Acid Cat Texture Torment....

[Bongo Steampunk]

I got through the treacle... after having the same issues as everyone else with twisted forms uploading as rigged mesh into SL I managed to finally manage it.

Using Zbrush 4 to create meshes..

Blender 2.49b to rig the meshes to the avatar.blend skeleton.

ctrl P - parent - armature - bone heat..

make real....

export as collada. 1.4

upload, check the 'include skin weights' box in upload options.... and hey presto!

 

so here's Acid Cat, but he needs textures... well, I can polypaint them in Zbrush, create and export the textures, following tutorials on youtube.... I have a friend working with me on this and he's managed to get closest so far, flipping this and that, rotating .. flipping .. flipping OUT MAN.... FLIP!

flipping inside Zbrush before export... Flipping in SL in edit mode... going round the flipping bend!!

here's the best yet... it still has seams visible, but it's not too bad, we are begginers after all...

Thing is... we can't do it again... we have tried all sorts of flipping permutatations.... different designs... sometimes just a red head with a white stripe to test... or a very basic eyes and nose on an orange head

we just get stuff like this....

or this.....

 

texture map coming out of Zbrush looks like this....

the one that has the eyes in the right place, my friend managed at 5 am, knackered going mad.. but he did it...

almost [weee black seams spoil it]

anyway, his map, looks just like the one above but the face is bottom left and right way up... we flipped the fek out of it since, and can get anything but that again... rotate it, flip it, U or V or Both or whatever... try all the same stuff in SL.... exausting stuff..

anyone here laughing at our noobness and knowing why we cannot line our textures up inworld out there ?

anyone needs any help understanding the workflow to get a rigged mesh into SL as we have with acid cat, then fire away, I'd be glad to share my experiences in more detail if it helps...

 

happy trails 

 

Bongo Steampunk :)

 

 

[Rage Riptide]

Ahh, the joys of UV texturing. Fiddley, isn't it.

I can only spaek about Blender: Looks like you've got a "Project from view" UV, front and back. That's ok but not generally used for model heads. You should be able to seam around the neck, then up from back of neck to the hairline and unwrap in one surface. Any parts that will not unwrap well, may be separated by seams, like (more complex) ears and mouth. Check the SL skin templates at how they look.

Unwrapping is the final hard part of most models I've made. After that it's just baking and Gimping. Just keep at it, check a few (more) tuts. The knowledge: Once you get it, you got it, you keep it.

And I do laugh at some new mesh products that come in plain colors and no AO shadows. Only because they can't or gave up on texturing them. Keep at it people.

Good luck.

[Nacy Nightfire]

I think the problem may lie in your need to re-export the collada file after you confirm back in Blender that your UV's line up with the polypaint texture you are exporting out of  Zbrush.  Since you are rigging your mesh and sending it out of Blender, you should  make certain the UV's you are asking Blender to export align within blender to the texture map you will apply in SL to the mesh.

I find  when I export a model from Zbrush to blender, without any texture flipping, I need to go into Blender's  uv view, select all of the UV's and select Mirror on the Y axis to match the UVs to the Zbrush texture.

It seems you've already exported your collada file, prior to the whole texture thing so perhaps regardless of flipping something about the UVs aren't matching.  If flipping would solve your problem then just flipping the image on the vertical axis within SL would do the trick.  I suspect your UVs just do not line up with your texture. Maybe they've just been accidently moved within the UV space.

Also note when specifying your texture size for the purposes of transferring your polypaint in the Texture Map subpalette of Zbrush, be sure to also  increase the UV map border setting to insure there is a painted overlap beyond the UV island seams to avoid those black seam lines from appearing.

[Chosen Few]

As others have stated, you're most definitely experiencing UV problems.  The UV's being applied in Zbrush are not the same as the ones being applied in Blender. 

You say you created the meshes in Zbrush.  Did you also make UV maps for them?  And did you include the UV data in the files you exported from Zbrush?  If the answer to either of those questions is no, the Blender has no way of knowing which part of the texture canvas you want to correspond with what part of the model's surface.

 

Looking at the picture of your model, I'm much more concerned about its poly count than about borked UV's.  How many polys is that thing?  From the looks of it, it's got way more than it needs.

[Bongo Steampunk]

OK, thanks guys.

Well I didn't make it clear, but not using blender at all with texturing, the head is a seperate [collada - decimated down] object worn on skull... you see, only the body is rigged, and yes it has too many poly's, [i think] this is because of using zsphere's to build the body, then making it into a polymesh 3d. subdividing from there, adds many more polys than perhaps needed because of the spheres.

I realise that zbrush is probably not the most SL friendly way of constructing a mesh to be rigged.

I am still trying to figure out how to model well in blender or max, and Then i think i'll be making better, more efficient and less weighty objects.

at this point we have only tried to apply textures [with zbrush poypaint] to a straightforward collada object so far... [the head]... so its a case of using polypaint on an OBJ file of the head, making the texture map after painting, exporting the head as collada, then exporting texture as bitmap.

import one, then the other into sl, and slap the texture on it.

still haven't figured it out. BUT once using the GUVTiles button in zbrush i made the texture a different way, it looked all broken up with automatic seams....

like this one...

 

I got it to work this way, but only once, as you see i'm struggling to get the same result here with a mousehead.... 

followed the same steps for both... at least i think i did....[definately could have made mistake lol]

[head spins a bit]

 

weeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

[Nacy Nightfire]

Ah clarifying things helps a great deal.

Do not use GUV tiles. Do not use AUV tiles. Use a regular unwrap in  UV Master, you can paint to define your seam areas and make a UV set with at best a couple of islands.  With the method you used every single polygon is an island. No wonder SL barfed. Your pe must have been enormous.

And you certainly CAN reduce your polycount.  Use Decimation Master right in Zbrush to reduce your polycount if you don't want to remove edgeloops by hand in another program,and use one of your lowest subdivision levels for export.  The adaptive skin feature you are using to extract a mesh from zspheres has a resolution slider.  Set it very low to begin with.  You can then subdivide up a bit if you need to. You shouldn't be importing a highly  subdivided model into SL.  Just use the  set "smooth" with the collada exporter (or define your smoothing angle via the Normals feature right on the SL importer.)

[Nacy Nightfire]

Here is an example of the UV's I made in Zbrush using UV master on a shape similar to your head that I threw together for this example.  Note that I used masking on the mesh to create a seperate polygroup for the front and the back of the head and then I used the "Polygroups" button in UV Master to make the polygrouped areas control the UV islands. Very simple process.

[linkin Slate]

Hi Bongo, i been useing zbrush with good results, and if im understanding correctly,  the head your working on your doing completly in zbrush stright to sl. witch is how i do it.

first off the thing that seems to me your trying to work on the head in to low of poly count, while poly painting you should be at at lest 1 million ploy count, you will have to devide till you reach that, low level being at  like 30,000 ploygons, note you ca  ploypaint  on up to 1 billion polygons if your system can handle it, this will give you a clear sharper texture, photo like, you dont need uv's at this time, whe ready useing the uv master plugin you will  use the work on clone button, this makes a clone at lowest level, here you can in uv master decide where to place your seems as easy as pianting locations one seem down the back of head is normal placemennt,  this will make 1 island, copy the uv then select your mian head object andn paste uv's to it, from this point you can create your texture, first before doing so the uv options  right above the texture option   there is a  slide to set the over paintig  , you can set your edges to be over painted up to 16 pixels, this will help not to see  seems on modle in sl the  create and save texture,you want to use deciamtion tool from here. to lower modle  ploy count , you want to leave at 1 million ploy level and decimate from there down ,

Note: there is a point where if you decimate  it down so far it will effect your uv placements. this is a worn object so the goal to reduce this down to 1 prim in sl will only cuse you problems, and ill leave that tought there.

 you also talked about this flipping  the texture you can do in zbrush or wait till your in sl. seems to me your earlyer problems is your modle and the  texture you imported didnt seem to be same uv layout.

[linkin Slate]

Hi Bongo, i been useing zbrush with good results, and if im understanding correctly,  the head your working on your doing completly in zbrush stright to sl. witch is how i do it.

first off the thing that seems to me your trying to work on the head in to low of poly count, while poly painting you should be at at lest 1 million ploy count, you will have to devide till you reach that, low level being at  like 30,000 ploygons, note you ca  ploypaint  on up to 1 billion polygons if your system can handle it, this will give you a clear sharper texture, photo like, you dont need uv's at this time, whe ready useing the uv master plugin you will  use the work on clone button, this makes a clone at lowest level, here you can in uv master decide where to place your seems as easy as pianting locations one seem down the back of head is normal placemennt,  this will make 1 island, copy the uv then select your mian head object andn paste uv's to it, from this point you can create your texture, first before doing so the uv options  right above the texture option   there is a  slide to set the over paintig  , you can set your edges to be over painted up to 16 pixels, this will help not to see  seems on modle in sl the  create and save texture,you want to use deciamtion tool from here. to lower modle  ploy count , you want to leave at 1 million ploy level and decimate from there down ,

Note: there is a point where if you decimate  it down so far it will effect your uv placements. this is a worn object so the goal to reduce this down to 1 prim in sl will only cuse you problems, and ill leave that tought there.

 you also talked about this flipping  the texture you can do in zbrush or wait till your in sl. seems to me your earlyer problems is your modle and the  texture you imported didnt seem to be same uv layout.

[Nacy Nightfire]

There is a point where increasing your polycount does not translate into a clearer, crisper image.  We are not just dealing with vertex painting, we are also working with transfering your vertex painting to the pixel resolution of your image texture.  All these factors need to be taken into account and it serves no purpose to tax your machine by subdividing such a simple model beyond what is necessary and practical for both upload to SL and for the purposes of creating your image.

Based on the image you posted it appears you, in fact, did paint on a model with high enough resolution, but you chose the wrong uv approach to transfer that vertex painting (polypainting) to a useable image.