How does Texture Atlas work, how do you use it?

nokoteb99

So according to the manual
1. Load Charac, Clothing etc
2. SElect all figures and body parts
3. Startu p Texture Atlas
4. Adjust Heigh Width/ Acccept settings and Generate map
5. Name the UV Set, SEt the Path to the image folder, Set the WithHeight and File format
Then Select Texture Maps to Create, then Accept settings

That's interesting but what if i do that with a character i have saved in a file. or whatever. Then what is the Path to the image folder supposed to be.???? The same as where the DAZ file is?

And also i'm planning to export to FBX for Unity and before i export I'm also planning to use Decimator.
so what is the path to the image folder supposed to be? I have to create a path where?

And what is the "Name the UV set" I don't really know what that even means.

Richard Haseltine

The path to the image folder is the place you want to put the new maps.

nokoteb99

Thanks richard. So, the exported FBX in my Unity project, no matter where i put it will know the Path to the Texture?

Daniel Barnett

I'd would like to know how to startup Texture Atlas.
Thanks!
dbb

nokoteb99

dbbdaniel said:

I'd would like to know how to startup Texture Atlas.
Thanks!
dbb

WIndow menu/Worksspace/Customize.

In the actions(left side) Scroll to and expand Texture Atlas.
Drag the texture atlas atlas to the tool bars tab on the right. Wherever you want to see it.
For example the user that gave this tip( in the daz forum actually but i found it lately) said he put it in the Create Menu.

Anyways, but when i go to create Menu there's nothing there regarding Texture Atlas.
But for some reason my texture atlas icon/button ended up being in the Actors, Wardrobe Props tab
after i dragged it as explained above.

Daniel Barnett

nokoteb99 said:

dbbdaniel said:

I'd would like to know how to startup Texture Atlas.
Thanks!
dbb

WIndow menu/Worksspace/Customize.

In the actions(left side) Scroll to and expand Texture Atlas.
Drag the texture atlas atlas to the tool bars tab on the right. Wherever you want to see it.
For example the user that gave this tip( in the daz forum actually but i found it lately) said he put it in the Create Menu.

Anyways, but when i go to create Menu there's nothing there regarding Texture Atlas.
But for some reason my texture atlas icon/button ended up being in the Actors, Wardrobe Props tab
after i dragged it as explained above.

Thanks - it's coming back to me now!!!
dbb

kapynvne_328bc2e563

After using texture atlas you can usually consolidate many of the surfaces into a single surface (because they all use the same texture). This is useful if importing into a game engine like unity when you want to minimize draw calls.

The way I do this is to select the geometry editor tool and then go into tool options tab (select several of the surfaces) and add them to a single surface.

I find for V4 you can get away with 4 surfaces, (cornea, eye surface, tear, (body/ everything else).

Daz is very unstable during this process and tends to crash a lot when deleting the redundant surfaces with 0 faces assigned. So save often.

nokoteb99

kapynvne said:

After using texture atlas you can usually consolidate many of the surfaces into a single surface (because they all use the same texture). This is useful if importing into a game engine like unity when you want to minimize draw calls.

The way I do this is to select the geometry editor tool and then go into tool options tab (select several of the surfaces) and add them to a single surface.

I find for V4 you can get away with 4 surfaces, (cornea, eye surface, tear, (body/ everything else).

Daz is very unstable during this process and tends to crash a lot when deleting the redundant surfaces with 0 faces assigned. So save often.

Thanks for the information.

If i use Texture Atlas will the problem with V4 or characters being imported to Unity with White eyeballs(no texture)and nontrasparent eyelashes be fixed?

because i am currently just trying to import them wihtout doing Texture Atlas and my V4s have white eyes and Nontransparent eyelashes.
Long time ago when i used Unity, i figurred out how to fix it manually but it was a tedious process.

nokoteb99

I did the TextureAtlas. :)
It's great but it didn't solve the transparency problem. Any tips on how to fix it?

As you can see in unity, the Eyesurface and cornea are transparent but even so, the textures don't become transparent

kapynvne_328bc2e563

I initially had this issue, but it is solvable. The eye uses transparency where as all the other body parts don't.

Therefore export your V4 from daz and make sure you keep the eye as a separate surface(s).

In unity you need to select the imported texture (for opacity) and tell the program it should be used as a transparency map.

Do this by selecting the imported texture (left click) and in the inspector select texture type (texture), alpha from greyscale (tick) I also have alpha is transparency ticked.

Here you can also ensure that unity does not immediately downscale the texture by selecting max size (2048) which is the max size texture atlas will allow you to export.

Now in the mesh (skinned mesh renderer).

select Shader : transparent/Diffuse for the cornea + eyelash and select the transparency map which should now look transparent in the preview rather than greyscale.

for the rest of the body use a Diffuse texture.

Hope this helps it took me a long time to get it right but it does work.

nokoteb99

kapynvne said:

Therefore export your V4 from daz and make sure you keep the eye as a separate surface(s).

What exactly do you mean? I just do the Texture Atlas thing. And then i export as FBX. So i dn't know how to keep the eye as a separate surface.

nokoteb99

Hey, i did some experimenting . And i kind of achieved some results but the Eyelashes didn't work.

This is what i did. I imported the FBX and the textures from Texture Alias are there in the folder.
I click the Opacity Texture and i don't know if i understood well what you said but i changed it to TEXTURE Alpha from Grayscale
and check "Alpha is transparancy"

Then i select the Eyes from the hierachy. They eye lashes are also selected. And then i look in the inspector and i drag the Opacity Texture to both the EyeSurface and Cornea and set both to Transparent/Diffuse

That seemed to worked for the eyes.
But not for the eyelashes and
i'm thinking i know why.

Cause There is no heading "EYELASHES" like there is one for EyeSurface and Cornea.. So i can't drag the Opacity texture to the eyelashes.
Why isn't there a section for the eyelashes in the inspector of this v4?

Anyways, is my technique close to yours?

nokoteb99

Hi I just want to say i got everything to work. Thanks. Now i have eyes and eyelashes. I had to change MODEL tab naming...So that the lashes would appear and i could drag the Alpha Opaciy texture to that inspector section.

Now my last problem which is not related to this trhread but it's about exporting clothing dresses that animates,
is that i was able to animate my character with dress by exporting FBX with the MERGE CLOTHING TO FIGURE SKELETON option checked. and it works descently except the clothing is too close to the body and does has all kinds of poke throughs.
and since it's merged...i can't Scale it up.

nokoteb99

How exactly do you Texture Atlas an entire environment.

Because when i do, immediately there is a change in the original textures and it seems for example the floor and the houses take on the texture part of other parts. For example the floor takes on some house texture or something. Look at these pictures.

1.first is original, with nice pavement road
2. second is when i applied Texture atlas( size 2048 x 2048 or i have also left it at 512 512). notice how messy it is. and notice how the floor texture is no longer what is supposed to be.

(Edit: merged to keep the info in one place and added title of the other thread to this post to make it understandable.)

johann.hesters_2e9dd0ece9

@nokoteb99

Can you explain how exactely you keep the eyelashes a separated mesh when exporting the model?

Thank you very much!

worldpeace2040

kapynvne_328bc2e563 said:

The way I do this is to select the geometry editor tool and then go into tool options tab (select several of the surfaces) and add them to a single surface.

 

Hello,

May I ask where is the tool options tab you are referring to in the geometry editor?

I've already created a single texture atlas, but I couldn't figure out how to make all the surfaces using that one single texture.

 

 

Richard Haseltine

Window>Panes(Tabs)>Tool Settings - its contents change depending on the active tool.