Anyone using Mudbox 2010?

[simmsimaging]

I'm dying a slow and painful death via frustration by trying to sculpt some fine-details into meshes using Zbrush 3.5 and also 3D Coat. I cannot get a consistent and repeatable output from either one. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've blown the better part of two weeks trying to figure out a reliable workflow.

So...

Anyone have any experience with Mudbox 2010 in this regard? Is it able to generate useful normal and displacement maps without using separate programs, hours or testing, or questionable voodoo rituals?

Thanks in advance
b

[Morbid Angel]

simple answer is yes.
Mudbox is a 64 bit app. While its not super fast, it can handle very large chunks of mesh. Even better, you can bring in your current zbrush mesh and continue working from it.
The maps it generates are very good too. However, there are some limitations for example it can't generate more then a 4k map.

[rivoli]

I had a different experience than Dmitry's, but I have a very limited experience with mudbox so I am probably the one to blame.
the few times I used it, it's always been a nightmare to get a reliable disp map out of it. even when the map seemed to be al right, the actual displacement in vray couldn't ever match the sculpted mesh, even with large maps, 16/32 bit and all that.
then again, I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong, and shown the correct workflow between max, mudbox and vray.

[simmsimaging]

Thanks for the replies guys. Seems that it's kinda like Zbrush: works great for some, but not for others, and hard to figure out why

I'll keep playing with the demo and hopefully some others can chime in on that workflow - that is precisely the area of problem I have with Zbrush (and 3DCoat)

b

[vlado]

If you don't need the mesh to be animated, you can just render the thing as it is in ZBrush, without going through the trouble with displacement maps. We had to do this on several occasions - we exported a full detail .obj file from zbrush and converted that to a .vrmesh which was then loaded as a proxy in 3ds Max.

Best regards,
Vlado

[rivoli]

we exported a full detail .obj file from zbrush and converted that to a .vrmesh which was then loaded as a proxy in 3ds Max.

that's what I ended up doing in a couple of occasions, if anything that saved me from having a breakdown over those displacement maps.

[simmsimaging]

If you don't need the mesh to be animated, you can just render the thing as it is in ZBrush, without going through the trouble with displacement maps. We had to do this on several occasions - we exported a full detail .obj file from zbrush and converted that to a .vrmesh which was then loaded as a proxy in 3ds Max.

Best regards,
Vlado

Great idea thanks! I'm having a different set of issues with Mudbox but the net result is still displacement problems. This could work great for me.

b

[simmsimaging]

This workflow is looking very good - seems to be the answer I needed, and I'll flesh out the process in a later post for others to use too.

In the interim there is one minor glitch: the ply2vrmesh.exe utility is the only way to convert the higher res meshes out of Zbrush (trying to load 20million poly objects into Max was not succesful ) but the vrmesh it creates seems to be rotated 90 degrees from the source .obj file. Can that be adjusted somehow so that my geometry all lines up properly automatically?

b

[simmsimaging]

One other quick question:

When using the "import as mesh" option of a vrayproxy object the imported object gets snapped to it's default location on import. Doesn't it make more sense to have it snap to the current position of the vrayproxy object? I keep having to realign the mesh when I do this.

Not the end of the world, but it seems like it would be better the other way. No?

b

[panthon]

It does make sense to skip the displacement exporting step alltogether, since it's a lot of hassle. I would recommend using the "decimation master" plugin for Zbrush. It comes already installed in zbrush 3.5 r3 and is able to reduce the amount of polys dramatically, while retaining a good level of fine detail. It trashes the mesh topology, so it's not good for animation. But if all you need is a pretty exact match of what u got on zbrush, but at a workable mesh density, give it a try.

More info here:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=71265

[simmsimaging]

It does make sense to skip the displacement exporting step alltogether, since it's a lot of hassle. I would recommend using the "decimation master" plugin for Zbrush. It comes already installed in zbrush 3.5 r3 and is able to reduce the amount of polys dramatically, while retaining a good level of fine detail. It trashes the mesh topology, so it's not good for animation. But if all you need is a pretty exact match of what u got on zbrush, but at a workable mesh density, give it a try.

More info here:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=71265

Thanks for the link. I've been using Decimation Master (and the equivalent function in 3D Coat) for a while but DM doesn't hold that last fine level as well as either the full res mesh or maps. Great for some things though, but doing it with vray proxy is working okay.

I'll post my current result soon.

b

[simmsimaging]

Posted the first result and the workflow on this thread:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?48329-Vray-and-Zbrush-Mudbox-workflow-broken-pieces-images

We figured out what the issue with the rotation of the proxies comes from: on export the guruware exporter defaults to "flip z/y" axis so that most programs receive the models with correct orientation. On import Max defaults also flip this back. The proxy importing doesn't do this. Would it be possible to add that option to the VrayProxy mesh import, or maybe to have that as an option in the ply2vremesh.exe program?

I notice that using the right-click "convert to vray mesh" option on existing scene objects will automatically take care of the rotation - it's just when you manually load a vrmesh that this is an issue.

b

[vlado]

Thanks for the pointer; will add this as a wish for ply2vrmesh

Best regards,
Vlado

[walee]

i always found that for a still image the hassle to go through having a displacement map was not worth the trouble. Especially regarding the rendering time of the displacement part versus having the whole original mesh which renders way faster in my opinion (but maybe i'm doing something wrong with the displacement ).

[simmsimaging]

So far this is proving true for me as well. However, there are some issues with using Decimation Master and really detailed textures. DM mangles uv's a bit so unless you are able to UV *after* decimating (which can prove troublesome because the meshes are often still very high res for that, and a mess of tris) it's not usable for detailed work.