Happy Feet 2 trailer / October 12, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Have a look to the new Happy Feet 2 theatrical trailer, the last animation movie which I was involved.

Congrats to all Dr. D Studios crew, this movie is looking terrific!

Enjoy!

Dealing with normal maps in Softimage / September 30, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Yes I know, working with normal maps in Softimage is a bit weird sometimes, specially if you worked before with 3D Max normal+bump preset.

I’ve been using the same method over the years and suited fine for me, maybe would be useful also for you.
I prefer to generate the normal maps inside Softimage rather than Mudbox or Zbrush, usually works much better according to my tests with different assets.

So, you should import in the same scene both geometrys, high and low. Don’t be afraid of high poly meshes, Softimage allows you to import meshes with millions of polygons directly from Mudbox or Zbrush.

With both meshes in your scene be sure that they are perfectly aligned.

Check the UV mapping of the low resolution mesh.

Select the low resolution mesh and open the ultimapper tool.

- The most important options are:

Source: You have to click on your high resolution mesh.
Path: Where your normal map texture will be placed.
Prefix: A prefix for your texture.
Type: You can choose between different image formats.
Normal in tangent space: The most common normal map type.
Resolution: Speaks for itself.
Quality: Medium it’s fine. If you choose high the baking time will increase a lot.
Distance to surface: Click on Compute button to generate this parameter.

Click on generate and Softimage will take some time to generate the normal map.

The normal map is ready.

Hide your high resolution mesh.

Grab one of the MR shaders and drag it to your mesh.

- Use a normal map node connected to the bump map input of the shader.

Choose the normal map generated before.
Select the correct UVs.
Select tangents mode.
Uncheck unbiased tangents.

Hit a render and you’ll see you normal map in action.

Cool. But now one of the most common procedures is combining a normal map with a bump map.

I’m using the image above.
If you use a bump map generator connected into the bump map input you will have a nice bump map effect.

Find below the final render tree combining both maps, normal and bump.

The first bump map generator has two inputs, color matte which is a plain white color and the normal map with the options which I already commented before. Be sure to select relative to input normal in the base normal option of the bump map generator.

The second bump map generator is your bump texture where you can control the intensity increasing or decreasing the factor value.

The vector math vector node allows you to combine both bump map generators.
Connect the first bump map generator to the first input and the second one to the second imput.
In the operation option select vector input1 + vector input2.

Final render.

Happy Feet 2 tv spots / September 30, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Warner Bros has just released two new tv spots for Happy Feet 2, the last animation project which I worked on.
Enjoy!

Baking between UV sets in Maya / September 2, 2011 by Xuan Prada

One of the most useful workflows when you are texturing is bake your textures from one UV set to another one.You will need to do this for different reasons, one of them for example could be using different resolution models with different UV mapping or using a different UV mapping for grooming, etc.

The first time I tried to do this in Maya I realize that MentalRay Batch Bake tool doesn't work fine, I don't know why but I couldn't use it.

I solved the problem using Transfer Maps tool for Maya and decided to write down for future chances.

Check the different UV sets in Maya.

Apply your textures and shaders.
I'm using six different shaders with six different texture maps.

If you use the Mental Ray Batch Bake tool (common used for baking purposes) and configure all the parameters, you'll realize that the baked maps are completely black. Something is wrong realated with UV sets. Bug? I don't know.

You need to use the Maya Transfer Maps tool. Lighting/Shading -> Transfer Maps.

Duplicate the mesh and rename to source and target.
Select target and his UV set.
Select source.
Select desired map to bake. (probably diffuse)
Select the path.
Select resolution.
Bake.

Your baked texture is ready.

Mudbox and UDIMs / September 1, 2011 by Xuan Prada

When you’re going to texture an asset which already have a displacement map, probably you’ll want to apply that displacement to your mesh before start the painting process.

In my pipeline, I usually apply the displacement map in Mudbox and then I export the high resolution mesh to Mari.

The problem here is that Mudbox doesn’t allow you to work with displacement maps and multiple UV shells.

I tried below to find a solution for this problem.

Check your UV mapping in Maya.

I’m using these simple displacement maps here.
One map for each UV shell.

Export as .Obj
Open in Mudbox and subdivide.
Go to maps -> sculpt model using displacement map.

Select your mesh and your displacement map.

As you’ll realize, Mudbox doesn’t allow you to choose different maps for each UV shell which means that Mudbox will be able only to sculpt using the displacement map for U0-1 V1-0 coordinates. Big problem.

The way which I’ve found to solve this problem is:

Go back to Maya.
Select your mesh and open de UV Texture Editor.
Select one of the UV shells which is outside of the default U0-1 V1-0 range.
Open the script editor and type -> polyEditUV -u -1 -v 0 ;

You’ll notice that the second UV shell is placed in the default UV shell but was moved 1 exact position. Then your displacement texture will match perfectly.

Export again as .obj
Now you’ll can use your displacement map in Mudbox without problem.
Repeat the process for each UV shell.
Commands to move UV shells 1 exact position.

Move left -> polyEditUV -u -1 -v 0 ;

Move right -> polyEditUV -u 1 -v 0 ;

Move up -> polyEditUV -u 0 -v 1 ;

Move down -> polyEditUV -u 0 -v -1 ;

Selection groups in Mari / August 25, 2011 by Xuan Prada

When you are working with huge assets is very useful to keep everything organized.
One of the best ways to do it inside Mary is using selection groups.

Go to view -> palettes -> selection groups.

Select faces, elements or objects.

Click on plus icon to create a new selection groups based on your current selection.

You can create different selection models based on different parts of your asset.

Now you can be focused on just one specific area of your asset.

Save as in Mari / August 25, 2011 by Xuan Prada

If you are getting crazy trying to find the save as button in Mari, don’t worry, it's not there.
The best way to save as in Mari is using snapshots tool.
Is not exactly the same as save as option, but is something quite similar.

In this example I have a version of the robot with some flat colors as texture maps.

Open the snapshot window, under view -> palettes -> snapshots.

Create a new snapshot and name it as you want. For example v001

Keep working on your textures, channels, shaders, etc.
When you want to save as indeed going to file -> saves as (traditional way) go to your snapshots window and create a new snapshot.

If you want to switch between versions just select the thumbnail and click on revert.

Mari for dailies / August 19, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Mari is a great tool for texturing purposes and has a lot of useful small options. I’m going to speak about rendering turn tables for dailies.

Once you have all your texture maps and shaders ready inside Mari, you should establish a nice point of view in the viewport.
Then go to projectors window and click on create projector. I usually call it turnAround_projector.

Active your color channel, right click on your turn around projector and click on render turn table.

Most of the options speak for themselves.
The most important are:

Size.
Background: You can choose between dark and light colors.
Shaders: You can choose any shader of your project.
Lighting: We will start with flat lighting to show your texture channels like they are.
Comment: I usually write the name of the channel.
Text size.
Path.
Template: File name and file format.
Preview.

Then click OK and render will start.

Once rendered you’ll have your render in the choosen path.

Repeat the process with all your texture channels. Most common, color, bump, specular, displacement.

Then select your shader, click on full lighting mode button and focus all the lights to your camera instead the scene.

Render turn table again and change lighting mode to full.
Remind also to change the comment to something like fullShader.

UDIMs in BodyPaint / August 14, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Step by step tutorial.

Export your object from Maya with multiple UDIMs.

You can start your texture work from scratch or using any kind of baked stuff.

Import your .obj geometry in BodyPaint and create two different materials, one for each UV layout created before in Maya.

Create a new texture for the color channel of each material, or connect your textures if you baked previously.

Drag both materials over the geometry.
You can see in the viewport just the last material dragged, because BodyPaint doesn’t handle multi material jobs at the same time.

Click on objects tab, select the material for the UV layout 1 channel and check that X and Y offset are both as 0

If you click on texture tab you’ll realize that UV’s and texture match perfectly.

Select the material for the UV layout 2 and switch the texture used for this material. You’ll realize that something is wrong, UV mapping and texture don’t match.

You will need to change the X offset to 100 and then, will work fine.

You can change viewport visualization switching from one shader ball to another one.

BodyPaint only allows to work with one material at the same time, so you will need to switch between both materials to paint in a properly way.

UDIMs workflow, Maya to Mari / July 11, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Sometimes is very useful to work with different range of UV’s, specially when you are working with a huge assets and a high detail is needed.
Find below my workflow dealing with this kind of stuff.

Unfold the UV’s in different ranges.

If you need to bake procedurals, dirtmaps or whatever, keep in mind to change the UV range in the baking options.

I always use the same naming convention.
UxxVxx.tiff
0101.tif
2301.tif

Create a new project in Mari.

Check if the UV’s are placed correctly.

Create a new channel called “base” and import your baked textures into it.

Ready to keep working.

Introduction to channels in Mari / July 11, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Create a new proyect in Mari.

Create a new channel called “base”.
Adjust size, color space and color.

Right click on “base channel” to import a texture bitmap as base color.

We already have our cube with the blue base color.

Create a new shader called “blueCube” and choose as texture the “base channel” created before.

Create a new channel called “underPaint”.
Adjust size, color space and color.

Right click on the “underPaint” channel to import a nice under paint texture map.

You can see it in the viewport.

Create another channel called “underPaintMask”.
Adjust size, color space and color.

Import the under paint mask texture into the “under paint channel.”

Looks awesome in the viewport.

Select the “blueCube shader” and add a “new shader module”.
Select “masked diffuse” from the list.

As base texture select “underPaint channel”.
As mask texture select “underPaintMask channel”.
Invert the mask.

Add more layers in very simple, just need to add more channels.
Create a new channel called “rust”.
Adjust the size, color space and color.

Import a rust map into the channel.

Check it in the viewport.

Add a new channel called “rustMask”.
Adjust size, color space and color.

Go back to shaders tab and select “bluCube shader”.
Add a new shader module and select “masked diffuse” from the list.

Select the “rust channel” as “base texture” and “rustMask channel” as “mask texture”.
Invert the mask.

Select the “rustMask channel” and paint with black color to create rust in desired areas.

UV Layout shortcuts / February 10, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Here a table with my favourite UV Layout shortcuts, ready to print in A6 format.
To not forget in future productions.

Inverted occlusion in 3D Max / January 22, 2011 by Xuan Prada

People asked me for a step by step installation and usage of Binary Alchemy Color Ray Length shader in 3D Max.
Here we go.

Installation

Download BA Shaders for 3D Max.
Copy .dll files here -> “3ds Max 2010\mentalray\shaders_3rdparty\shaders”
Copy .mi files here -> “3ds Max 2010\mentalray\shaders_3rdparty\include”
Edit “3rdparty.mi” located here -> 3ds Max 2010\mentalray\shaders_3rdparty
Your “3rdparty.mi” must be something like this.

Usage

Create a matte/shadow shader and uncheck “receive shadows” and “use ambient occlusion”.

In the “camera mapped background” input, connect a “BA_color_raylength” shader.

Play with the “spread” to control the behaviour of the occlusion.
Once rendered you’ll have something similar to this.

Mix the “BA_color_raylength” with procedural maps or bitmaps to improve the result.

Edit: The most important parameters to play with are “spread” and “far output”.

Find references with Google sets / January 19, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Some time ago I wrote a post about my workflow to find image references and general information, useful when you are in the researching phase of your work.

I’ve found a nice tool of Google which helps you to find information related to one topic written by you.

For example, if you need references of American cars, but you only know the companies “Chevrolet” and “Buick”, Google gives you related companies of American cars.
It’s very useful!

Google Sets.

Black holes with final gather contribution / January 11, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Black holes are a key feature in 3D lighting and compositing, but black holes with bounced information are super!

Apply a Mental Ray Production Shader called “mip_rayswitch_advanced” to your black hole object.

In the “eye” channel, connect a “surface shader” with the “out_matte_opacity” parameter pure black.

In the Final Gather input, connect the original shader of your object. (a blinn shader for example).

Inverse dirt maps / January 6, 2011 by Xuan Prada

Sometimes is very useful to generate inverse occlusion bakes to reach an interesting starting point to paint our dirt maps.
Vray dirt material is perfect for this goal, but if you don’t work with Vray, is very easy to do the same with Mental Ray and Binary Alchemy Shaders.

You need to install the Binary Alchemy Shaders. Some packages are free and you will have to pay for another ones.
Apply a “surface shader” to the object and connect a “BA_color_raylenght” to it.
Put this shader in “Inverted Normal” mode and play with his parameters.

We get an inverted “ambient occlusion”.

Use a “blend colors” , “layered shader” o similar to combine this inverted occlusion with a nice bitmap.

Worn edges / January 6, 2011 by Xuan Prada

This technique is based on “worn edges techniques” by Neil Blevins.

Requirements

3D Max Scanline Render
SoulBourn Scripts
Warp Texture Script
All the objects must have a correct UV mapping

Procedure

We must complete perfectly the UV mapping of the objects, without overlappings and similar common issues.

To reach better results, we need more geometry information, especially in the corners.
For that purpose, duplicate the objects, rename them and apply them some bevels in the corners and one or two turbosmooths if necessary. (but try first only adding bevels).

Note: All the object mesh must be “Editable Poly”.
Select the object and execute “Corner edge to vertex map” script.

We will have to play with the low and high angle parameters, especially decreasing the intensity of the low angle when more complex geometry has the object.
The next step is to distort this mask created by vertex color, to give it more caotic shape and indeed, more real aspect.
We need to download the “warp texture” plugin.

In a standard material connect the warpt texture to diffuse channel.
In the target input connect a vertex color. 3D Max put by default the vertex information which we have generated previously with the corner edge to vertex script.

In the warp input connect a procedural noise, whose parameters will vary depending of scene scale and object size.

If we hit a render we reach a pretty decent results, but we need to define better our mask.

If we put an output in the vertex color channel, we can play with the curve for empathize the results.

In the noise we can also play with his output.

To finish, we can bake this mask to paint it in a more appropriate software.

Dust shader / November 11, 2010 by Xuan Prada

This shader is completely procedural, easy to setup and quick to render. It's so basic but it gives you the sense of real dust, adding to your props some realistic properties and richness.

It might be useful for environments like basements, storage rooms, etc.
I'll be proposing two different ways to create this shader.

The first version is probably better, in a way that looks more realistic, but render times are also higher.
The second one is more simple, less real but it renders way faster.
It is always a good idea to know how to setup both version, depending on your production needs so here we go.

Dust_material_vray_v001

This material has been created using a blend node that mixes two different shaders using a mask. You can use a procedural or bitmap masks.

The first shader in the mix is the one designed to create the surface properties of your asset. In this case is called "teapot". Very simple shader with some reflection properties.

The second shader in the mix is the one designed to be dust. It's a simple shader without any kind if reflection, just matte properties.

You can also add some procedural noise as bump map, to simulate dusty areas and make some differences against the teapot material.

As mask I'm using a towards/away falloff in z direction. Playing with the mix-curve you can control the behaviour of the mix.

In the white colour of the mask we can add some procedural noise to create variation.

The best way to adjust all the shader parameters is testing them one by one in different renders.

Improved dirt maps / March 12, 2010 by Xuan Prada

When we start the task of texturing props, environments or characters, one of the first steps we accomplish after completing the UV Mapping, is baking different texture maps or procedural maps (or any other type) to a later use them as a base point to paint our textures.
Probably the most baked map is the ambient occlusion, to reach a base of dirt in logic areas which we will modify in Photohop, BodyPaint or Mudbox.

In my own experience I think that occlusion bakes are incredibly useful but a little bit boring.
Find below a simple method to create a more funny and live ambient occlusion bakes.

Using a costant shader or any other which are not affected by lighting, we mix using mix2colors, blendColors or Mixer.
In the channel 1 of the mix we use a map. Can be procedural or bitmap. In this example I’m using a tiled bitmap.
In the channel 2 of the mix we use a white color.
In the mask of the mix we use an ambient occlusion.

With this method we achieve that the bitmaps or procedural maps get masked by the occlusion, creating dirt on the logical and less exposed areas, but with the variation given by the map.
The keys to reach good results are the configuration of the occlusion and the quality of the maps.

xuan prada