So I tried to figure this stuff out with Zbrush and it was so confusing that I stopped. I’ve got a basic character mesh that I’ve built up in 3dsmax. It’s all one contiguous mesh so it isn’t broken apart in any way. The uv’s, however, have been separated into discrete id’s.........so the head and ears is ID 1, the entire body is ID 2, and the inner mouth is ID 3.

When I open the UV edit window in max and all uv’s are shown (what happens by default), the uv’s are overlapped in the default grid. Now, do I have to move each ID to a separate portion of the grid outside of the default area (the box with a border around it) or can I leave them as is? I’ve heard the displacement and normal maps don’t work when uv’s are overlapping even a little bit. If not, what’s the solution?

Second, I have a workflow question. I was thinking about taking some photo references of skin and creating my diffuse map from that. These photos also contain a lot of detail in regards to pores and wrinkles. Normally I’d simply take my diffuse map and make it greyscale and play with levels to generate a bump map. But then....what purpose would one of these sculpting tools play? None foreseeably......so how do I go about creating wrinkles in mudbox that follow those that already exist in my color map? It’s confusing how to work with both of these together as it seems like making a bump map and then just painting arbitrary wrinkles in mudbox would look like crap.

Now, do I have to move each ID to a separate portion of the grid outside of the default area (the box with a border around it) or can I leave them as is?

Yes for Mudbox to generate multiple maps on a single object you would need to place each groupID/set of UVs into separate UV spaces. This will give you a set of maps that you could then re-apply in 3dsmax on the original models UV layout. I’m not a max expert so I don’t know how hard it would be to move your UVs but in Maya it takes around 60 seconds to make that kind of change. So I hope Im not suggesting a big job for you :)

The max Id system is not common for all apps so we could not use that as our primary solution for multiple maps on a single surface. If you are working in a studio environment you should also know that Mudbox will have a API where you could possible add max ID support to the Texture Bake utility.

so how do I go about creating wrinkles in mudbox that follow those that already exist in my color map?

In Mudbox you can assign a diffuse color map or multiple color maps per mesh object and then sculpt relative to the detail in that map. Hold the right mouse button over your object and select Edit Material. Then add a Diffuse Texture and make sure Show Textures is on. There is a hotkey toggle for show textures. And you can also assign unique texture maps per assigned material.

Hope that helps.

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the ideas. I’m pretty sure that for max it’d just consist of selecting the particular ID (so it’s the only uv’s that show up in the edit window) and then moving it to a different grid. I was wondering, is there any grid it can’t go as long as they uv’s don’t overlap?

Something else I’ve noticed as I first started playing around with the program was that the pen doesn’t scuplt nicely even at a subdivision of 6. I recall in Zbrush them having a slider to average the cursor movements to help smooth out sculpting on lower end machines.....does Mudbox have smoething analogous to this? I considere that my woes might be the result of a crappy computer (I’m running an Athlon 1700+ with about 1.5 gigs of ram). I was wondering if you thought this might be the case. I moved the hidden levels to the harddrive and and hid most of the model and still things seem clunky.  : (

In Mudbox you can assign a diffuse color map or multiple color maps per mesh object and then sculpt relative to the detail in that map. Hold the right mouse button over your object and select Edit Material. Then add a Diffuse Texture and make sure Show Textures is on. There is a hotkey toggle for show textures. And you can also assign unique texture maps per assigned material.

Hope that helps.

First off, sorry for hijacking the thread a little :( ,
this kind of belongs in the suggestion parts really.. ;

When working with pores and wrinkles in zbrush (to make it texture coherent), it’s possible to load the texture as a mask based on the intensity in a texture and then sculpt.

To be able to do the same thing in mudbox (loading a freeze mask based on the intensity of a texture where [black = full, white = zero]) would be extremely handy. Then it would be possible to load a freeze mask, create a layer, flood it and then mask out the preferred the detail. Or not flood and just sculpt based on the mask.

(I dunno how dense the mesh has to be for it to actually work on things like pores, but it’s a very handy function none the less.)

To be able to do the same thing in mudbox (loading a freeze mask based on the intensity of a texture where [black = full, white = zero]) would be extremely handy. Then it would be possible to load a freeze mask, create a layer, flood it and then mask out the preferred the detail. Or not flood and just sculpt based on the mask.

Yes we are thinking of adding to the freeze brush capabilities. But what you are asking for can be done now with Mesh Displace utility in rev 1.04.

You can use an image for displaceing your mesh. The cool part is that displacement will be placed on a Mudbox 3d layer. From there you can use the Mask brush to fade in and out portions of the detail on the 3d layer. And you can also set the intensity of the 3d layer. You can do this with multiple maps as well.

You can use an image for displaceing your mesh. The cool part is that displacement will be placed on a Mudbox 3d layer. From there you can use the Mask brush to fade in and out portions of the detail on the 3d layer. And you can also set the intensity of the 3d layer. You can do this with multiple maps as well.

Hey Dave.
This Displacement Utility works really well..  I’m getting some real performance problems when I try to do a mask brush on a displacement layer though. It is bogging way down.  Is it going back and referencing the original operation when painting on the mask? Any suggestions for speeding up the masking process on a displacement layer?

Can I apply a mask from one layer to effect a second layer? Or copy a mask from one layer to another?

Thanks Dave -t

Hey Dave.
This Displacement Utility works really well.. I’m getting some real performance problems when I try to do a mask brush on a displacement layer though. It is bogging way down. Is it going back and referencing the original operation when painting on the mask? Any suggestions for speeding up the masking process on a displacement layer?

Can I apply a mask from one layer to effect a second layer? Or copy a mask from one layer to another?

Thanks Dave -t

The speed of the mask brush depends on how many polys you are brushing(brush size) and the speed of your system processor. You can also try and turn off the option in the Advanced tab for the Mask brush “Smooth&Paint Values”. This give a slight speed up.

But know that you can also specify a Mask Map while using the Mesh Displace Utility. This is a map that you can use as a multiplier for the height or displacement map. This way you don’t need to paint later.

You may see improvements on this in the future.

But about my performance bog down....remember I’m not actually masking anything yet (not that adanced). I’m only doing base sculpting and it just isn’t working right.  : )

Any ideas what would cause this? Is it a weak system? User error? Something else?

You can also try and turn off the option in the Advanced tab for the Mask brush “Smooth&Paint Values”. This give a slight speed up.

I just tried turning off the “Smooth & Paint Values” in the Advanced tab and that gave me a huge speed up! The masking speed went from barely useable to very useable. Thanks for the tip.

You guys are the best!  -t