Hi Andrei,

> Michael is it any way to convert this vertex normal to normal map?

Usually there is not really a direct conversion from these, a normal map is generated through a type of rendering-like process that bakes geometry information into a texture map.


> And what is main difference between them?

They are kind of generally similar in what the final effect is, that they control how shading happens with light sources. The main difference is vertex normals are attached directly to the geometry (with one vertex normal per polygon vertex), while normal maps have the normals in the form of a texture map instead. It's a texture map that contains x,y,z information in it basically instead of only color information.

Normal maps are meant to give higher detailed looking shading results to lower resolution geometry.

- Michael

Thanx)
Michael have this problem, that practically do not allow me to Paint, Retopo and UV in 3D coat..((
http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14850

May be you well suggest me something. Cause it's looks very bed for me.

Looks like I solve this problem.
I thought this way - I made High Poly model in MOI then export it with N-gons. High poly model will not be used fro animation or subdividing so it can have N-gons.
Model with N-gons looks more friendly for UV unwrap. One potential problem that can be it is backing normal map on low poly. Low polly I'll made in MOI or manually in retopo without N-gons. I have some test it looks like everything backed good with N-gons.
Tell me what do you think about it.

Hi Andrei,

> Michael have this problem, that practically do not allow me to Paint, Retopo and UV in 3D coat..((
> http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14850

Sorry, I don't really know what's going on there, from what is described in that thread it seems to be a problem specific to 3D Coat that it's sensitive to certain kinds of geometry.

Did this happen when you exported using N-gons? If so then try exporting using "Quads & Triangles" instead of n-gons, it's not all that unusual for programs to have some difficulty processing complex n-gons and make bad triangulations when it has to convert them.

- Michael

No with N-gons it works very well. But that problem was when I exported with "Quads & Triangles". Its look like when a lot of small triangles close to overlapping cause this problem.

Hi Andrei, try using "Divide larger than" to break your model up into more regular smaller pieces, that has a tendency to reduce long skinny triangles that go across a larger area of the model.

- Michael

But also a triangle like the one shown here (in your very first post there) is not really particularly skinny at all:




- Michael

I tried use - divide larger than, to make very high poly model, holes become very small but still exists.

Hi Andrei, it seems that 3D Coat is just sensitive to triangles I suppose, maybe it's become more specialized to only work with sub-d quad topology or something like that.

The triangle that I circled in the above image is not particularly skinny, if it can't handle triangles like that it probably isn't going to work directly with MoI's output and I guess you'd need to do some retopology work in that case.

I'm not entirely sure if I understand the thread 100% - did the first problem image that you posted just suddenly stop happening or something like that?

- Michael

For the teeny-tiny slivery black ones, possibly that's just a problem within the 3D Coat real time display. What happens if you export those meshes out to one of your other rendering programs, does the actual render look ok? If so then that's just a display glitch that you should ignore in 3D coat and just go about doing your work.

- Michael

No I still had those problem, I think Iexport model with another cage and thought that problem solved.
The problem is that it do not draw on that holes when paint)
But I use now ngones looks like working good.

After 2 days of experimenting I found best way for worfkflow MOI and 3D coat.
Export from MOI High Poly with Ngons. It's not necessary have to be very High poly just enough polygons to trunsmit smooth geometry, 12 is a good number.
After that imoprt it to 3D coat, and make retopology, 3D coat has good tools for this. Or you can export from MOI Low Poly (has some issues).

Hay Michael, Just record this video to show workflow.

Interesting..
in middle of video you merge first re-topo object with original one from Moi? Is it right?Why?
If you can, tell more about this process,first time for me to see 3D Coat in action..i'm curious :)

M

This process is for making low poly model (for games or animation).
Yes after retopo, I merged it with model from MOI. It necessary for creating normal map. This normal map repeats all details from high poly model and apply it to low poly model to have practically all details from highpoly.
So another words you have detailed low-poly model.

Many thanks,Andrei !

Welcome)

Andrei also started a thread for this tutorial the 3D Coat forum.
http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14879

AbnRanger, a contributor to the the 3D forum posted this in reply:
"Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing that demonstration. If you know the developer of Moi, it might be worth asking him to talk with Andrew or Stas about either an plugin for 3D Coat or some form of development within, to integrate the tools. I think there is some initial interest and exploration going on. I suggested to Stas, to consider MOI in some form. They are considering a separate version of 3D Coat that is tailored for manufactured output and 3D Printing."

bisenberger,

Yep, will see what Michael say.

That's really cool that they're considering a version for 3D printing.

What kind of additional integration between MoI and 3D Coat would you like to see? Since 3D Coat works on a much different kind of data than MoI, it's pretty difficult to do any bidirectional communication and it seems that 3D Coat has a good OBJ reader.

- Michael

>Good obj reader

what do you mean?

Now I can see only MOI to 3D Coat export automation. But it will skip only few steps. Can not figure out something more.