I appreciate all responses. Some agree with me, some don't.
- I suppose all agree with me,
the mouse commands ar kind of childish, mainly for users familiar with the insuperable MAX mouse handling.
- Using the "Add" command to expand the stencil and stamp collections does work... But after closing the program and starting over, the additions are lost unless I move them manually using Windows copy-move features. I understand this can be done with the "Browser". Please explain how.
- If "out of bounds" UVWs can produce the generation of bad or incorrect Normal Bump Maps,
should not the program warn the user about deffective UVW coordinates? What it does now is generate a weird result.
- I thought duplication of mesh was needed to generate Bump maps because the manual says user must compare between a Low and a High Res. mesh items. I could not understand how can I do this with a single mesh. Please explain.
- Stencils are nice.
I don't say they aren't. But: Part of my work consists in transferring actual photos of clothing garments into texture maps for Avatars. I do this easily using Photoshop, pasting the photo "into" a selected area on a UVW template image, then working with the "free transform" warp features, which allow me to correctly "embed" the photo into the mapped areas. If MudBox would have such feature, where you load a photo, then by means of an image "warp" tool, similar to the Photoshop one, we could apply the photo to the mesh while watching the 3D result, then, THIS WOULD BE A TREMENDOUS TOOL!!!!!!!!
I tried to do this with the "stencil" feature and I almost ended up bald as an apple!!!!... So back to Photoshop....
- Painting through the mesh onto the backfaces is a must for the same reason. Usually UVW mapping is not linear enough as to work on an UVW extraction and obtain perfect match. What I do now is use R.H. DeepPaint to "paint" guidelines on the mesh texture. This way I outline where sleeves end, where collar holes go, where details should be painted, etc. Then when doing Photoshop work I use the DeepPaint Texture map as a guide to correctly cut and place the clothing details.
- My conclusion is: My method is good and works fine.
The strong point on wanting MudBox is to be able to "sculpt" on the mesh the required fine detail relief, then generate the Normal Bump Maps and apply those to the LowRes mesh item. 3D painting, "a la MudBox style" is good for Fantasy, organic, animal fiction, or special effects jobs, but for realistic texture creation such as clothing, I find my "old fashin" process preferable!
Here I attach a Zip file containing a sample mesh in OBJ format, which generates a strange Normal Bump Map. Please check it and try it!
Thanks for all the great input.
Mike
innertpl.zip