Polygon mapping in Flame.

[VictorWol]

Hi! I have an object in 3DS MAX with the textures baked on it, so no lighting is needed, I figured out how to have the object with constant lighting in the Flame already, what I cannot figure is how to make the Flame to respect the polygon mapping assigned on the 3DS MAX. Is this possible? I thought this was “Submaterials” but I’m reading the manual, and frankly, don’t find it very useful on this one.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Victor

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

all sorted now right?

[greek]

hi,

flame>action texturing can either use the textures coming along with the 3d objects
> submaterials on + >setup>shading on, replace texture will let you choose an image file for mapping according to the uvw coordinates of the model

or “flame internal” textures (assigned from an action layer)
> submaterial off, >surface>texture set to “wrap” (this will map according to the uvw coordinates)

hope this helps

ciao
robert

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

actually the issue was somethin else…what victor wanted to know more about was the process for exporting from max to flame and how to keep the texturing intact etc etc

[Michael Schlesinger]

rohit wrote:

all sorted now right?

Everything working now, the problem was that I the mapping need to be applied to the UVW in the map ID 1, mine was in map ID 3, and Flame ignores that.

But I found I think some bugs in the import of geometry in Flame, not all the objects comes in the same position as they are in the 3DS file. Also sometimes after being working a while, the textures change and look like if they where 4 bits in color and super low resolution, and I can only fix it resetting the action module and reloading the setup.

Also, if you want to keep the UVW mapping, you need to use submaterial, which is not represented in the action schematic, so you can not alter any aspect of the texture inside Flame. It seems that is not possible to keep the UVW mapping if you connect a texture to the object using the Action schematics. Also another limitation, is that is not possible to use any texture with a depth of more than 8 bits when you use Submaterials, in my case I need to use 16 bits (which Flame can round to 12 I think) because my textures are Lighting textures. I’m using the Baking texture tools inside 3DS MAX to bake Global Illumination and other attributes into my objects, which looks awesome once you export to Flame, but those textures are originally HDR files, so having to lower them to 8 bits, kills a lot of detail.

[Michael Schlesinger]

robc wrote:

hi,

> submaterials on + >setup>shading on, replace texture will let you choose an image file for mapping according to the uvw coordinates of the model

robert

Have to try that again, but when I tried to replace the texture to see it in the schematic so I can color correct it, or use a texture of more than 8 bits, it killed my UVW coordinates comming form MAX.

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

yes if u manually load a texture into a layer it will kill the uv mapping unless its degined to simply wrap around and fit…maybe… 🙂

[greek]

hi,

if you do a replace texture, than it will not show up in the schematic & youre linited to what the image file looks like (no flame cc)
strange though, that assigning an internal action texture should mess up the coordinates – would be a bug, then – be sure to set the texture to wrap mode

ciao
robert

[Michael Schlesinger]

robc wrote:

hi,

then – be sure to set the texture to wrap mode

ciao
robert

Wrap is not the same as UVW, it just wrap the texture on the object, is kind of the Spherical texture in MAX. Wrap do not respect the polygon mapping assigned in MAX. I think what we need to have total control, is to have an option to use an internal map, and have in the mapping coordinates selector, UVW as an option too.

Anyone from Autodesk reading this?

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

which means u have to try and do some tests to see if u can adjust the mapping on the MAX side so that in flame u can simply use wrap…if thats at all possible 🙂

[Michael Schlesinger]

Unfortunately wrap is not an option for this kind of work, it is like the little ship you sent me, each polygon need his own mapping coordinates, if you use wrap, the texture will shrink and look very bad in the poles of the objects, it is a wrap like the name indicates, so some were you have to see the folding of the paper… also when in 3DS MAX you bake a texture in an object, 3DS MAX automatically creates a polygon map coordinates that unwrap the object in many pieces, so each polygon gets a planar map (kind off) so you cannot mess with the texture.

[Saran Sirikasamsap]

well that answers it clearly…maybe try FBX ?

[greek]

VictorWol wrote:

…. if you use wrap, the texture will shrink and look very bad in the poles of the objects, it is a wrap like the name indicates, ….

despite the name, “wrap” just takes the UVW definition from your 3D app – if it behaves as you describe, i would assume, that you didnt assign uvw coordinates there – uvw even enables “multiple” textures by applying different parts of your (one) texture image to the same spot on the object.

it works – though i would admit, that its not very intuitive … 😉

simple very basic example is the ringwave or the famous teapot, which have the grey image with the blueish discreet logo applied overall and as a specific lable – you can check this by replacing the texture with an action internal one, which you will see showing up 2x, once overall + once at the labels position…

hope this makes sense

robert

[Michael Schlesinger]

are you saying that Wrap should behave like UVW with an Action texture if my object have UVW coordinates?

[greek]

yes

[Author]

Posts