[Weird results when baking textures in Blender Cycles, help!]

Thanks a lot of the feedback guys. I actually had Ambient Oclussion turned off, but I'm testing with it turned on, see how it looks like.

I'm adding a better picture of my node setup, don't forget to click on it to see it in its full size. 

[Weird results when baking textures in Blender Cycles, help!]

Hello! I'm having an issue with baking materials in Blender Cycles. It only happens with certain materials, I'm not sure why. I'm using Blender 2.75, what am I doing wrong here?

This is my material setup:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how the model and material look in render view:

 

 

 

And finally, how it looks when I baked it at 500 samples (very similar to my 100 samples test):

 

 

 

 

[How to make a custom sim surround?]

Hello! I'm not sure if this question is stupid or not, but I'm working on a project right now with a group, and I've been thinking about making a custom sim surround for it. The project consist of 7 connected sims, forming a J-like shape. 

My main idea for it would be like the sim surrounding of the now closed sim Goatswood. They were very subtle plains, that looked really well for the sim. I was thinking in plains like that, or something that looked like trees seem from a distance, though I'm not sure if that would be possible.

Anyway, for the plain idea, how would I go about making such a thing on blender?

I made a lame "plan" of the disposition of the 7 sims for a better understanding.



[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

Took me forever to reply, RL getting really busy, my bad!

I edited the cage on Xnormals, and if I increase the cage's size in order for it to be ouside the high poly I get similar issues as when I increase the distance while baking it on Blender. Its either got the orange/green spots or the weird rounded shapes, it's like there is no in between.

[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

While checking the normals I saw this on the high poly model. I'm not sure if this is how it is supposed to look, but there are some normals pointing towards the inside of the model, and their locations more or less matches the areas in different colors in the normal map.

How can I fix this? Recalculating or flipping directions is not doing the trick.

[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

This is how the UV looks if I increase the distance or edit my Low poly so it will be completely outside:

This is how the Low and High poly models looks together. I can see clearly the high poly, in red, is covering much of the low poly, yet a lot of areas hidden are not problematic, and look just fine, so I'm not sure if this is really the reason while I'm getting these artifacts.

[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

I checked the UVs and there seems to be no problem or overlapping on it. When I tried to edit my mesh in a way that parts of the low poly won't be covered by the high poly I still get problematic results, the same with changing the distance and bias.

I downloaded XNormals, watched a tutorial on it and tried it out. The results are different, but they too are not good. I edited the cage too and I still got problems. 

I'm going to try importing the model again into Blender, see if I did anything wrong while exporting it from Maya.

[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion!

I tried both things, increasing the distance and having the low poly completely outside of the high poly. None of them worked. While increasing the distance seemed to have no effect making the low poly bigger made the normal map to look even worst, with some rounded shapes and blank spaces.

I tried enabling the Double Sided option for the normals too and it didn't helped. I have no idea what to do, I made pretty much the same thing on a different low poly version (that I did the retopology on Zbrush' zremesher) and it worked just fine. 

Little edit, just tried to do this on Maya, and got pretty much the same issue.

[Black spots in a normal map in Blender]

I baked the normals of a high poly model to a low poly one, but I'm having some problem with it. The map have some orange and gree colored spots, which look black in the model. This never happened before, and I'm not sure what caused it, or how to fix it. Any ideas? What can I do?

This is a rezised version of the results, I had to scale it down to upload here.

This is how it looks on the low poly, these are the most problematic areas.

The high poly model.

[Mesh clothes/bodies]

I made a quick google search, and on Maitreya's blog it says:

"To apply for creator kits, please fill out this form: Maitreya Developer Kits"

So if you want to create mesh for their mesh body it will be easier if you have their developer kits.

[Questions about the booleans retopology maya method]

Thanks for the suggestion Cathy! I just watched the first part and I'll try it out as soon as I can. My model is more complex but the idea is the same, so I hope I'll do it just fine.

Also, do you know how to export it properly to Blender? It would be great to export the final mesh into it, specially if I could keep the UV.

Thanks again

[Questions about the booleans retopology maya method]

I followed this tutorial on how to convert MD's tris to quads, and after a lot of trial and error , I finally got it (differently from the tutorial, I had to delete the faces on both sides, creating a "cookie cutter" like shape, otherwise the booleans command wouldn't work).

But there are these gaps in the dress that I don't know how to fix. What can I do in earlier steps to avoid this, or is it unavoidable? I noticed the mesh in the tutorial too has gaps, though not nearly as the ones in mine. 

The UV from the flat object is slightly distorced, so its a bit more difficult to match the one from the dress, could that be the reason for the gaps? I tought it could be solved by increasing the cube's subdivisions, but it didn't helped. Some gaps were closed or smaller, but new ones showed up.

I also want to know if its possible to export the remeshed model to Blender, while keeping the new topology and  UV. I tried exporting it, but when I opened in Blender it was in triangles. I'm new to Maya and I would prefer to continue my workflow on Blender.

I'm using Maya 2014 and Blender 2.73. Thanks in advance!

[Nvidia Open GL error 7 message]

I used to have a NVIDIA GeForce 9600, and never had an SL problem with it, but now after formating my PC I upgraded to a GT 630. At first what I noticed is that I only got a little increase in performance, I could play with the same previous settings I was using, but a bit faster. And  then I started to get this annoying Open GL error 7, sometimes only seconds after logging in. This is looks like what I am experiencing:

It starts with random object's textures looking glitchy, and then weird shapes starts to pop up and I crash. My screen turns black and I get an "error 7" message. Before SL crashes, if I open up Chrome, the pages get filled with weird textures, and I never got any problems with multitasking while in SL before. 

I spent the whole day yesterday trying to fix it. At first I updated my graphic card to the latest driver, and nothing. I also updated my motherboard, nothing again. I've changed the 'Power Managment Mode' from the NViDIA's control panel from 'Adaptative' to 'Prefer Maximum Performance', and still got code error 7. Then I turned off 'Threaded Optimization', also in NVIDIA's control panel and no sign of change. Following other forums discussions about this, I added 'TdrDelay8' to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\GraphicsDrivers with regedit, and after it also failed I added 'TdrDdiDelay15', with no results too.

I don't know what else to do. After updating the motherboard it seems it was taking longer to crash, but it happened anyway. I tried Singularity Viewer, and while I got the glitchy textures, I didn't crashed. Earlier today I got the same texture glitches on Google Maps, yet it was working perfectly fine yesterday.

 

 

[Introduction for Blender materials?]

Thank you! I'l watch Blender cookie's video, it will definately helps!

[Introduction for Blender materials?]

I think I've reached a point where I can't just postpone it, I really need to learn how to use Blender's materials. Back when I watched classes for Blender, materials were barely approached, and so I've never got to use them. It looks so complex and I feel very lost when trying to figure it out.

I am to use the techinique of making a high-poly model to create the textures to be used on a low-poly model, and I materials are an important part, as far as I am aware, to this process, so I can be able to simulate different kinds of surfaces and fabrics, like silk or velvet.

Can someone recommend tutorials or explanations that can introduce me to Blender's materials?

Thank you in advance!

[The beauty of Materials.]

Great results, I love it!

I also love to use materials, I've been using for my creations ever since they were avaiable, and it brings such a realistic effect to your object. So far I've used it for some dresses, and for an wall and floor I made before.

I would take some screenshots if SL was not acting out and not loading my textures

[Some textures won't load and keep all fuzzy]

 I use the latest Linden Lab viewer, and I've been having this problem for some months. Some textures just don't load, they keep in that fuzzy stage, which I thought would be skipped with that project (forgot the name).

 Like for days a dress I was wearing would not load completely, and what is more annoying is that my own textures won't load. I have made some walls and floors textures and they don't load.

 I tried cleaning the cache and it didn't worked, what can I do? this is driving me mad!

[How to use the new fitting mesh rigging?]

 I was away from the internet this whole week, and just now saw the amazing video introducing fitted mesh to SL.

It looks amazing, and I really want to use it on my creations. But how I do it? I donwloaded long ago the basic SL avatar and skeleton that I am currently using for my meshes, now I have to donwload a new one?

I am so lost, can someone help? Thanks in advance!

[I'm trying to find a warp I saw on a blogger's photo]

Thank you for your answer!

Actually, I was looking for that stole when I stumbled across this one I am trying to find. I love that ryvolter's fur stole and I actually bought it some months ago, but that's not what I am looking for. 

In this blog, the girl posed with ryvolter's stole and in another photo of the same post with this different one, and somehow I can't find this blog again.

[I'm trying to find a warp I saw on a blogger's photo]

  In the end of last year, I saw some photos of the fur stole aviable in the 'Razzle Dazzle' collabor88, and while googling for pictures of it, I saw a blogger who posed with them, but also with this wrap made up of flounces. I can't find that blog again, but I would love to find that wrap, it was similar to this one, but longer and black.

 

 

[Is there anything I can do to reduce the vertices?]

Thank you Gaia, you're always great!

I have no exuse for those not straight loops, I kept post-poning it, but I'll fix it now

It actually looks pretty bad without subsurfing, I tried disabling it and it looks more like a mesh that is loading.

Won't it look bad if I took the loops form the front? I will take the edge loops from the back then. Thank you so much, I not even knew you could delete the edge loops!

[Is there anything I can do to reduce the vertices?]

This is the mesh. I think there is many vertices on the top, but I didn't imagined it would be too much. Did I screwed up?

[Is there anything I can do to reduce the vertices?]

I made an dress, and it says it have  Triangles: 27.280, Vertices 22.224.

I am having some problems to upload it to SL. When I select the 'Skin weight' option in the upload window I crash.

I am using Blender 2.68a, and to export to DAE I use 'Second Life Rigged' preset. Its been months since I don't have this problem, so I think theres something wrong with the mesh, not with my viewer - the last official one.

For modifiers, I have Armature, Mirror and Subsurf. The subsurf is set to only 1 level, so I don't know what to do now.

[Crashing when selecting skin weight in upload menu]

I checked the exporting options, and I could not find anything wrong, I used the SL Rigged preset, and it keeps crashing.

I thought of dividing the mesh in two, but its a dress, so i don't think that's an option

I need help

[Crashing when selecting skin weight in upload menu]

 The only modifiers I have on it are Mirror, Subsurf and Armature. When exporting I just select the Second Life Rigged option.