Texture Atlas issues
Zywack
Posts: 0
Short version: Does Texture Atlas work in any shape or form in Daz 4.0 and 4.5?
Long version: I was playing around building a new outfit for the Supersuit when I had a genius idea. I have an hobby project I'm leasurely working on, for which I am lacking some assets. I remembered that Daz offered a Decimator, a Texture Atlas and an fbx exporter, so that might be the perfect solution to my problem.
The Supersuit is incredibly costumizable, flexible and pretty fun to make outfits for. Not only that, but it's surprisingly low polygon comparatively: The entire suit is 15k polygon, compare to the usual 22k for a single boot. I don't know if it decimates well (I don't own the decimator right now), but a low base polygon count does look promising. Before purchasing the decimator, I decided to test the other parts.
What I was less certain about is if the Texture Atlas would work with something as complex as the Supersuit since it has an insane amount of materials. I tried it and the results were pretty bad. Unfortunate, but not too unexpected.
However, I then tried the texture atlas on a basic Victoria 5 figure: No clothing, no modification of any shape or form. The texture atlas still did a bad job and added some white lines. I did a search and saw a single post stating that the "texture atlas is still broken on genesis figures" and nothing more.
So I tried to do a test with a Victoria 4.2 figure, using the V4_LOD_4k resolution level that comes with Daz... And the textures broke again. I tried changing the weights and using 2048x2048 but the results were the exact same.
I can't get the Texture Atlas to work on anything, not even a basic Victoria 4.2 figure with the lower usable LOD... Am I doing something wrong, or is the Texture Atlas simply unusable in it's current state? I included before-after pictures to show what is happening. It'd be extremely thankful for any information you can offer: From the tests I ran, everything else worked perfectly (including an exported genesis + supersuit in motion), it looked very good and would it definitively solve my last asset issue.
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I resized your images. While we wait on auto-sizing to come back to the forums please limit image attachements to a maximum of 800x800 in size. If you need a larger image than that, link to an offsite service.
Thank you.
Regarding your problem, it looks as if you don't have the right UV set selected to go with your textures. There should've been an "AtlasUVs" UV set created. You need to make sure that's selected for every material zone on V4 on the surfaces tab.
Oops, sorry for the image size. Before posting I did do a quick search in the "New Forum TOS" thread and I didn't see an image size limit. My bad.
I just checked, and my UV set is actually already set to "AtlasUVs" for every part (I checked each item one by one). If I change it to "Default", I get a frankenmonster pretty much. Just to confirm I went to the right place: I select Victoria, click on "Surfaces (Color)" at the bottom left, click "Editor" on top left, select a body part on the left, and scroll down until near the end for the propery "UV Set" located between "Lighting Model" and "Smooth". If that was the right place, is there any other setting I can try that might help the situation?
Edit: I just read your thread and watched your video about UVs. While it was for 3.0 instead of 4.0/4.5, things are mostly similar and it does seem to point that I am using the AtlasUVs (except for the results anyway). If I use the Texture Atlas on a Base resolution Victoria 4 figure, it actually works flawlessly. The problem only happens if I use it on the 4k LOD one. I added a screenshot of my settings, alongside with the content of the texurtreAtlas folder (The typo is present in the offered default path). For reference sake, I did pick "Diffuse", "Opacity" and "Bump" as the only options, in TIFF format (Picking all the options will have no change in the result). If I change back the Resolution Level on the right to "Base" the image will look fine, but it's obviously not a valid option since I will be back with a 65k polygon Victoria figure instead of a 4k one.
Did you use the Texture Atlas on the texture while it was on the base v4 or on the 4k lod v4?
I used it while on the 4k lod v4, but I also tried when I was on the base resolution: There's absolutely no difference in the end result if I use the Texture Atlas when I have either the base or the 4k LOD selected beforehand. I just did another try to be 100% certain and it's unfortunately the same. When I'm on the 4k and I try an export, it does state that the model has 3872 polygons so it seems to be working (Well, you can see the difference visually too). The model still has 68498 vertices according to the export tool, though.
There's also a strange quirk with setting up the LOD in version 4.5. I have version 4.0 on one computer and version 4.5 on another, and the processus seems a bit buggy in 4.5.
In version 4.0: I import a Victoria 4.2 from the Content Library. In the Power Loader menu, under "Mesh Resolution", I tick "Load Level of Details" and also tick the 4k version. After the figure is loaded, I can simply click on Victoria and on the right toolbar click on Parameters, Mesh Resolution, Resolution Level and select the 4k lod from the drop down menu and everything works perfectly fine with the new 4k figure beside the Texture Atlas.
In version 4.5: I import a Victoria 4.2 the exact same way, but under Resolution Level, there's no option beside Base even though I selected to load some in the power loader. The only way I managed to get the 4k LOD loaded is by doing:
a) Click on Victoria, go to Edit->Figure->Geometry->Add Level of Detail, select V4_LOD_4k.obj from the DAZPeople folder and select a name. Let's say "T1" for example.
b) Click on Victoria, change her resolution level to T1. There's no visual changes to the model (or export values), but this step is required for the process to work.
c) Repeat step a, but call the new LOD T2.
Suddenly, the figure will be at a functional 4k no matter which Resolution Level I pick. Even if I return the Resolution Level to base, the figure is going to stay with the 4k version both visually and with export data. If step b is not done, then step c won't do anything beside adding a new item in the Resolution Level pulldown (which does nothing).
The strange thing is, even though in one case the procedure is smooth and in the other it's pretty roundabout, the result I get in both 4.0 and 4.5 is EXACTLY the same after using the Texture Atlas. For example, the tear lines on her legs are in the exact same position in both versions on both computers.
Using the Texture Atlas on a brand new Victoria 5 genesis figure actually has the exact same issues, and in this case there's no LOD switching or anything of the like. Simply loading a Victoria 5 model and going straight away to the Texture Atlas will result with tearing at the tights, the armpits, the spine and the back of the head, exactly like with the 4k Victoria 4.2.
I did a quick test, as I was playing around with TA as well the last weeks.
I have no white lines with the default settings. I just loaded Genesis, put a texture on it and used texture atlas without any changes. It works nice without lines. However I remember I had these as well and it was because I used JPG instead of the default TIFF. My guess it is the conversion and compression into JPG. If that is your issue, I would export in TIFF and compress to JPG in Photoshop or Gimp etc. I guess the output then should be much better.
I have been using Tiff for most of my tests, although I did also try .jpg and .png (Exact same result in all cases).
Following what you said, I did try a few more things and there's been some interesting results. While I couldn't get Victoria 4 working at all (the base LOD one works but not the 4k one), I did get some limited success with Genesis.
If I load a Victoria 5 figure and use the texture atlas, I'll have white lines as usual. If I load the Default Lana skin on the figure, it actually works as it's supposed to. I tried the whole processus again one time with a simple nightgown and another time with the full Magus outfit. In both cases, it did it's job perfectly: The only difference visually was that the clothes textures were now a bit more muddy which is normal considering the lower resolution. The supersuit still didn't work but that's not too surprising considering how many texturable areas exist on it.
From the Genesis skins I have, the default Victoria and Gaby don't work. The sample Lana and Alisha both work. Is it maybe because the resolution of the Victoria and Gaby skins are too high and the Texture Atlas can't handle it? It wouldn't explain why I can't get Victoria 4 to work with the 4k LOD version, though...
EDIT: A bit more information... I tried importing the V4_LOD_4k.obj file directly and manually assigned the textures to each part and then used the Texture Atlas. It worked fine. This means that the Texture Atlas can process that skin correctly.
So everything seems to point toward the Texture Atlas trying to use the Base resolution instead of the V4_LOD_4k one as Adamr001 mentionned. You can see in the first image that has been posted that I do have the right resolution selected, at least to the best of my knowledge... Is there any other place I could/should specify the resolution beside the one under Parameters so that the Texture Atlas would use that one?
Having exact same problem as AyraWinla.
Running DAZ Studio 4.5.0.49 Pro Edition (64-bit) with Texture Atlas version 1.2.0.49.
Using Genesis figure, specially the Michael 5 (the preset under 'People').
Loaded Texture Atlas, used the default settings, 512x512 image size, original image weights of '1'. Image format is JPEG.
Clicked 'Accept', suddenly got white lines. So I double checked the model UV set, confirmed it is using newly created 'AtlasUVs'.
Something I am doing wrong? Does this happen for anyone else?
I captured a video example to highlight my issue.
YouTube Example
File a bug report or a feature request at bugs.daz3d.com. It's not entirely a bug in that there just is no option to select a different UV from the default.
Edit: actually it seems it is fixed in a future version of DS, 4.5.0.109: https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=44448
Correct. I have confirmed that it is indeed fixed with version 4.5.0.90.
YouTube Example of Fix
If you have the new version, you can fix the old version so texture atlas will work properly with Genesis. I used a virtual machine to install the new version so I wouldn't have to uninstall the old version. You might want to try that or use another machine or even uninstall and reinstall ( what an absolute pain). Anyway, this is what you do.
Load genesis in the new version and put on one of the preset textures on it ( Jeremy etc.). Run texture atlas, auto arrange and accept. Make sure the genesis mesh is set to base resolution and no subdivision. Export genesis as an object with its new atlas uv's - call it fixeduv's.obj or something. In the old version, load the uv's from t his object
(surface tab menu > load uv set). Call it fixeduv's or something. Run texture atlas on Genesis. It will looked all messed up. On Genesis, change the uv set to the set you loaded ( fixed uv's). There you go- everything is fixed. Now save the UV's so you wil alway have them - save as>support asset> dsf uv file.
Maybe some nice person at Daz will just make a fixed version of the uv file available so people don't have to jump through these hoops.
Im wondering how much render time do you save using TA? Id like to export my model to another program
but its too big and hope that by using TA it will decrease the polygons to something more manageable for a 3rd party program