3D Misery...

interfector · Post by **interfector** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 2:11 pm

Hello all.

I am new to both Moho and 3D, but I'm good with plenty of other software and a quick learner. Here's my problem. I have tried exporting 3D objects with textures as OBJ files, but, as with others here, I've not yet been able to see more than the black dots making up the perimeter of my object when the file is imported into Moho.
Using Wings, Anim8or, and more than a few others, I have yet to solve this problem. Now, I understand that, even if I use a lightmapper, multiple texture layers are exported, and Moho cannot handle these. So, what am I to do? Is there a simple way to import a terrain designed by Terrnaim8or and given a single texture? Or can I drop an empty object into Moho and assign a texture for it there? I'm stumped as to how a simple terrain with a stretched grass texture can be imported, as all of the 3D modeling software exports layered texture maps. What am I doing wrong?
In brief, is there any software that supports giving a simple, single texture layer to an object? Maya, or 3DS Max? Quills? Yaargh!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

Yooperville · Post by **Yooperville** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 3:29 pm

Interfector,

You can't currently assign textures to "empty" 3D objects inside of Moho. Here's a link I posted elsewhere that describes the basics of Wings texturing:

http://neoengine.emedia-solutions-wolf. ... pping.html

Hope that helps.

Best -- Greg.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:14 pm

I really would not get hung up on importing 3d into Moho. I think it would be best to consider obj import as a way of getting a structure on which to "attach" vector decorations. As has elsewhere been mentioned, an example would be eyes on a face shape.

I have succesfully imported coloured obj's from Blender, but eventually rejected it in favour of vector art.

interfector · Post by **interfector** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 2:08 am

Thanks very much. I had read the Wings tutorial, but my problem is now multi-tiered.

>"RMB in the UV Editor window and choose either 'Segment by > Projection' or 'Segment by > Feature Detection', or select faces and assign AuvChart materials manually."

There is no option in my version of Wings for such a choice (at least, not in the window he was talking about... I've looked around.)

>"RMB and choose either 'Continue > Unfolding' or 'Continue > Projection'. Refer to the Wings manual for an explanation of the two methods."

Again, in my version of Wings (the latest on their website) there is no such option when I right-click.
Really, all I wanted to do was import a terrain with, say, a single grass texture applied, so I could have my 2D characters run around on a 3D surface, using the cameras to pan around them.
I must say that I am terribly impressed with many features of Moho, especially the ability to control a flat image with bones and zoom while tilting the camera. Depending on the images you use, this effect is a lot like After Effects.
But the one thing I don't want to do is set up layers of grass... I'd rather have a surface upon which a simple image is mapped. If anyone can help me with this, I'll owe you a big favor (and I'm usually good for them).
Also, when I tried exporting an animation at 30fps, it seemed to stagger. Is this because I exported to AVI when I should have just exported BMPs to be assembled later? Or should I nix the broadcast quality and stick with 24 fps? Basically, I'd like to be able to burn my animations to DVD, but also to have them TV ready. I'm not sure if AVI supports higher framerates. Again, any help is appreciated.

Thanks again.

Mike

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:15 pm

Stop me if I,m stating the obvious...

I suppose it depends what youre after, but cant you simple import an image layer and then rotate it in 3d space to give a textured plain to use?

myles · Post by **myles** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:32 pm

Roy wrote:I suppose it depends what youre after, but cant you simple import an image layer and then rotate it in 3d space to give a textured plain to use?

This should work well if you only want a flat terrain (as per Tutorial 5.

.

If you want a terrain with humps and bumps, you'll have to go the Wings3D way.

interfector wrote:Again, in my version of Wings (the latest on their website)

Did you get the latest stable version or the latest development version ?

The tutorial works on Windows with the latest stable version (0.98.22c) - I haven't tried the development version (0.98.26).

Version/About box (click on thumbnail to see full image]

RMB menu (note difference between modelling window and UV window):

Note: You have to segment before you can see the next menu.

Playback opinions (possibly not entirely correct):

Staggering playback at 30 fps is possibly a limitation of your hardware, and may depend on the size (width and height) of your animation and the codec used.

Workarounds include: copying the animation to a ramdisk before playing (if the hard disk speed is a bottleneck - particularly if you don't have a dedicated 7200 rpm AV disk for rendered data), trying different media players, trying different codecs (particularly if the CPU is a bottleneck) and video formats. If the limitation is your video card, you may need to reduce the size of your render for on-screen playback - higher resolutions may possibly still burn to DVD (MPEG) and playback on a DVD player okay, even if you can't play them in realtime on th PC.

Regards, Myles.

7feet · Post by **7feet** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 1:35 am

One other thing to check. I don't have Wings on the computer I'm at, but it may be one of things you will only see if you have the "advanced" mode turned on in the preferences. Could be all wrong, but you might try that.

--Brian

Barliesque · Post by **Barliesque** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:48 am

Here's a simple way to make a lumpy terrain in Wings3D, without even needing the UV mapper. I'm using the last stable version (0.98.22c) but this should work with ANY version from the past year or two.

NOTE: You will see a different context menu in Wings3D whether you right click on an object, or on empty space. In all cases below, click on empty space.

ALSO NOTE: If you don't see the options mentioned below, then as 7feet mentions above, click on the "Edit" menu, choose "Preferences" and click on the "Advanced" tab. Make sure that "Advanced Menus" is selected!

- Choose OBJECT mode (Press "b")
- Right click, and choose "Image Plane..."
- Select your new flat grassy ground plane

The new plane will be oriented like a wall, rather than a floor, so...
- Select the plane object
- Right click, and choose ".Rotate." then ".Z."
- Press TAB, and enter 90 degrees

Wings only makes solids, but we really only want a one sided object, so...
- Press space to deselect, and change to FACE mode (Press "f")
- Select only the underside of the plane
- Right click and select ".Material." then "_hole_"
The underside of this 'solid' object will not be exported now.

- With the object still selected, change to EDGE mode (Press "e")
- Right click and select "Hardness" and "Hard"
- Now go back to FACE mode
- Smooth the object three times (press "s" three times)
- Now change to VERTEX mode (press "v")
- Right click and choose ".Crumple" then ".Normal." and make it good and lumpy (left click to finalise)
- Now back to FACE mode
- Smooth it once or twice more
You may see bits of the blue underside poking up through the landscape. Don't worry about this--again, those faces won't appear in the exported object.

- If your hills have flattened out, then selected the whole object and scale it along the Y axis
- Save it and export it! (and be sure to click "Export" rather than "Export selected" with nothing selected, or you'll export an empty file, like I just did. Argh!

...One more thing... if you wanted to have that texture tiled, then you'll need to take a quick stop into the UV mapper...

- With the object still selected, change to OBJECT mode
- Right click, and choose "UV Mapping"
- Right click in the AutoUV window, and select "Scale" then "Uniform"
- Press TAB and enter "200%" to have the texture tiled 2x2 times
- Close the UV Mapper

Barliesque · Post by **Barliesque** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:53 am

Now, having created my own landscape object, I'm seeing some problems with it in Moho.

The system that makes lines along edges seems to be causing various polygons to disappear. I'm also seeing major problems with the way the texture is spread across the landscape, with strange effects between where I tiled the texture... I've e-mailed Lost Marble with a copy of the model for study.

interfector · Post by **interfector** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:02 am

Thanks to everyone who responded. I mostly sorted out my problem of texturing and importing. Here's how, for anyone who wants to try this. I started by creating a random terrain in Terranim9or, which, as the name suggests, is a freeware terrain generation plugin for Anim8or. Then, after exporting the terrain with Anim8or, I imported it into Wings. The tutorial was right about texturing. It still wasn't giving me the unfold options, maybe because it was too complex an object, but I guess it wasn't necessary because it textured nicely. Next, I exported to OBJ after applying the texture, and everything was going well until I imported it into Moho. It took me roughly 10 minutes to pull the object from one side view to another, just to set the motion as a single keyframe. Then I remembered about triangulation, after which I realized (thanks to a guy on another board) that if you export the object as a 3DS file in Anim8or and then re-import it it triangulates rather nicely. Drop the result over to Wings, re-texture, and bingo. Glides around smoothly, and the silkiness of the exported AVI is beautiful, complete with tilting and rotating camera. As for the other concern, here is a something that may or may not be a glitch (and since I'm a newbie, I'll let you guys sort this out): when you start a project in Moho, if the project settings are at their default 24 fps and you make changes to the timeline, you cannot change the framerate to 30 fps and expect a file that doesn't jitter (at least, that was the case for me). Likewise, if you don't finish the export and you attempt to play back the incomplete file the result is much the same. Thanks again for everyone who took the time to respond.

Post by **Lost Marble** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:11 am

If you AVI movie is stuttering, it has nothing to do with Moho. Once your AVI movie is exported, there is no connection anymore to Moho. The smoothness of AVI playback depends on a lot of things: the dimensions of the movie, the speed of your computer and hard drive, the compression codec used,...

What is the resolution of your exported AVI file? And which codec are you using? The default codec is Uncompressed, which will generate hude files that I wouldn't be surprised to see stutter.

Barliesque · Post by **Barliesque** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:12 am

Great news! Not only have all of the problems I mentioned above been sorted out for the next update of Moho, but a method of simulating multi-texturing will come along with it. That update is expected sometime next week!

Here's an animation of a landscape object I constructed using the method described above, which I then lightmapped using an excellent application called gile(s)

http://www.lostmarble.com/misc/giles/grass.mov

Hope you don't mind me sharing this LM

interfector · Post by **interfector** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 5:42 am

I think you're right. The times when the renders ran smoothly were also when I used compression. Sheesh, and thanks for pointing that out. Here's an idea, though, if no one's thought of it. For all the people with limited processing power, it would be nice to have the option to turn textures off in the preview, just leaving the wireframe, so that the cameras could be animated more quickly. Anyway, not sure what such a changeover would require, but I'm sure it would be useful in reducing the burden of real time 3D.

Post by **Lost Marble** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 6:18 am

interfector wrote:Here's an idea, though, if no one's thought of it...it would be nice to have the option to turn textures off in the preview...

Actually...in the "Display Quality" popup at the bottom-right of the editing window, un-check "Images". This will stop Moho from drawing all images - this includes image layers and textures on 3D objects.

If you want to just turn off the textures on a single 3D layer, go to the "Current Layer" popup to the left of "Display Quality", and un-check Images there.

With either of these settings, the images/textures will still be rendered and exported, they will just be hidden in the editing view.

Update: the textures seem to not get rendered when this option is turned off - that's a bug that will be fixed in the 5.0.3 update. These settings should only apply to editing mode, not the final render.

interfector · Post by **interfector** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:32 pm

Wow... this program does it all. My renders are going great, importing backgrounds from Terragen with sweeping 3D hills in the foreground. My characters are going to have a lot of fun with this.

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