texture Texture Problems in World

[Paradoxical Mode]

I realize this might not be the place to ask, but I figured I'd give it a try as I have tried every means to solve the problem myself and have come up empty handed. I'm totally frustrated.
I've got a mesh project that I've been working on, and I've hit snag after snag, but finally its ready to upload.

Problem is: When I upload my mesh object, everything appears to be as normal. The textures all preview fine as you'll see in the images I'll attach below. But when I rez the object in world, every textured (of which there are 6), renders normally except one. Face #4 always turns into a jumbled mess. It looks like what would happen if you turned on the Planar mapping setting on a mesh object not built to use it.

This is what it looks like in my modeling package. I use 3DS Max.

This is how it appears when plugged into the SL Mesh Uploader. Everything looks normal in the Preview Window.

And heres the damage. The area beneath the padded comfort grip turns to a mess.

 

Now I know the saying: Don't ask for help if you can't help yourself.
I've tried my normal fixes. I exported the file from 3DS Max and brought it into both Wings 3D and Blender and verified that the textures appeared as normal. They did, so I exported a .DAE from both programs. Both had the same problem. Then I tried the Default Linden Labs Viewer for an upload (I normally use Firestorm), no change.

So I figured maybe it was a setting in 3DS Max. I changed material slots, repeatedly, and checked my UVs for errors. I had gotten this far, but who knows, maybe it developed an issue along the way? No, they were fine. I'm totally lost.

Any and all help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. I sank a ton of time into this project, and not being able to get in world is devastating.

Thanks for your time,

Mode.
 

 

[Rolig Loon]

It won't solve your problem at all, but you could save yourself a lot of L$ by not applying the textures in your modelling program. Upload the bare model and then apply textures using the local textures option (which doesn't cost you a thing) until you are satisfied with the final result.  Then do a one-time upload of the textures and apply them in world. It still might be that the problem you are trying to solve is a glitch in the basic model itself, I suppose. If the issue is in the textures, though, uploading them as local textures until you get it right is less costly and frustrating than what you are doing now.

[Paradoxical Mode]

I applied them in the Modeling Program as a means to verify that they are actually sitting correctly on the model itself. I'm not reuploading the textures every time. I have one set of textures because I know they're what I want. 

As far as I can tell (my perception being my reality), that my model looks fine everywhere outside of SL. I've been creating in SL for a long time, but none of what I normally would do to fix a model has fixed this issue. It reads to me that its something funky to do with SL, and not to do with my model.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Paradoxical Mode

[arton Rotaru]

I have to triangulate pretty much all my meshes exported with 3ds max, or they will have broken UVs in SL But usually it shows already in the previewer. However, my recommendation would be to add a Turn to Mesh modifier on top of the stack, or a Turn to Poly modifier, and Limit Polygon size to 3 before exporting the mesh.

[Paradoxical Mode]

I took your advice Arton, unfortunately it didn't produce any varying results. 
Its worth noting that I've broken the mesh into its individual UV'd pieces and uploaded them separately. The chunk that demonstrates the problem above still has problems when uploaded separately as a group. I also then replaced the handle with a cube, and applied same material slot to that cube, and linked it to the rest of the mesh. It uploaded, and showed the texture with no irregularity. 
Its something to do with the handle, but I don't know what or why.

[Paradoxical Mode]

Thanks to everyone who put their two cents into this, but I ended up figuring it out on my own.
A combination of Meshlab to clear the UVW texture data and then new pass of UVs did the trick. 

[OptimoMaximo]

I had a similar problem in the past with Maya, and it was due to History not being deleted. Since my History was referencing my UV mapping work, the exporter just figured out to export the UVs in their Historically unworked state. I seem to remember that Max has a History feature, but i didn't see any reference to it in your posts, so i thought to add my 2 cents

27 minutes ago, Paradoxical Mode said:

A combination of Meshlab to clear the UVW texture data and then new pass of UVs did the trick. 

This passage, instead, makes me think that also transformations should be frozen too, before UV mapping begins, to have 100% UV shells accuracy.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

6 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

I seem to remember that Max has a History feature

Max does have an object history feature but, unlike Maya, it's referred to as the "modifier stack".  The equivalent to Mayas delete history in Max is "collapsing the stack" which removes all modifiers and commits those modifications to the mesh. 

The really nice thing about Max's modifier stack is that it provides finer control over an objects history than is available in Maya, including partial collapse of the stack, changing the order in which modifiers are applied, copy/pasting and instancing of modifiers, etc.  It's probably the one feature from Max that I miss most of all since swapping to Maya since it allows for a more versatile, less linear approach to modelling.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Alekso Minotaur]

6 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

It's probably the one feature from Max that I miss most of all since swapping to Maya since it allows for a more versatile, less linear approach to modelling.

You can rearrange the inputs in your history by

right click over the object for marking menu

in the rolldown menu:

inputs -> all inputs

middlemouse drag to reposition the history input

It works as long as all you did was through tool's manipulators and haven't manually moved anything. Something i learned when FBX wouldn't export the blendshapes on a rigged model, the blend shapes and the skin cluster need to be swapped or, if Maya complains, change them from listed to included.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@Alekso Minotaur Thanks, it never occurred to me that the list of inputs was editable in that way (since it doesn't really give that impression visually), that's definitely handy to know.  I still think Max has the edge with its modifier stack both from a UI and functionality standpoint, but it's good to know Maya isn't completely lacking.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[OptimoMaximo]

28 minutes ago, Alekso Minotaur said:

It works as long as all you did was through tool's manipulators and haven't manually moved anything. Something i learned when FBX wouldn't export the blendshapes on a rigged model, the blend shapes and the skin cluster need to be swapped or, if Maya complains, change them from listed to included.

True, but the need for Blendshapes and Skincluster swapping should have been removed after Maya 2014/2015, i can't remember which. Switching to included instead of listed works for fbx exports without the need to swap their input order in newer versions.

 

39 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Max does have an object history feature but, unlike Maya, it's referred to as the "modifier stack".  The equivalent to Mayas delete history in Max is "collapsing the stack" which removes all modifiers and commits those modifications to the mesh. 

Right, i tend to forget Max stuff  However Alekso above is right, History inputs can be rearranged if you wanted to. I never used this approach myself during modeling though, and i think it can be very troublesome.

 

Edit: i just tried, and it works for deformers only. Modeling History inputs can't be rearranged.

Edited March 4, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

Yes it can definitely confuse things horribly when you start rearranging the history of an object.

For me one of the more powerful features of the Max modifier stack was the ability to instance a modifier and apply it to other objects, which can be a real time saver when creating modular components, etc.

[OptimoMaximo]

1 hour ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

For me one of the more powerful features of the Max modifier stack was the ability to instance a modifier and apply it to other objects

Similarly, Maya has a setting when using duplicate special, making sure it's not set to instances, check on "duplicate input graph" to get copies with the same history as the original.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@OptimoMaximo True Maya allows you to duplicate the history of an object, but that's not quite the same thing as being able to select a single modifier from an objects history and create an instance of that modifier in the history/stack of a range of other objects, after which editing the controls for that modifier will effect every object which has an instance of said modifier in its stack.

[OptimoMaximo]

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

after which editing the controls for that modifier will effect every object which has an instance of said modifier in its stack.

Then, instead of duplicate input graph, you can check Duplicate input connections, which does the same thing. you can edit one of the object's history entries and all of them would be affected. However, it does propagate the entire history, not just one entry from it

Edited March 4, 2018 by OptimoMaximo

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

29 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Then, instead of duplicate input graph, you can check Duplicate input connections, which does the same thing. you can edit one of the object's history entries and all of them would be affected. However, it does propagate the entire history, not just one entry from it

The problem is that only works when creating duplicates of your initial object rather than allowing you to apply a specific modifier to other pre-existing objects in your scene.  Of course Maya also has the Transfer Attributes option and there's the connection editor and deformer sets which allow you to do something similar to Max's stack modifier in that you can add other objects to a deformer after it's been created, however it's not quite the same thing and the number of deformers in Maya are quite limited in comparison to the list of available modifiers in Max.

Unfortunately I don't have Max on my PC anymore so can't really provide any visual examples but to try and illustrate my point imagine you've created a basic set of walls and wish to apply a bevel to each piece.  In Max you can simply add a bevel modifier to the stack of one section, copy that modifier and paste instances of it to the stack of every other section, then modifying the settings for any of those instances will apply the same changes to all objects containing that bevel modifier.

The modifier stack is definitely one of the major advantages Max has over Maya, but then I don't really use either much anymore since I prefer the freedom of voxel-modeling in 3D Coat and the more stylized results it tends to produce.

[OptimoMaximo]

@Fluffy Sharkfin yes i see your point there, as in Maya the only way (and very, VERY tedious long process that for at least half of the tools doesn't end up well) is to use the node editor and recreate the wires to the shape nodes, and it definitely isn't a couple of clicks. Even though i miss Blender's modifiers for their flexibility, I wouldn't trade all the other wonderful features Maya offers for that.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@OptimoMaximo Agreed, Maya definitely has a lot of excellent features, and no app is going to be able to do absolutely everything the way you want, you just have to weigh the available features of each app and make your choice based on the task at hand.  3D apps are just tools after all, and no matter how skilled you are with a particular tool it's always worth having an entire toolkit to work with and knowing which to choose for a particular task.

[daFlesh]

On ‎4‎.‎03‎.‎2018 at 9:52 AM, OptimoMaximo said:

 

I had a similar problem in the past with Maya, and it was due to History not being deleted. Since my History was referencing my UV mapping work, the exporter just figured out to export the UVs in their Historically unworked state. I seem to remember that Max has a History feature, but i didn't see any reference to it in your posts, so i thought to add my 2 cents

This passage, instead, makes me think that also transformations should be frozen too, before UV mapping begins, to have 100% UV shells accuracy.

Hello , I just noticed you are writing about texture issues inworld, I sent this in main forum but just want to copy paste here too , I appreciate any help about my issue below 

>>>>

I came across an issue with my mesh and applying textures on it : its a 78 piece linked mesh and each piece has 8 materials. so when linked all together

its makes my mesh a 624 linked material. here link below

https://gyazo.com/215ac577989af6f739037462c6952e12

the problem is ,  when I upload it in SL and drop a texture in main edit window (its rigged mesh and it doesnt change result, putting the texture, when I rezzed it or while I wear it, always random missings) 

the textures mostly work on parts but some parts are always missing. that changes randomly here the links

https://gyazo.com/12c1d2515b11f767d90b6cc59562afd7

https://gyazo.com/bcae146337216221d9f4b129a228a263

I wonder what is the reason for this to happen , is there limit for linked mesh pieces (mine is 78) and materials of a linked mesh (my linked meshes has 78x8 = 624 materials) 

and I am planing to make those work with a HUD and scripts changing textures on pieces of mesh. will scripted meshes be okay or still those issue may happen, if the problem is high number of linked materials

Note : I always clear non-deformer history, but I wonder is there a UV history besides that in maya ? 

Note 2 : when I drop texture in edit window box more than once, (twice is okay it seems like )  that solves the issue. but I wonder if any script can help with it, when I make a HUD for my mesh. perhaps a script that will load textures twice

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by daFlesh

[OptimoMaximo]

What you do on the UVs end up in the regular history, so you should be good on that.

My best two guesses about your problem:

1)try to import the body parts in different files (upper body, lower body, etc) to see if this still occurs. If it does, see #2

2) you did the 8 materials be "recycled" over and over on all of the meshes, so the 8 materials limits per Collada file is respected. I would suspect that you started applying the additional materials starting from the default Lambert1, but you didn't assign a first material to the mesh to override Lambert1 completely. Even if you cover all of your faces with different materials, Lambert1 may still be lurking, hidden, never used, and possibly breaking your import's material list. Double check the attribute editor for the attached materials. If Lambert1 is sitting there, restart the assignment from scratch! Lambert1 can't be deleted at any time. Assign the first existing material to the object first, then all the other materials to the single groups of faces.

Hope this helps

[daFlesh]

42 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

What you do on the UVs end up in the regular history, so you should be good on that.

My best two guesses about your problem:

1)try to import the body parts in different files (upper body, lower body, etc) to see if this still occurs. If it does, see #2

2) you did the 8 materials be "recycled" over and over on all of the meshes, so the 8 materials limits per Collada file is respected. I would suspect that you started applying the additional materials starting from the default Lambert1, but you didn't assign a first material to the mesh to override Lambert1 completely. Even if you cover all of your faces with different materials, Lambert1 may still be lurking, hidden, never used, and possibly breaking your import's material list. Double check the attribute editor for the attached materials. If Lambert1 is sitting there, restart the assignment from scratch! Lambert1 can't be deleted at any time. Assign the first existing material to the object first, then all the other materials to the single groups of faces.

Hope this helps

1# method doesnt solve it  (upper lower body seperately still issue happens) 

2# ok let me understand,about Lambert1 , does it have to be in one of my mesh pieces? cause I created a new material for each face , and not sure if lambert1 is one of them. (I am checking now) I just try to figure out.

you said : "If Lambert1 is sitting there, restart the assignment from scratch!" so my mesh materials must include lambert1 ? 

and you said : "Assign the first existing material to the object first, then all the other materials to the single groups of faces."

each mesh pieces should include lambert1 ? 

I m still checking ,  it seems like none of my mesh pieces have lambert1. all have a brandnew Lambert. (I didnt use 8 recycled materials, I created a new one for each face)

sorry I am some confused my lack of english, perhaps u could just guide with simpler sentences 

thanks for fast reply

by the way : when I apply texture more than once in SL , that glitch (not uploading at once) seems like gone I mean that solves the issue, dropping the texture in edit window more than once

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by daFlesh

[daFlesh]

I just checked whole pieces, no lambert1 in any of them 

[OptimoMaximo]

3 minutes ago, daFlesh said:

2# ok let me understand,about Lambert1 , does it have to be in one of my mesh pieces? cause I created a new material for each face , and not sure if lambert1 is one of them. (I am checking now) I just try to figure out. "If Lambert1 is sitting there, restart the assignment from scratch!" so my mesh materials must include lambert1 ?  "Assign the first existing material to the object first, then all the other materials to the single groups of faces." or each mesh pieces should include lambert1 ? 

The opposite, it doesn't need to be there, and it may be sitting there as a left over. To avoid this, start assigning a material to the whole object, to then keep assigning the other materials to the single faces

1 hour ago, daFlesh said:

by the way : when I apply texture more than once in SL , that glitch (not uploading at once) seems like gone I mean that solves the issue, dropping the texture in edit window more than once

This might be a problem of having overlapping sets of faces (lamina faces) or, even worse, same duplicate faces with different materials, a bug that results in layered textures by duplicating the geometry in place with different materials. Definitely worth a check by running a Separate, to know whether you have overlapping and separate sets of faces, and in case a Mesh Clean up, set to check for Lamina Faces (faces that share all of their vertices)

[daFlesh]

13 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

The opposite, it doesn't need to be there, and it may be sitting there as a left over. To avoid this, start assigning a material to the whole object, to then keep assigning the other materials to the single faces

This might be a problem of having overlapping sets of faces (lamina faces) or, even worse, same duplicate faces with different materials, a bug that results in layered textures by duplicating the geometry in place with different materials. Definitely worth a check by running a Separate, to know whether you have overlapping and separate sets of faces, and in case a Mesh Clean up, set to check for Lamina Faces (faces that share all of their vertices)

well I just experienced something and wanted to share.  if I keep mesh pieces low in number for upload (15-20 mesh pieces so linked materials are around 100 in sl ) that means I divided my whole mesh into 6 pieces. and when I apply texture to those ones in sl no issue happened. that little experiment made me think : linked mesh pieces shouldnt be more than 15-20 in sl and thus linked materials should stay below 100. when I try this,  no issues happened. I will read and check your last suggestions. now ^^  

... if there are lamina faces or duplicate faces, my little experiment above must result in issued again same, not it ? 

Edited March 17, 2018 by daFlesh

[OptimoMaximo]

33 minutes ago, daFlesh said:

... if there are lamina faces or duplicate faces, my little experiment above must result in issued again same, not it ? 

right, if there were, the issue would keep coming up. So you must have hit a limit per upload, not sure which one it is though