Mudbox/Mari Tiled UV Textures

[irobert]

I noticed VR2.0 for Maya has "Automatic support for both Mari- and Mudbox-style tiled textures - automatically load the correct texture bitmaps depending on the UV tiles of the rendered object."

Is there some documentation or small tutorial on how to set this up. Am I correct to assume that i can select the first texture in the chain, for example shirt_u1_v1.tif and VR will read the rest of the textures without loading them into maya? (shirt_u2_v1.tif, u4,u5 ect)

I attempted to load in a model with multiple UVs and had no success in automatically loading the texture files.


Thanks!

[jasonhuang1115]

Same here. I am using Beta 2. By loading the first tile (_u1_v1) into the file node and render, the area of other tiles rendered black. According to the change log:
"Support for Mudbox style UV tiles using "<UVTILE>" string in the bitmap file name;"
Where exactly should we place the "UVTILE" text in the file name? middle? end? A short description here or in the doc. will be really helpful.

Also, is this feature supports multi-tile displacement maps as well?

[irobert]

Mari names the UV tiles this way - mapName_0101.tif, mapName_0201.tif. I will try renaming my Mudbox textures to match that naming scheme to see if that will work in vray. But yes some example or documentation on this would be great!

[vlado]

You use <UDIM> in the file name (with the <>) to replace this with the UV tile number Mari-style (which is 1000+(u+1+v*10), so for tile with u=0 and v=0 you get 1011). If you use <UVTILE> then this is replaced with the string "_u1_v1" for tile u=0, v=0 etc. For the latest 2.0 builds, you can also use $U and $V to replace the U and V tile number plus one, or $nU and $nV where n is how many digits you want in the tile number.

Currently only up to 10 tiles in the U direction and 200 in the V direction are supported.

So if your textures are mapName_0101.tif etc, you need to set mapName_<UDIM>.tif as the name;

If your textures are shirt_u1_v1.tif etc, you need to enter shirt<UVTILE>.tif as the file name, or shirt_u$U_v$V.tif

Best regards,
Vlado

[jasonhuang1115]

Thanks a bunch, Vlado. Will try and let you all know how it goes later.....

[pxm-vray]

Did the behaviour change in the 2.0 compared to 1.5sp1 nighly builds?
I am using the 1.5 build 14024 and for the first tile (u0, v0) <UDIM> comes back with 1001 not 1011..
By the way this doesn't work properly with VRay Standalone (same version above). The image renders fine initially but then crashes every time with this error.

[2011/Apr/20|08:06:38] error: Unhandled exception: Rendering; last marker is at
line 1428, file "./src/globillummap.cpp": GlobalIllumMap::buildLightMap() {1}

The error is misleading, it's the same even with GI turned off, it's definitely related to the <UDIM> tag because everything is fine if I specify the full path of the texture file.
Vlado I sent you an email about it last week with also a simple scene file that reproduces the error.

[vlado]

By the way this doesn't work properly with VRay Standalone (same version above). The image renders fine initially but then crashes every time with this error.

Yep, this is fixed now for the release; I will get you the fix for V-Ray 1.5 as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

[pxm-vray]

Thanks Vlado

[jasonhuang1115]

Thank you Vlado. Works like a charm here!!

[jasonhuang1115]

The displacement seems not working as I expect. I have multiple objects in Mudbox with their UVs laid out in 4 UV tiles (u1v1, u1v2, u2v1, and u2v2), and paint some simple diffuse and bump maps. I also did some rudimentary sculpting and extract displacement maps.

In Maya, the diffuse and bump maps are loaded and rendered correctly. But for displacement maps, if those tiles are loaded by specifying <UVTILE> in the file name, the displacement seems to be rendered with less amount than if I load each tile individually. For example, if I directly load the test_displacement_u2_v2.exr, the rendered displacement is more prominent than if I load test_displacement<UVTILE>.exr

[irobert]

The new tile system is working great for all the diffuse maps, however I am getting problems with multiple 32 bit floating point exr displacements. Some parts of the model are the correct intensity and some of tiles don't displace enough. I can send a test scene tonight if you need one.

[jasonhuang1115]

The new tile system is working great for all the diffuse maps, however I am getting problems with multiple 32 bit floating point exr displacements. Some parts of the model are the correct intensity and some of tiles don't displace enough. I can send a test scene tonight if you need one.

I am having the same issue here, Robert. Have you tried to extract vector displacement maps instead?
I have more predictable result when using vector displacement with a single mesh, but I couldn't extract vector displacement maps for multiple meshes at once.

[irobert]

No not yet, I will give the vdms a try tonight though. I hope they work!

[jasonhuang1115]

No not yet, I will give the vdms a try tonight though. I hope they work!

Good luck! Robert. Let me know if you get it working. I would love to know your workflow and settings.

[irobert]

I did some displacement test tonight with VDMs. They seem to be working and the continuity between tiles is consistent. That said when using multiple UV, the displacement amount seems to be clamping, when using a single map, the model is displacing correctly. Here is a link to the Maya 2012 scene with maps and models for testing.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2081604/VDM.zip



If it looks like I am missing something crucial please let me know.