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Help Needed Texturing Car Model/Mesh from Maya 2018 to DAZ Studio using 3D Coat

White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
in Daz Studio Discussion

I  have been pulling my hair out trying to texture a car model I created in Maya 2018.  My intention is to import it into DAZ Studio 4.12 eventually but I am having a problem with getting myself a workflow. 

I created the car with all of its separate engine parts, chassis, wheels, interior and so on so that I may rotate the wheels, the steering, hide parts of the car, and I have tried different methods with 3D Coat.  I have the paid version of 3D Coat.  I have prepared and cleaned up each Object in Maya and exported it accordingly as an .OBJ file.  For example, I exported the engine block and then imported that into 3D Coat using "UV Map Mesh" option from the main menu.

Typically, I then fix the UV Map in the "UV Room" of 3D Coat to tidy it all up, and make it look good. as I know to sell models on DAZ, the UV maps have to be neat and tidy not all tiny fractured areas scattered all over the map.  I then go to the "Paint" room in 3D Coat, and apply my materials and colors.  I then import another car part such as the fuel tank, and I do the same thing fixing the UV Map and applying the color(s).  After doing this with several separate OBJs, I consolidated them into one UV Map by moving them all to it, and arranging it.  This is not so easy I found out.  I have used 2048 X 2048 for the main car body upper and lower, plus the trunk and hood.  Then I have used lower resolutions for the engine, wheels and so on.  I'm finishing up with a whole-lot of UV maps!  Way too many it seems compared to the models I have bought from DAZ.  I can see how it slows down 3D Coat the higher the resolution the UV maps become.  If I reduce them all to 64 X 64 things move faster, but then when I bump them back up, I have to re-color the separate objects in most cases.  I know that this is not meant to require a 3D Coat Tutorial or anything, I just need a method that I can work with.

This is all because I want to have moving parts on the car model in DAZ Studio as a Prop, or to be able to switch off various options like the roof, or access panels so it appears to me that I can't just have one mesh, or one OBJ file for everything, unless I am mistaken?  If it was one mesh then I could probably use the "Vertex Painting" option for importing the OBJ?  But if I attempted to paint the car as a whole, i.e., just one object, all one blob of mesh, that has all the engine, wheels, body and so on, then how is it possible to get at all the difficult to get to areas such as the interior of the cabin or around the details of the engine?  Turning and twisting the model around, zooming in and out, and then supposing I was able to do that, and I finished up with a fully textured car model using the Pixel Painting method, then what about exporting and importing it to DAZ Studio?  If I understood things right, any OBJ/Mesh model part in DAZ has to be UV mapped to look good, and if you wanted to sell your item on DAZ. Everything must be UV mapped... is that correct?  If that is true, then how would I handle the model I just textured using "Vertex Painting" in 3D Coat?  

It comes down to, I have a 3d mesh of a car that is created from lots and lots of separate mesh objects, and I want to just make it sellable in DAZ Studio format.  I don't care how I do it, but I just need to find a method that works as I have just put off finishing the model because I can't get it textured.  I also don't have a super-powerful PC,  I am using a HP laptop with a NVIDIA graphics card built in.  I have used an external powerful NVIDIA graphics card for a desktop PC connected through the Express Bus.  I have only 8GB of RAM, and the processor is a an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.6 GHZ Penryn, a 1TB SSD drive.  Is my machine just too slow to do a project like this? Or, is there a workflow that would get me through this maybe just exporting the parts individually from Maya and importing into DAZ an object at a time, and then putting everything into a hierarchy parenting and grouping as needed?  Then, applying materials and color inside DAZ without bothering with UVs for the most part, only utilizing them in areas that they are totally needed like for tire treads and multi-colored areas of an object.

I am not sure what to do?  I know that many others here have done this stuff a million times over and are MUCH more proficient than me at doing this.     

Please, please help crying

Comments

  • Faux2DFaux2D Posts: 456

    The OBJ file contains vertex information, UV information, and material information (also vertex colors, normals, and so on but let's not focus on that). All vertices (or polygons) need to be arranged in an UV map. The UV map then has to have a material applied to it which means 1 UV map per material. You can store 1 UV map for each polygon in an OBJ provided each polygon is its own material. The UV map is a subset of the material.

     

    White Rabbit said:

    Typically, I then fix the UV Map in the "UV Room" of 3D Coat to tidy it all up, and make it look good. as I know to sell models on DAZ, the UV maps have to be neat and tidy not all tiny fractured areas scattered all over the map.  I then go to the "Paint" room in 3D Coat, and apply my materials and colors.  I then import another car part such as the fuel tank, and I do the same thing fixing the UV Map and applying the color(s).  After doing this with several separate OBJs, I consolidated them into one UV Map by moving them all to it, and arranging it.  This is not so easy I found out.  I have used 2048 X 2048 for the main car body upper and lower, plus the trunk and hood. 

    UV maps have no resolution, or it has infinite resolution depending how you look at it. An UV map is a 2D projection of a 3D object but in essence it's just a 3D object minus one coordinate. Textures have resolution and they are just what's overimposed on the UV map. If you modify your UV's after you created textures for them you ruin the poistioning of the UV's on the texture map. First make the UV maps how you want them then add the textures.

    Vertex colors are not textures. Vertex colors have nothing to do with UV maps or textures. I don't even think Daz can read vertex colors. Vertex colors can be transfered to a UV map texture using projection, this is called "baking". Vertex painting is mesh resolution dependant because it can only color vertices.

    Are you aiming at adding solid colors as textures to your model? If so you don't even need to UV map the OBJ. Just assign a material to each part then add a texture (1x1pixels)  to it in Daz or just choose a solid color from the pallete.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,347

    UV maps have no resolution, or it has infinite resolution depending how you look at it.

    Strictly there is a resolution limit imposed by the precision of the numbers used, but it is very high.

  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    fuzzums_wuzzums_b2d044dcdb said:

    Are you aiming at adding solid colors as textures to your model? If so you don't even need to UV map the OBJ. Just assign a material to each part then add a texture (1x1pixels)  to it in Daz or just choose a solid color from the pallete.

    First of all, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.  I really appreciate the help. For the most part, I will be adding solid colors for like the parts like the main body panels, wheels, and  most of tne engine parts.  There are some exceptions such as tire tread patterns, certain areas on the inside areas that need to maybe have two colors. The main body does need to have some thin pin-stripes added in ceratin places.  I was concerned that I would need to UV map every part of the car for the DAZ market, unless I am mistaken?  Also, I heard somewhere that you get a better result if the parts are UV mapped. Is that correct?

    It sounds like in reality, I could just do like you mentioned, and apply a material and then a texture or color in DAZ Studio for most of it.  Maybe just certain parts create a UV map?  That would sure speed up the process and get the job done instead of getting myself totally buried in UV mapping which has really bogged me down. 

    I got myself confused in 3D Coat I think, as it allows you to change the resolution of the maps to 64, 512, 1024, 2048 and so on.  I was thinking that this could be changed up or down without losing information, which is not the case as the information is lost if you go down in scale as you mentioned you can't chnge the resolution once assigned and used.

    Thank you so much again!

  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    Richard Haseltine said:

    UV maps have no resolution, or it has infinite resolution depending how you look at it.

    Strictly there is a resolution limit imposed by the precision of the numbers used, but it is very high.

    It starts to make sense now.  Thank you too Richard.

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