Mudbox Mesh turns Blue

Anonymous · ‎09-11-2014

I select the paint brush tool and click my model. I say okay to creating the new layer and then boom my whole mesh turns blue and now I can't paint anything on it. Help!

paulkind · ‎09-12-2014

Wait, huh? Can you please attach a picture of the problem?

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RobinBall6995 · ‎09-12-2014

That happens when the texture's not loaded. Have you UV mapped the model? Are the UVs in the 0-1 range?

Are you trying to use texture tiles? If so, then the up arrow should load the texture tile under the mouse.

nathtil · ‎09-13-2014

If I press either up or down arrow all it does is shift from blue to black and it wont let me apply any paint. Oh and it's not frozen either.

nathtil · ‎09-13-2014

The model has been UV'd. There are no textures with it. What I'm trying to do is paint directly on it.

paulkind · ‎09-15-2014

Have you tried changing the default material / lighting setup?

Areas of Expertise - MayaLT : Mudbox : 3DS Max : Inventor : Game Dev
Follow me on Twitter : @paulkind3d

Please remember to give kudos freely and mark acceptable answers as solved!

PLEASE do not send me private messages unless asked to do so. If you have a question, start a thread, and ask me on the public forums where answering your question may help others.

Did you know there was a YouTube learning channel for Autodesk Games? New videos are posted regularly with all sorts of content relative to Stingray, Maya/MayaLT, 3DS Max, and other game related tools. Get your game on @ https://www.youtube.com/user/autodeskgameshowtos

MatthewDoyleArt · ‎09-15-2014

You can try not using the Gigatexel engine - Windows menu -> Preferences -> Render -> Unckeck Use Gigatexel Engine.

This is the rendering engine Mudbox uses by default. It loads and unloads texture tiles on a mesh dynamically for performance reasons. When a texture tile isn't loaded, it will appear a light blue color.

Try disabling that and let me know if it helps.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why you cannot paint on the surface of the model, but if you can make a short video clip using a program like FRAPS (free) and upload it to DropBox or something it would really help us diagnose your issues. Just show every step you do to get the result you're describing.

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Anonymous · ‎06-01-2015

Hello Everyone,
I have this same exact problem.
My mesh in Mud Box will turn black/blue (using arrow keys) whenever I add a texture map to it. I looked this up and found that other people are experiencing this, but there was no solution.
I tried using solutions for older versions such as making sure my lights are on, reinstalling the latest graphic card driver, deleting and recreating preferences, and etc., but came out with no luck.
At first I wanted to blame 3ds Max, but then I realize that I can't even do this with the default models that come with recommended Mudbox UVs.
That is why I'm going to show it as a default mesh.

Here’s a video to display my issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8E53u4eF4

I tried disabling and reenabling GigaTexel Engine, but it made no difference.

For now... I can use flat lighting to see color, but it removes the 3D lighting and shading which makes it very difficult to paint without depth. I have to turn on wireframe to see the visual depth illusion.

I pretty much given up on fixing this error no one can figure out.
However, I wish to make this acknowledgeable.

Thanks,

Ezekiel

RobinBall6995 · ‎06-02-2015

That's not the same problem. The model isn't turning blue tinted as it would for an unloaded texture. It's turning black but the specular component of the material is drawing. By default that's slightly blue green.

It seems likely that there's a problem with your graphics card or driver not working properly with Mudbox. Especially if it works ok with flat lighting.

Maybe try with a very small texture to see if you're running out of VRAM on the graphics card. Or update the driver.

Anonymous · ‎06-03-2015

Hello Robin,

The model can turn blue if I click on it and hit up or down on the arrow keys just like as mentioned in this post by the individual who posted this problem.

I found that my Graphic card is up to date and the driver doesn't pose any issues. I can transfer anything made from Mudbox to 3ds Max and display anything made on the Black Mesh, but the changes will be visable in 3ds Max.

I was only making this acknowledgable and I did somewhat find a solution.

My solution was costly, to use ZBrush instead because I did not have any problems when using their paint feature.

If anything, users can sort of work around this which I'll share in this video.

Thanks for your comment,

Ezekiel

mark_hftf · ‎01-18-2019

Unfreeze All Geo. Shift + U

Anonymous · ‎01-14-2020

Hey there,
I had a similar issue when I created a new scultping layer, and tried naming the layer. In my case, the whole image was 'frozen' I'm guessing that I must have kit a keyboard shortcut to freeze everything. I hit Ctrl-U to unfreeze everything.