Hi
I have had time this morning to do a few experiments. I tried making a simple object in Carrara and then making the same thing in Moi and finally trying to texture the Moi object in 3d-Coat. My findings were this:

1. Objects made in Carrara are simpler to understand when UV mapped because they have less polygons for comparable objects and tend not to be divided up into so many triangles as those exported by MOI.

2. Sometimes the UV map of objects gets screwed up and reversed. Even when joined up properly this can happen (My Giraffe turned inside out). This means that they can't easily be uv mapped or painted on in 3d-Coat.

3. 3d-Coat smoothes everything so that what goes in is not what comes out unless I select many polygons. This results in an object that is still the same shape as the original but with a mesh so dense that it would be impractical to use in a 3d Scene. Or so I believe.

I downloaded deep paint and deep uv last night but they turnerd out to be plugins for Maya and Lightwave.

I have been trying on and off in my spare time to find some simple way to paint textures onto the things I make in moi. I can apply shaders to them in Carrara but really want to be able to give them a texture map. The trouble is that if I unwrap them in something like uvmapper or Carraras uvmapper I cant understand the complex geometric shapes that result. If I try to paint them in a 3d-Coat I have to contend with the problems with mangled shapes and reversed UV's described above.

A lot of you people are making very detailed models and texturing them very well. Do I need a tool that I don't have or is it just a case of perseverance.
Keith

Hello Keith,

I don't know carrara and 3d-coat at all, but I more less see what kind of trouble you have by trying to paint on a object coming from MoI.

First, I would suggest few things.

About your giraffe model, I know your goal is to learn MoI, but it's really the kind of object I will never do with nurbs.

-1 Because it will take something like an half hour to build this model with a polygon software like Sillo.
-2 By using polygonal subdivision technique, you basically create a low res 'cage' structure, with few polys, so it's easy to handle it, and it's easy to create/adjust the uv's.


Because the key to have a good object to paint on, it's to have good uv's ... by good uv's I mean no stretching, and less discontinuity as possible.
(and no 300 little uv's pieces that cross over each others) There are a lot of tools in you poly software to adjust the uv's, and you really need to take some times to learn them.

If 3d-coat it's something similar to Zbrush, so a displacement painting tool, then I really thing MoI is not a good modeler to provide good models to paint on.
Preparing a model for this kind of software require to follow some rules, like a good uv structure, but also a regular polygon structure in the topology.

DeepUv it's an old/dead software to tweaks you uvs, it was available as plugin but also as standalone version.
Deeppaint is also available as standalone, and will 'only' allow you to paint on your model ... it's quite old now too.
Zbrush can be used as a 3D painting, but also as a displacement painting ... if you decide to sculpt with displacement painting, your object will be subdivided, and
the topology is important to get a good painting experience.
Mudbox is a pure displacement painting, with a more 'standard' interface than zbrush
Bodypaint seems to be a great tool to paint and uv's your model.

Now just a final work, I'm not saying you can't texture a model coming from MoI, but there is a big difference between texturing an object and paint on it.
Moi creates a good uv's base, all you need is to packing them, to remove every stretching in the uv's, and keep a proportional resolution between every uv'spieces.
That's offen enough for generic texturing work, like wood, concrete, rocks etc ...

Hi Keith, I have similar problems but my models are mostly SciFi oriented (spaceships, mechanical structures etc.) so I can't help but prefer to use MOI for (at least) starting off my models to be finished in a poly editor (for retopologization (cleanup) and UV)

I asked the author of 3D-Coat if he would perhaps add a feature where a model does not have to be subdivided upon import since for hard-body models, it's not required.

He mentioned that you can turn off import smoothing BUT the subdivision is required to provide the exta detail for painting being that painting takes place on the vertices; the more you have, the finer painting details you'll get.


But likewise, I find I can't take the majority of my MOI models in programs like 3D-Coat or ZBrush because the subdivision ruins them.

-Will

Ho I see 3D-Coat is a vertex paint ^^
That said you don't have to subdivide your model in zbrush if you 'only' paint on it.

Hi Keith - the UVs that you get from MoI will be just the natural UV structure of the NURBS surface.

When your model is made up of multiple surfaces, these UVs are not really guaranteed to align together in any kind of special arrangement. I mean like the U axis of one surface may be lined up with the V axis of a nearby one, or they may be at a 45 degree angle to one another if you have trimmed-back areas of the model, etc...

If you need a particular UV organization different than that, you'll need to discard the automatic UVs that MoI puts out and then apply new ones using the UV mapping tools of your target program. I guess it sounds like you were doing that already, but yes that would be what is necessary if the built in UVs do not work for you.

I'm not quite sure if I understand the "inside out" UV problem really - I mean UVs give a mesh point a location in a 2D texture map - they don't point to an inside or outside of a volume like a normal does...

- Michael

"Ho I see 3D-Coat is a vertex paint ^^
That said you don't have to subdivide your model in zbrush if you 'only' paint on it."

Yes, I've tried doing exactly that with tri/quad only exports into ZBrush and while some models come in pretty decent like my MOI spin on the Olympus Mons structure:


(I see the front plating came in from MOI with the normals flipped - I guess due to being a non-closed surface. Not sure how to fix that...)


Other objects unfortunately leave a lot to be desired:



Now if there's a technique on importing curved objects that I'm missing for situations like this, I need to find out about it!
I told MOI's mesher to break up anything larger than 2 which gave me way more polys but there's no smoothing info I guess to make it look as clean as it does in MOI.

-Will

Hi Will,

> I guess due to being a non-closed surface. Not sure how to fix that...)

Most polygon modeling programs will have a "flip" function that can be used to fix that. I'm not very familiar with ZBrush but I would think it should have that somewhere in it.

On the second one, make sure you don't have the display set in ZBrush to "flat" or something like that, it looks like you may have smooth shading turned off there. It may be a in a set of display properties that list something like : Wireframe, Flat, Gouraud, ...

It may be labeled something like "Gouraud" or smooth.

Sorry I'm not more familiar with ZBrush to give you a more precise answer.

- Michael

3d coat will be more than a vertex prog, it will be a "voxel" prog
(volumic pixels) ;)

Zbrush has a special mode for painting an object!
It's the "polypainting" mode http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Polypainting

It's the more easy, you have just to paint on the surface of the object
It's better if you export your model with big numbers of polys (for have not to subdivise in Zbrush)
from Moi in "Triangles Only" format Obj

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

Yeah, if ZBrush has a flip function, I'll have to read up on it cause (obviously) ZBrush doesn't get much use with what I'm currently working on so my skills with it could certainly be better...

I'll look into the smoothing also.

-Will