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Délé
Member
Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 6
Location: MN, USA
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 Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:26 am Post subject: Material Problems |
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Hi guys,
I just downloaded DeleD Light today. I have a few different modeling apps but couldn't get a good workflow into Torque with any of them. So I'm looking into this to help get me up and running in Torque.
Anyway, the program seems pretty straight forward and I think I'm catching on to how things work pretty easily. I am having quite a bit of difficulty with materials though. For some reason it seems to break a lot. I tried creating a simple cube and applied different materials to it to get the hang of things. After a short time though it won't let me change materials (or at least it doesn't update in any of the views). The texture in the UV map view also doesn't seem to update when I select a different object with a different material applied. Also when I import an obj file with the plug-in, I can't seem to apply any material at all.
Am I doing something wrong, or is the material editing just really buggy right now?
Thanks,
Délé
p.s. The "Délé" name is just purely coincidental. I've used that name in different forums for years as my website is deledesigns.com.  |
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Délé
Member
Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 6
Location: MN, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:14 am Post subject: |
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Ok, I'm figuring out a little more. Looks like if the materials stop updating properly, I can just create a primitive, delete it, and it seems to start working again.
I'm still having trouble applying materials to obj files though. It looks like it does apply the material, but it will only show as a color in the 3d window. It doesn't show the actual texture. If I export the object with the Torque exporter, the proper texture is saved with the object. So I think this program might work for me, but I really need to get it to show the texture so I have good idea what I'm exporting.
Has anyone else had success viewing textures on an obj file model? Any tricks to get it to show properly in the 3d window?
Thanks,
Délé |
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Paul-Jan
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 3066
Location: Lage Zwaluwe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:25 am Post subject: |
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Hi Délé, welcome to these forums!
We have no known issues with faulty material updates, so this is very interesting. Let's try and get to the buttom of this!
To me it sounds like you are working with an .OBJ that doesn't have proper texture coordinates, or perhaps the UV coordinates where somehow lost / corrupted during import.
The reason why textures would show up in Torque is that the exporter is 'smart': if it encounters texture coordinates it cannot convert (for example, because they are all equal to 0,0) it will export a simple planar mapping scheme in stead.
Try setting Auto UV to true for the primitive (select it, right mouse button, properties, set Auto UV to TRUE), and see if the texture appears. |
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Paul-Jan
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 3066
Location: Lage Zwaluwe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:37 am Post subject: |
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As for the other issues you reported:
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| After a short time though it won't let me change materials (or at least it doesn't update in any of the views) |
That's very strange, anything particular you did in the meanwhile? Any tips on how to reproduce this behaviour are most welcome!
Just one note: make really really sure you are on the latest graphics drivers for your particular video card. We have seen some issues in the past with views not updating with drivers with faulty OpenGL support (ATI).
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| The texture in the UV map view also doesn't seem to update when I select a different object with a different material applied |
As every individual face in a primitive could have a different material, the texture shown in the UV Editor might not update until you actually select a face in that second primitive. The actual uv map (faces) shown should immediately update (disappear, in this case).
However, you are right that this isn't very intuitive. I am making a note that we should improve this behaviour. Feedback on the UV editor is most welcome, as it is a relatively new component within DeleD. |
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Délé
Member
Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 6
Location: MN, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Paul-Jan,
Thanks for the welcome.
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| Try setting Auto UV to true for the primitive (select it, right mouse button, properties, set Auto UV to TRUE), and see if the texture appears. |
Yes, that works. I'm assuming that resets the UV's? Here is a little more info on what I was doing. I want to use Silo for some modeling as I like the workflow of sculpting with a displacement brush and then retopologizing (for objects like statues and such). I was thinking of using UVmapper Pro to do the mapping. So the test that I did with DeleD was I made a cube in Silo, UV mapped it with a basic cubic projection with UVmapper Pro, then imported it into DeleD as an .OBJ file. It seems for some reason that the UV's aren't making it into DeleD though.
I also tested the .X and the .3ds import. .X seemed to have the same trouble as .OBJ but .3ds worked perfectly (textures and all).
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That's very strange, anything particular you did in the meanwhile? Any tips on how to reproduce this behaviour are most welcome!
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The materials seem to be more stable now. Not sure what was happening. All I was doing is testing different materials. After trying 4 or 5 different materials on an object it stopped updating. It is working just fine now though, so I'm not sure what was happening.
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| Just one note: make really really sure you are on the latest graphics drivers for your particular video card. We have seen some issues in the past with views not updating with drivers with faulty OpenGL support (ATI). |
Ah, I am using an old driver for my Nvidia card. There was a really bad bug introduced into the drivers after 78.01. I think it was fixed around 83.41 or something, but another bug was introduced that messed up post process effects. So I've been staying at 78.01 until a suitable driver gets released. I haven't tried it for a while though, so maybe I should check where they're at now. Perhaps things are working better.
| Quote: |
As every individual face in a primitive could have a different material, the texture shown in the UV Editor might not update until you actually select a face in that second primitive. The actual uv map (faces) shown should immediately update (disappear, in this case).
However, you are right that this isn't very intuitive. I am making a note that we should improve this behaviour. Feedback on the UV editor is most welcome, as it is a relatively new component within DeleD. |
Ah, yeah that works. That makes sense now that I think about it. Not all objects have one texture.
The material creation/application seems pretty intuitive to me. It didn't take much for me to figure it out. The only suggestion I have right now is to have some way to import texture files into folders from the UI rather then having to manually place them into the folders from outside of the application (though having the ability to do it manually is nice too). Something like right clicking in a library and selecting "import image file". Then browse to the desired image file and that file would get copied to the appropriate folder. I think something like that would be handy.
I've been doing 3d modeling for a few years but I'm just getting into the game stuff so I'm not real familiar with some of the file types. Is it possible to have a bump or normal map with a .map file? If so, can DeleD do this? I'm thinking that it would be nice to have normal maps on things like statues and such to add detail.
All in all, I think I'm getting the hang of DeleD without too much trouble. I am used to using one big 3d window and widgets/manipulators so it took a little time to figure out how to select and move things around. Perhaps this setup is better for creating levels though. I'll have to play around with it for a while and see how it works.
Oh, I should probably mention that I have been getting a few crashes. All of the crashes happened when I was using the import plug-ins. I think it crashed once or twice on all three imports, .OBJ, .X, and .3ds.
I do have to say that the Torque Exporter seems to work brilliantly so far. It can't get any easier then one click.
Thanks for your help Paul-Jan,
Délé |
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Paul-Jan
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 3066
Location: Lage Zwaluwe
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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Indeed, setting AutoUV to TRUE automatically applies DeleD's default planar mapping scheme. Any UV coordinates present are lost.
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| I also tested the .X and the .3ds import. .X seemed to have the same trouble as .OBJ but .3ds worked perfectly (textures and all). |
Interesting. I'd really like to take a look at that .OBJ and .X file if that's ok. Would it be possible to send them to paul [at] delgine [dot] com? I know for a fact that the .OBJ importer sets the UV coordinates to AutoUV unless it encounters actual UV values . So it must have found them and misinterpreted, or perhaps they are not exported from UVMapper Pro correctly.
I like your suggestion about having some way to import textures from other locations on the disk as well. We are kinda happy with the way the current workflow forces you to keep all textures together in the DeleD texture folders, but making the life of the user more convenient with some way to get the textures there sounds like a good idea.
About .map files: the .map file format in itself only supports simple textures, and this is all an engine like TGE supports. However, some engines like TSE have a separate material format that allows you to create separate material definitions outside the map file. TSE shader support might very well be included in a future version of the exporter (this might or might not go hand in hand with an extension of the built-in DeleD material support).
About the crashing importers: We have no known issues, but the importers are not used much as DeleD itself, so you might have stumbled onto a bug or two. If you figure out a way to make such a crash reproducable (or have a model file that will make it crash), please let us know so we can fix it! |
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Délé
Member
Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 6
Location: MN, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:54 am Post subject: |
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I sent a zip file to you with a few different cubes. One was exported as .X from trueSpace with a cubic projection. One was exported as .OBJ from trueSpace with a cubic projection. And the last was saved from UVmapper Pro as .OBJ with a cubic projection. I noticed that straight out of Silo, the OBJ file gets the same results. I also noticed that I get the same results with any of the OBJ files (like the dragon) that came with DeleD LITE. The textures will not show up properly an any of them until I set the Auto UV to True as per your suggestion.
As for the crashing I can't really give a 100% repeatable pattern. It crashed again today when I tried to import an OBJ. I think it seems to happen when I double click the actual file to open it, though it only seems to crash about once out of every 10 to 20 tries.
I have to say, I've looked around the forums a bit and I'm impressed with how aggressive you guys are at squashing bugs. In a lot of other packages you don't see much of this outside of the inner circle of beta testers.
| Quote: |
| About .map files: the .map file format in itself only supports simple textures, and this is all an engine like TGE supports. However, some engines like TSE have a separate material format that allows you to create separate material definitions outside the map file. TSE shader support might very well be included in a future version of the exporter (this might or might not go hand in hand with an extension of the built-in DeleD material support). |
That is interesting to know. Thanks for info.
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