3D Minicomp: Fantasy Olympics: Voting Booth Now Open

[geidsvig]

Congrats everyone! Those are some awesome entries!
Thanks for the tut Walrus, I'll experiment with your texturing approach for sure.

[Aftermath]

Great Tutorial Walrus!

[Draxxuss]

make sure to use padding... this is your texture bleed. without it you will have the texture hug the uvs and need to push it over manually... which is the SLOW way. One thing to remember is always take the texture from the area you have designated in the "selected element common settings" slot. browse to it and use that one in photoshop. If you simply use the one rendered out by clicking "save bitmap" in the render window, you will not have the correct map as there is no bleeding rendered there. This is an important thing to note.

Hope that helps guys.

[dudidam]

congrats to all. the comp are getting better are more fun!
thx for walrus and Draxxus. and Deto too. your answer about the UV's bleed really help me here. got trouble with that too, and my solution usually fix it on photoshop. gotta try it soon. hope to see you guys again on the next comp!

[walrus]

Terrific! Thanks, Draxxuss!!!

[Draxxuss]

no problem guys.. waitiasec.. Did I just help you to make better and quicker models, Walrus? darn it... I take it all back!

[seven]

Congrats on finishing peoples!

@walrus: awesome tut man
@Draxxuss: helpful as always!

[Japhir]

i still tend to use texporter for some base colors, and that always ends up way too precise (black edges). so i render it out with the alpha included, copy only the color to your psd. duplicate the layer, select the bottom one and go filter>other>minimum. then merge them back together.
but for bakes the same as draxxuss obviously.

[DreameR]

silent_fox was my favourite.

well done to all

[walrus]

Okay, now hold on, I need you to explain something, Draxxuss: You say to "always take the texture from the area you have designated in the 'selected element common settings' slot," but every time I try to open one of the output files, it's empty. Blank. The only way I seem to be able to use anything at all is to save the file that's rendered out in Max... which as you noted does not ever include the padding. Any clue why the Render-to-texture never seems to work for me and forces me to save the file rendered on-screen? Thanks!

[Deto]

Actually, I got a problem with that too. Normals come out good, but others come as blank...

[Mike_K]

No idea would be really useful to know though, atm I just use the paint bucket and spam fill to push out the borders which works alright

[Draxxuss]

I'm making a little tutorial as I type this. will post in a bit.

[Draxxuss]

1. Create a sphere (make sure generate mapping cords is checked on otherwise throw an unwrap on it)
2. add a few lights of different colour just so you know where each lights is affecting the surface. It doesn’t matter where you put them.
3. open the render to texture box by pressing “0” (zero)
4. Reselect the sphere. You will see it in the “Objects to Bake” section probably named Sphere01.
5. Increase padding to 5 pixels. This usually is enough of a “bleed” if you resize your texture later on.
6. skip projection mapping and mapping coordinates should be on “Use Existing Channel” as the sphere has UV’s mapped.
7. In “Output” press “Add” and select LightingMap from the window that opens.
8. In Selected Element Common Settings make sure Enable is checked otherwise it won’t save. Feel free to rename the Name. Under File Name and extension you will probably see “Sphere01LightingMap.tga”. Press the “browse” box next to that to locate a familiar area for your texture that you are rendering. This is where you will locate the texture for use in photoshop.
9. Choose “Diffuse Color” in Target Map Slot. This will let you see the newly rendered map updated on your model.
10. Choose any size you want. Obviously the larger it is the longer it will take to render so since this simply a test use 512x512.
11. press f10. At the bottom of the window there are Preset options. Use 3dsmax.scanline.no.advanced.lighting.draft for this tutorial.
12. With the sphere still selected, press Render now.
13. In the render window that pops up you should see the newly created lighting pass. For purposes of this tutorial, press “save bitmap” rename as “renderview.tga”. We will use this for comparison in photoshop.
14. You will now have 2 newly created files. One should be named “Sphere01LightingMap.tga” and the other “renderview.tga”. Open these in photoshop.
15. At first glance they are similar but you should notice the definite colour difference immediately. The colours on the renderview are what you see in the viewport as the light is affected by the surface colour of the sphere. The colours on the Sphere01LightingMap are the true colours from the lights you have created. The other things you should notice is the UV edge at the top of the texture. The renderview texture follows the UV edge and the Sphere01LightingMap has colour that bleeds past the uv edge the same number of pixels you have set in the “Padding” slot. You can test this out by cranking up the padding setting to high amount like 20 and it should fill the rest of the texture space. When you do that you will notice the render window appears unchanged but when you open up the new texture you will see the change. The colours now bleed right out to the edge.
16. Now you have a lighting map that can be applied to your master PSD for you object or character. Use it as an overlay or linear burn or whatever you want.

I hope this helps.

**sorry for the order the shots came in... I"m sure you'll figure it out.**
-pic of simple sphere with a few lights
-comparison pic of padding versus no padding
-pic of settings
-pic blown out padding fills the texture sheet to the edges.

[dudidam]

sweet, draxxus! just tell us everything that you got here... lol
thanks a bunch!

[Draxxuss]

I edited the bottom of the posting to include a brief description of each shot... I was just too lazy to label them in PS.

[SeanW]

Great job bro, thanks!

[walrus]

Okay, now I see a few small things I was doing wrong, just a check-box here and there. So your walkthrough was really helpful. But don't think of it as giving me a competitive edge: consider it giving my wife and son a few more minutes with me per contest!

[Draxxuss]

yah.. you don't need any extra "edge"... your stuff is Good. See that? I even dropped a capital G on that one! I'm glad you are around cuz you're making me push harder. thanks for that.

[YdoUwant2know]

Great work all around, congrats to all those that finished.

And thanks for the tutorials that have been coming out of this comp as well.