This is really annoying. With Max you have an amazing plugin/script called TexTools that has the ability to render out a blockout map with color selections. In Maya you don’t!
In Maya, you have this “Transfer maps” bullshit that has the ability to render out diffuse color. But… the thing I really DON’T like about Maya’s tranfer maps is bleeding. Even if you set envelope to 0 you get bleeding. This becomes a real pain in the ass when you have for example, one mesh that you want 2+ selections on. I don’t want to have to select and separate those two (and later combine them and merge the verts again) as it’s quite some work if you have many selections.
And yes I’ve looked into xNormal but there’s the same problem there: You need to separate your selections, separating/extracting mesh pieces, exploding the mesh, exporting each individual part as OBJ. Now this can all be automated ofc but it feels… STUPID to first explode the mesh (and extract/separate), export to xN, make blockout map.
And this is something that isn’t optimized in our pipeline: We don’t even make blockout maps because it’s just faster to manually select regions inPhotoshop and creating masks -_-
Capper: I want it on a sub-mesh basis. That is, I want each separate sub-mesh to have it’s own color region on the UV-map. I understand that this is hard (maybe impossible) to do on a combined mesh - I mean: how exactly can you search for sub-meshes? Select a random face on the mesh, expand the selection till it can’t expand anymore, and then apply a color? I haven’t really thought much about the process. The alternative is that each individual UV-island gets a color each.
Robert: I understand the whole color-your-meshes-and-do-transfer-maps -workflow - problem is transfer maps is flawed. Unless you explode the mesh, you will get color bleeding where sub-meshes and meshes lie next to each other (this because, transfer maps is render-based. So like an AO-bake, colors spill over to neighbors).
So why would one want a blockout map in the first place: To speed up the texturing process. Having artists manually selecting regions on the UV, creating masks in photoshop, is time-consuming: especially if you have a lot of different materials and/or regions (sub-meshes) on your mesh. So I’m looking for a way to improve that part.
And it doesn’t necessarly have to be material-based - there’s most likely a solution here based on vertex colors.
[QUOTE=Nightshade;20384]I understand that this is hard (maybe impossible) to do on a combined mesh - I mean: how exactly can you search for sub-meshes? Select a random face on the mesh, expand the selection till it can’t expand anymore, and then apply a color? [/QUOTE]
Actually yes that is how you do it and it is quite trivial… Using the API its a little easier to get the Poly Shells directly.
What settings are you using for transfer maps? I haven’t noticed any issues with it, we use it quite a bit.
[QUOTE=rgkovach123;20388]Actually yes that is how you do it and it is quite trivial… Using the API its a little easier to get the Poly Shells directly.
What settings are you using for transfer maps? I haven’t noticed any issues with it, we use it quite a bit.[/QUOTE]
Ah, I thought so. I really need to get deeper into code (how I will find time for it is another question).
Settings: well there aren’t much to chose from actually: I just clone my mesh and use it as source and the original as destination - not exploded - envelope set to zero - highest sampling - gaussian filter - 2 fill texture seams (I have plenty of pixel space between the shells). Since I’m using the Maya common settings, stuff like Final Gather isn’t the issue here either…
I got bleeding inside xNormal as well on a non-exploded mesh, and although I got a lot less of it there I still had to manually “clean up” the map in photoshop afterwards. It’s all this manual bullshit I want to get rid of you see. I don’t want o have to manually separate/extract sub-meshes, explode the mesh, export each part as an OBJ (for xNormal) or apply a hundred different lamberts and so on…