Texturing stuff for second life mesh/ Uv help in 3ds max

[Biggay Koray]

Ok I am seriously frustrated, confused and lost with this. I have a decent low poly of a pedastal that i want to upload with textures but I cannot not seem to figure out how to do this. I have tried to apply the material selection in 3ds max using bitmap and diffuse layers. Now an important note I would like to state here is that I have tried multi sub object materials with  id's and i have tried manually selecting each polygon  and applying the right material to it but when I go to export it and load it into second life IT HAS NO FREAKING TEXTURES. My goal here is simple I want to upload a mesh into second life with textures from 3ds max but  have faces that can still be retextured in game by someone else should they choose to. All help apreciated. 

Im running 3ds max 2012 service pack 2 and the most recent version of the fbx plugin.

 

[Chosen Few]

Are you including the texture info in your COLLADA export settings? I'm not a Max user, so I can't tell you where to find that setting, but it's got to be in there somewhere.

 

In SL, are you checking the option to include the texture in the upload?

 

If you can't get either of those things to work, you can always upload the texture separately, and apply it after the fact.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, I'm using 3ds Max 8 and I don't have the latest update for the collada, cause they don't make them for 8 anymore. I'll be SOL soon, lol. I've never been able to upload a texture with the model. I really don't care tho, you just upload the texture separate. As long as you apply the material, the collada will still have the UV mapping for the mesh, and faces will work. It cost the same either way tho. If you import it with the texture, LL just adds 10 lindens to the upload.

[Biggay Koray]

So in other words there is no way to upload all the texture data in the.dae file without chopping it out and doing it separately? What the hell do people do with organic models then? That have like  2000 polygons? Do uw maps at all work coming from 3ds max?

[Chosen Few]

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Biggay Koray wrote:

So in other words there is no way to upload all the texture data in the.dae file without chopping it out and doing it separately?

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I'm not sure how you got that from what either of us wrote.

If the texture information is in the .dae file, then you should be able to upload the texture and the mesh at the same time.  If, for some reason you can't get that to work, then you always have the option of uploading the texture separately, the same way we've all been uploading textures to SL for the past eight and a half years, since the very first day SL launched.

Either way, you don't have to chop anything out of the .dae file.

 

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Biggay Koray wrote:

What the hell do people do with organic models then? That have like  2000 polygons?

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Whether it's 2000 polygons, or 2 polygons, or 2 million polygons, it's the exact same procedure.  Just select the model, and apply the texture, the same way you'd apply a texture to a prim or a sculpty.  

If the source model has multiple materials, then each material becomes a texture slot in SL.  To apply multiple textures to a model, simply use the Select Face option in the editor, the same way you would in order to apply multiple textures to a prim.

SL will divvy up the model's polygons into texturable groups, according to whatever the material assignments were in your source model.  For example if a hundred polys in your source model have Material A on them, those same hundred polys will receive Texture A in SL.  If another five polygons somewhere else in the source model have Material B on them, then those same five will receive Texture B in SL.  And so on.  It's all very direct and logical.

When you use the Select Face option, simply click on any polygon that has a particular material on it, and all polygons with that same material will be included in the selection.  From there, just choose a texture, and apply it.  Repeat for each remaining material-polygon grouping, and you're all set.  

SL allows up to eight material assignments per model.  If you want more than that, you'll have to use multiple models, which really isn't a big deal.

 

All this assumes you're working withimage-based textures, of course, rather than procedurally generated ones.  If your textures are procedural, you'll need to bake them to images before you upload them.  Realtime environments like SL cannot utilize the procedures that 3D modeling programs employ.  That's why modeling programs are modeling programs and game engines are game engies.  For any realtime environment, the processing has to be kept to a minimum.  Baking beforehand is always the ticket.

 

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Biggay Koray wrote:

Do uw maps at all work coming from 3ds max?

---

I assume "uw maps" was a typo for "UV maps"?

OF COURSE your UV maps will work.  But that's not what you asked about.  You asked about textures.  Textures are not UV maps, and UV maps are not textures.

UV maps are data sets that govern where each part of a texture is be placed upon a model's surface.  Textures are actual imagery.  Huge difference there.

Your model's UV data is included in the exported .dae file, whether any textures are included or not.  Assuming you've UV'ed your model in such a way that image-based textures are applicable (which you should always do, anyway), then you'll have no problem applying any textures you want in SL. 

However, if you've been using just procedurally generated textures in your modeling program, then it's possible you might not have bothered creating a proper UV layout, since procedural textures don't necessarily need that.   But again, those procedures are specific to your modeling program, and cannot be transferred to SL, nor to any other realtime platform.  For realtime, you need proper UV's, and pre-rendered texture images.  (By "pre-rendered" I mean either baked, painted by hand, photographed, or any combination of the three.)

 

 

Just to be as clear as possible, here's the general procedure you should be following:

1.  Create the geometry of your model.

2.  UV the model.

3.  Assign a material to the model, or to any part of the model.  If you do the latter, assign other materials to other parts, until the whole model has materials.  (Just remember that for your model to remain SL compatible, you have to keep it to eight materials or less, so don't overdo it.)

4.  Create texture images, either in an image editor like Photoshop, or directly in your modeling program.  If you want to use procedurals, that's fine, but be sure to bake them out to texture images.

5.  Export to .dae, and upload to SL.

If there's any part of that you don't understand, or with which you're having trouble, ask away.

[Biggay Koray]

I was pissed last night  and I still am but  this is my problem. I need to to be able to have an object in second life made from mesh that has faces that are selectable. Real god damn simple right? I apply the materials to the faces of the object and export it as dae format and I don't give a damn about textures anymore but when I go to load it into second life THE OBJECT STILL HAS ONLY ONE SELECTABLE FACE. What the hell is going on? Now I've had a person send me a dae from blender that has selectable faces in second life. Now when I load that crap into autodesk and I don't do anything to it except export it as an object named something else then the original  but the same thing thing happens and I am left with an object with only one selectable face. Now I have tried everything here, I have read nearly every god damn tutorial for this crap, I've practically slayed a god damn dragon here and I cannot get this crap running. Now one more thing if your going to go all grammar nazi on me  you can shove those god damn similes, apostrophes, exclamation marks, euphemisms, capitalized letters, metaphors, hyphens, commas, periods, semicolons, and question marks up where it the sun don't shine.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

That's one way of nicely asking for help....

In 3ds max, select the objects faces and look in surface properties in the edit menu on the right. If every different SL face shows you a different texture ID, the model is fine in 3ds and I suspect the exporter.

Your 3ds max and exporter should be fine, assuming you are using the autodesk collada, not opencollada.

[Biggay Koray]

Sorry im in a really bad mood and im really frustrated here. I apologize for mouthing off earlier its just I am really confused and pissed off why this isnt working. If possible can anyone give me a step by step with pictures or a video? It would be really apreciated and im sure im not the only one having problems with this.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

It's near impossible to give a step-by-step on making a mesh object for SL. That's like making a step-by-step on raising a child.

First of all, what kind of DAE exporter are you using?

[Chosen Few]

Mind if I explain why I asked for clarification on your typo?  It wasn't because I was trying to criticize your typing.  What woud have been the point in that?

2D textures are mapped by UV's, while 3D textures are mapped by UVW's.  I'm sure you can see how "uw" could have been a typo for either one of those, can't you?

I thought it important to make sure we were both talking about the same thing.  SL cannot use 3D textures, so if you had been trying to export UVW data for use with SL, that might have been one source of your troubles.  Make sense?

The only response I had expected from the question was, "Yes, UV was what I meant," or "No, UVW was what I meant."  I never expected it to be a point of friction in any way.  I was VERY surprised to read that you took it as such.

 

Incidentally, even if I had been criticizing you (which I WASN'T), would it really have mattered?  Obviously, my goal here is to help you.  Why else would I have written such a detailed post?  Look, I get that you're frustrated, but as you rightly stated, that's YOUR problem.  Don't take it out on me.  Even if you think you have every reason in the world to hate my guts, would that make the information I'm offering any less valid?  If you just take a step back for a second, detach yourself from your emotional state, and just look at the situation logically and dispassionately, I'm sure you'd agree, biting the hand that's feeding you is never a good strategy for obtaining any desired result.

 

With that pointless distraction out of the way, let's get back to trying to solve your problem.  My guess is something is misconfigurated in your COLLADA export settings.

Try this.  Open up one of your .dae files in a text editor, and search for the tag "<library_materials>" (without the quotes, of course).  In that section of the text will be listed all the materials included with your model. 

For example, I just opened up one of mine that has two materials in it, named simply "lamber1" and "lambert3".  So, the library_materials section of my file looks like this:

 

<library_materials>    <material id="lambert3" name="lambert3">      <instance_effect url="#lambert3-fx"/>    </material>    <material id="lambert1" name="lambert1">      <instance_effect url="#lambert1-fx"/>    </material>  </library_materials>  

As you can see, both materials are listed, nice and neatly.  If you don't see your materials listed in similar fashion, then they weren't included in the export.

Most COLLADA exporters have configurable options for what to include, and what to leave out.  Go into your settings for whatever exporter you're using, and make sure materials are included.  If there's an option  to include only referenced materials, make sure that option is disabled (unless you are actually referencing materials from another file).

[Medhue Simoni]

Ok, It can be kind of non intuitive as to how to create costum faces. I will go thru it somewhat step by step, but remember, I'm using 3ds Max 8.

1* You have your model sitting there. It can have the texture applied or not. Goto the Edit Mesh modifier, or apply 1 if needed.

2* Select Elements if the SL face you want to create is a whole element. Or, select Face if the SL face you want is just a collection of faces.

3* Click on the element or faces to highlight them, usually turning the element or face a red transparent. You can of course hold Ctrl to select multiple elements or faces.

4* With your elements or faces selected, scroll down thru the Edit Mesh Modifier to find a section called Material. You should see 2 areas to input numbers: Set ID and Select ID.

5* Type a number into the Set ID, probably 1 if this is the first SL face you want to create. Then hit enter.

6* Repeat these steps until you have all the IDs or SL faces you want. 8 is the limit for SL. You can double check these by typing the number of the face into Select ID and hitting enter.

7* Open the Material Editor, and choose a material slot.

8* Instead of the standard material, you want to choose a Multi/Sub-Object.

9* Create as many sub materials as you need and click diffuse to find the texture you want to use.

10* Apply all the materials to the model, and export it.

The last part i purposely made vague, as I'm sure this is all different in the newest versions. You did seem to understand that part somewhat, so I'm guessing you will get it all.

Good luck!

 I have no idea why I'm replying to Chosen, lol.

[Biggay Koray]

just the generic one found in max using the fbx plugin. On top of that all i was asking was for walkthrough of what to do once your done your model. I understand how to model just fine what im not understanding is the material system and the uv mapping system and how to get second life to detect material faces.

[Biggay Koray]

ive already tried the multi subobject approach even on a plain cube it wont work for me.

[Biggay Koray]

<library_materials>
<material id="_02 - Default" name="_02 - Default">
<instance_effect url="#_02 - Default-fx"/>
</material>
<material id="_03 - Default" name="_03 - Default">
<instance_effect url="#_03 - Default-fx"/>
</material>
</library_materials>

Is basicly what mines coming up with. Furthermore can someone explain to me whether or not i should be using the multi subobject material method or just materials set onto faces?

[Biggay Koray]

Heres a bit of clarification of my understanding 

Ordered in steps

1. Model your object

2. select your object face id's

3. make uvmaps

4.use uvmap templates to design textures for you object

5, once done your textures open them up in the material tool using a blank material and load them up using a bitmap in the diffuse layer

6. Use a multi- subobject material and load in the textures you made for it from the other 2 materials and match them accordlingly to your face id presets and apply to object

7.export by going to file and export as .DAE file format

8.upload into second life and wonder why i cant select just one face instead of the entire thing?

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

My best guess is you didn't apply the correct material IDs, they correspond one on one with the faces in SL.

The step by step you need is given by Medhue, although I would make the multi/sub material before setting the texture IDs, that way you can see right away if it goes the way you intend when setting the IDs.

Since you are trying things out, you could skip the whole UV mapping for now and focus on the material IDs. The smaller and more isolated you make your steps, the faster you will find what's causing the problem.

make an object - Check

export as DAE - Check

upload to SL - Check

upload with material IDs/ different SL faces -

upload with materials properly mapped -

As you can see you are nearly there...

[Biggay Koray]

Thanks for the words of encouragement im not usually this much of an **bleep**. Its just really irritating when  you have a really nice model all done and ready and then you cant even figure out how to get the material face id thingy working and are losing hope fast. Ive basicly spent the last 3 days trying to figured this crap  out so im sorry everyone for screaming at you and getting rather grouchy.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well the first thing I would do now is make sure you are using a compatible collada format. 3ds Max has like 4 different collada exporters. I would goto the Autodesk site and download the latest collada formatter and try those first. It is likely that if you did not actually seek out the latest version that works with SL, it is not going to come with the right 1.

[Biggay Koray]

already tried this

[Chosen Few]

---

Biggay Koray wrote:

<library_materials>

<material id="_02 - Default" name="_02 - Default">

<instance_effect url="#_02 - Default-fx"/>

</material>

<material id="_03 - Default" name="_03 - Default">

<instance_effect url="#_03 - Default-fx"/>

</material>

</library_materials>

Is basicly what mines coming up with.

---

 

OK, so materials are in fact getting included in your export.  Good.

The next thing to look at is whether they're being assigned to the right faces.  This gets a little more complicated, in terms of reading the COLLADA text. I'm not yet well schooled enough in the markup language to be able to explain exactly what to look for, since things can vary a bit from model to model.  But I know it when I see it.  Would you mind posting one of your .dae files, so I can take a look?

You can either copy the full text, and paste it here via the Insert Code button like I did, or you can upload the file to a website of your choice, and just paste the link here.  Please do not just paste it directly into your post, or the formatting will get screwed up.

 

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Biggay Koray wrote:

Furthermore can someone explain to me whether or not i should be using the multi subobject material method or just materials set onto faces?

---

 

I'm not familiar with how Max handles the multi subobject thing.  I would expect that simply assigning materials to selected faces really aught to be enough.  That's how it works in most other programs, anyway.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

 

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Chosen Few wrote:

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Biggay Koray wrote:

Furthermore can someone explain to me whether or not i should be using the multi subobject material method or just materials set onto faces?

---

I'm not familiar with how Max handles the multi subobject thing.  I would expect that simply assigning materials to selected faces really aught to be enough.  That's how it works in most other programs, anyway.

---

Assigning objects per face works just aswell and gives the same result as far as max is concerned. If you assign two "normal" materials to the object and go to the material editor and pick the material from the viewport, it will be a multi/sub. By using a multi/sub in the first place though, you have better control over the channels and texture IDs.

[Chosen Few]

Thanks, Kwak.  I know very little about Max.  I've got a way old copy of Max 8 kicking around somewhere, which somebody gave me a long time ago, but I've never really played with it.  I'd imagine it's changed quite a bit since then, anyway.

 

Incidentally, Biggay IM'ed me in-world to state that he's having trouble accessing the forums.  He didn't say why, and I haven't asked yet, since I haven't been in-world today, and probably won't be until at least tomorrow.  I guess until and unless he can get back in, there's no helping him here.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Yes I got the same inworld message and I got the same problems, well I had access to the forums, but lost connection with it altogether every time I wanted to post. As a matter of fact my previous post I typed at least five times. At least for me it seems to be fine now.

EDIT!

I think the problem has been identified, I just read this post and it looks like it's the exporter indeed, which I suspected in the first place, since even a model that was succussfully uploaded by someone else didn't upload.

link

I hope that fixes it. You need to export to FBX, then convert to DAE. Btw, it's the second post in the thread. (first answer)

[Biggay Koray]

Its bin resolved it was just a stupid exporter issue guys and thanks for being tolerant and im sorry for blowing up on here.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/content-creation/67825-multi-material-mesh-help.html a guy from slu figured it out for me.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

First of all, I'm glad it's solved.

Secondly, I noticed you were logged into these forums yesterday when I posted the exact same thing, half a day earlier.