Texture Seams - Need Help!!!

[Karamazov]

Hey guys, this is my first post in here, registered here today.

I'm working with two more guys on UDK and we've just started using for a few days and we have already a big problem. I've noticed that all over the Internet this has been a problem for a lot of the newer UDK users, but I'm yet to see a practical, incisive and decently explained solution for this big problem. The problem, as you might be guessing, is the recurrent appearance of seams between textures on UDK. We've watched some tutorials before stepping into UDK and the Modular Building Workflow from 3DMotive seemed pretty good, except for the fact that it didn't talk about this problem. Here are two pictures from the texture seams that I'm talking about in our project:




As far as I've understood, this has to do something with lightmap UVs, am I right? Could someone please explain to me what do I have to do in order to prevent this from happening? I have ZBrush and 3DS Max installed, if someone would be kind enough to explain me this problem and how to fix, it would be so much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your patience and your time, we're going nuts with this issue...

[taz1004]

Post your texture UV and lightmap UV.

[Karamazov]

Thanks you very much for your interest Taz1004! It appears however that I have found the solution! Thanks to this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntx10JMl9f4) it appears that my fellow programming colleague that is working on the map textures has solved the problem. At least I thought that this video could be the solution (after spending an entire Saturday looking for a solution and waiting to be able to post here on Epic Forums), so I sent it to him and a few moments later I called me and told me it was fixed.

Since we are still newbies with UDK, I'm sure I'll be having plenty more problems throughout the development phase, but we are still in the middle of the college semester, so we will only be able to dedicate entirely to this on July. When we start bashing our heads against the wall because of another unsolvable problem, I'll be sure to post that on this thread so can someone more experienced than us give us a little hand.

Thank you again for your interest, taz1004!

Best regards!

[Karamazov]

Hey, I've got a new problem, this time with 3DS Max. I guess most people here know how to work with 3DS Max and use it regularly so there's a great chance that someone could help me. I'm using the 2012 version to model stuff for UDK and today I was making some branches to later form some trees. Anyway, before I got to bake some maps, I wanted to add a texture to the twigs, so I went to the material editor, added a map with diffuse color activated and on bitmap I selected the picture I wanted. Everything ok so far, but when I try to put that map on the twigs, it gets applied only to the "birth extremities" of the twigs. I'll just post a pic so you could see what I'm trying to explain:



Can anyone tell me why is this happening and what should I do in order to correct it?

[Graylord]

Looks like you haven't done any UVMapping. I'm guessing those ends are what's left of the primitive you began with.

[Karamazov]

Thanks for the answer. I've been following the 3DMotive tutorial for foliage creation and in it, he narrator never does any UVMapping, at least as far as I've noticed. In your opinion, is that the only explanation for that? If so, I will try to get into the UVMapping thing (something I should've already done, but I've been postponing it for while now, maybe it's time to get into that).

[Graylord]

Yes, your problem is definitely due to the lack of UVMapping.

[Karamazov]

Thanks mate, solved that problem right away!

Got another question, this time not a problem, but just a question:

I found this video ( ) while searching for stuff about UDK on Youtube. This feature is incredible and I found the guy's contact and Facebook, but he didn't answer me at all. He did read my messages btw, but for some reason he didn't want to respond. My question would be if there is anyone in here capable of doing/explaining how to do this. I would really appreciate spending some time talking about this and learning a bit about this, in order to implement this "feature" in my project. Is there anyone willing to help? I could give my email and Facebook account for some propor comunication, without flooding the Forum here with questions, conversations and all that. Best regards!

[JessieG]

That's done in the material using vertex colors. Look up mesh vertex painting to get an idea of how vertex painting works.

[skwisdemon666]

Outdated method. Look up apex destructibles.

[JessieG]

Outdated method. Look up apex destructibles.

Apex Destructibles is way more performance intensive for something as simple as a cracking floor. He didn't ask how to break the floor into a bunch of small pieces that are affected by physics.

[Karamazov]

That's done in the material using vertex colors. Look up mesh vertex painting to get an idea of how vertex painting works.

Thank you Jessie, I will certainly have a look.

About what you said skwisdemon666, my answer would've been the same as Jessie. I do know about Apex Destructibles and I was already going to use it in the project, but only in specific areas because, like Jessie said, it eats a lot of the processing of the project and therefore makes it heavier. As far as I understood, with mesh vertex painting the impact on the performance is way much smaller, but thank you nonetheless.

[Karamazov]

Hey people, I really could use a little help on this subject:

I've been modelling lots of stuff on ZBrush and it is looking good, but now I'm facing a question: What do I have to do to work on 3DS Max with this stuff that I made in ZBrush? I mean, I can use the .obj file with no problem at all, but in that way, I won't have the colors and painting that I made on ZBrush. I guess that, what I'm trying to ask is, how do I make maps on Zbrush (diffuse, cavity, displacement, normal) that I can use on 3DS Max together with the object?

Is there a tutorial out there that thoroughly explains how to process these maps on ZBrush? I've looked and looked, but have found none...

Thanks in advance.

[reinrag]

it's a simple process ,you'll need some plugins go in zbrush plugin website thing and there download the multimap exporter, also download the uvmaster that will create uv's for your models in no time,

[kaleden]

The video you posted says right in the title how it was done: WorldPositionOffset. Check out the UDN documentation, here: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/WorldPositionOffset.html.
Here's a tutorial on Chris Albeluhn's website which discusses using the topic, though I haven't followed this one specifically: http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Wor...on_Offset.html

As for working with your ZBrush assets in 3ds Max, reinrag touched on some solutions, but the problem basically boils down to you needing to create/export texture maps which 3ds Max can use. In the more recent version of ZBrush, you can simply use GoZ to move the model back and forth between ZBrush and 3ds Max. I believe any texture maps you created are automatically applied to the model if you use this process.

[Karamazov]

Hey guys, I having a bit of a problem in here. This time it's in Maya. So I'm modelling a FAMAS in Maya and the time to model the barrel has come. Problem is when I'm modelling it, I need to make a duplicate of a face, but as soon as I do it, the whole object loses its backface culling, something that I really need further on, otherwise it will make the barrel holes "occupied" by the the texture of the developed barrel.

This might sound confusing, but what I really wanted to ask is very simple: How can I duplicate an object face, without losing its backface culling? I mean, I've been following a digital tutors tutorial and that's how he does but he doesn't lose his backface culling when he duplicates the face. I'm posting some pictures so you can see what I mean.

Here's how it is before I duplicate the face:




Here's after I duplicate it:

[Karamazov]

Hey guys, this is a very simple problem, can't anyone help me? Anyone with some hours of Maya usage?

[JessieG]

What do you mean by "occupied"? I'm not sure why you need them to cull like this.

[Karamazov]

Just look at the images. The object has backface culling. When I duplicate one of its faces and drag it down, the object loses its backface culling. I just need to keep the backface culling, after I duplicate the face from the object, as simple as that.

[JessieG]

I know that, I was just wondering what you mean by the whole "occupy texture" thing.

[Karamazov]

What I was trying to say with that was something like "the piece gets that opaque grey color texture back", sorry I'm not very good with this sort of "technical English".Anyways, do you know why the piece loses its backface culling when I duplicate a face from it and can you tell me how to fix it?

[Quackles]

Why do you need backface culling?

And no, I don't have the answer as to why it gets lost.

[Karamazov]

Because, without backface culling the holes of the barrel that I'm modelling for the weapon will have that opaque grey rendered in it when I extrude a part of the barrel to complete it.

[JessieG]

I don't see how that would bother you seeing as you can change the material or simply change to viewport 2.0 and turn on ambient occlusion of you want it to look dark. That shouldn't make it any harder for you to model though.

[Karamazov]

I was wondering if I could ask a friend of mine to do the rifle barrel on 3DS and then give it to me so I could open it on Maya place it on my gun. Is that possible?

Meanwhile I had another question: Since I'm reaching the final stages of the basic rifle modelling I needed to know, do I have to model just the parts of the main body of the gun and then make it a single object? With the "parts of the maind body" I am referring to everything except for the parts that will move with animations, such as the clip/magazine, trigger, extractor/ejection port and the bolt catch, right? These "dynamic parts" are supposed to be separated, structurally speaking, form the main body, because of its moving nature, am I right? If someone could please clarify me a bit on this situation, that would be great.

[JessieG]

You don't have to. You can essentially make the entire gun with separate pieces if you want. But it may be easier to hide the seams of the gun if you do the main part as a single object and cover up the single seam. It's not easy to match textures up on separate pieces but you can do it that way if you want.