treatment works well.

then i extract my map on 2048x2048 res then without knowing what i was doing, i just enter half the values of search distance and edge bleeding. as far as i know these are changing especialy serch distance, with the scale of your model. but any ways i divide both defaults by 2. and the results are satisfactory. but long render times.

i just did those steps with level_0 and level_1 (get seperate dispmaps)

and i see that res of the map and level of your mesh don't effect the render time. my high res mesh is 2,5 million polys and both level_0 and level_1 is rendering in 5minutes in maya and this is not good. there is something wrong that i don't know yet.

i'll close all my openings.i'll do a automap(incase my mapping is wrong),and i'll scale my model*150 in maya,smooth it and then export to mudbox. and i'll post the results.(so isee that when turnback to maya model scale should be 1/150. and also 1/150=0,0066 should be entered in the alpha gain of the displacement map. am i right?)

but a suggestion bump painting utility is a must. don't tell me use normal maps. they are not the same. or someone please prepeare a little tut abaout mudbox>normalmaps>maya> bumps in a "human understantable" format.


thank you.
Message 47 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


The areas i used the pinch tool alot on dont render right and the eye lids look wierd. The detail isnt great but i know how to fix that. Does anyone know why this is happening. Is it my mental ray settings or uv map problems?


umm it looks like the area wasn't divided at all...
check the output window and see whatthe final number of tesselation...
Message 48 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

<ramble>

This has been a very interesting read. And it got me thinking. Wouldn't it be damned nice if Mudbox model files could be natively opened in Maya or Max or XSI or what have you, and still retain the levels of SubD and not have to deal with silly little UV maps. It almost makes me wish Mudbox was fully integrated into a major application of said 3D apps. Rig your level 0, make changes to the mesh at any level/layer, sculpt with brushes, animate the model all you want, non-detructively make changes to the model and the rig interpolates the new geo, and viola. non-linear, non-destructive, native format brush-based modeling with full animation/render and poly modeling all in one neat little package. hmmm

I know this will probably never happen, and it may even go against the Skymatter manifesto, but it would still be ideal and very much the best solution all around.

</ramble>
Sorry to stray from the topic, but I just had to throw that out there...
Message 49 of 49
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

That would be nice madshader but i don't think it will ever come about.

Ash-man the mudbox model is 2.4 million quads and the output window in maya is 4.8 million tris. I got it to the exact amount so i dont think its that.

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report