Warhammer 40K Dreadnought - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 16 27-08-2004 , 10:31 AM

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Some gr8 texturing there!

Watch Space Wars at www.3dden.co.uk now!
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# 17 27-08-2004 , 01:40 PM

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Originally posted by sjlocke
Hi,

Do you manually lay out uvs on this many parts, or do you just paint in a 3d package?

sjlocke

Originally Posted by

Hi Sjlocke, yes I've laid out the UV's manually before texturing in Photoshop.

Thanks,
Trev

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# 18 27-08-2004 , 01:53 PM

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Geez, that must have taken forever! Any tips?

I don't feel that people go into enough about technique on these boards. There's just a lot of "Cool render" and stuff. Any details and tips would surely be appreciated by all.

sjlocke

www.digitalplanetdesign.com

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# 19 27-08-2004 , 02:45 PM

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I'll run though how I do it: hope it helps user added image

Well to select the faces on detailed sections I hold down 'o' (ohh not zero) on the keyboard and the Left mouse button in the viewport - from the menu that appears I goto 'selection' then 'faces' - this allows me to 'paint' the faces I want without selecting the faces on surfaces behind (hold down shift to add faces, ctrl to remove faces you dont want in the selection). You can also change the size of the brush which is useful.

After I have the faces I need I then create a 'Quick select set' by going to the 'Create' menu then 'Sets' and 'Quick select set', then I name it something like 'faceRside'.

This allows me to create quick select sets for say each side of the head for planar mapping and if something goes wrong I dont have to try and reselect all the faces, I can just right click on the set and 'select set members'. user added image

- I have used planar, sphere and cylinder mapping so far.

Once I have the UV's laid out I assign the a phong or whatever to the object and create a PSD texture in Maya. This allows me to specify the size of the map and what attributes I would like (e.g. bump, diffuse etc).

Then the texturing takes place in photoshop. Maya creates layer sets in Photoshop for Colour, Bump, Diffuse, Specular Colour and Reflectivity (this is for a phong). I start with the Colour layer then from this I work out where I want the highlights for the Diffuse and reflectivity layers. Where you have to be careful is the bump layer its very sensitive, but simple to use - 50% gray is flat - down to black is lowest depth and up to white is the highest on the bump map. user added image

Hope this helps those that are starting out (and not offend those already in the know) - I myself have just finished a 10 week course on Maya at Escape Studios in London, so I am still very much on the learning curve! user added image

So I would also be gratful for any tips.

Thanks,
Trev

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# 20 27-08-2004 , 03:23 PM

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Last image for my day! A test comp to get some ideas flowing (I hope!). user added image

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# 21 28-08-2004 , 06:05 PM

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You've done a really good job on the model and textures Trev, I can't wait to see the finished product! I'm also interested to see how you're gonna break it apart. I'm working on a little something myself and now I know you're gonna be on this board I'll post a few pics soon and hopefully you can give me a few pointers....

Keep it up dude, your pal and fellow "escapee"

Q. o_O

Last edited by Ridaq; 29-08-2004 at 12:32 AM.

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# 22 03-09-2004 , 01:07 AM

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Q, Good to hear from you!! user added image

I look forward to seeing some of your work so get posting!!

Quick Update:
Arms complete - working on the legs at the moment - they should be done tomorrow.

user added image

Having a bit of a problem with rendering at the moment - My machine keeps running out of free memory and not loading the textures so the renders get aborted! user added image

I can render the arms, torso and leg separately but not as a whole. user added image

Trev.

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# 23 05-09-2004 , 07:31 AM

EvoxReloaded

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are you using a workstation?? more mem or a better graphics set...

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# 24 05-09-2004 , 09:25 AM

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Hi EvoxReloaded,

No workstation I'm afraid! user added image

My PC specs are:
AMD 2500XP @ stock
1.5 GB Ram (PC3200) @ 333
NF7-S mobo
ATI 128mb 9800 Pro @ stock
Maxtor 120GB + Deskstar 40GB
MS XP Pro SP1

(All apps + non essential processes closed except Maya or Smedge for renders)

Heres some info from Maya after trying to render:

Output Window
Automatic near/far clipping values: 0.1, 2885.77.
Constructing shading groups.

Generating shadow map for spotLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 2807.28
Rendering current frame.
Glow: Filter Width = 23
Resolution = 0.638943
Halo: Filter Width = 57
Resolution = 0.260847
====================================
Cause of memory exception
====================================
7.992 Mb Free Memory
2048.000 Mb Free Swap
16.000 Mb Size of alloc
10.000 Mb Low Memory Threshold
====================================
Memory use when exception was thrown
====================================
====================================
831055 Page faults
1204.539 Mb Max resident size
1507.625 Mb Peak total size(Estimated)
480.332 Mb Peak arena size
====================================
1539.684 Mb Current
26.875 Mb MEL
6.985 Mb Arrays
0.047 Mb Pixel Map
0.313 Mb Data Blocks
23.334 Mb Render Cache
405.334 Mb File Texture Mipmaps
0.750 Mb NURBS AG
0.013 Mb Render Geometry Arena
0.619 Mb Object Arrays
0.125 Mb Transforms
====================================
Frame triangle count: 115722

====================================
Resource Usage At End Of Frame
====================================
422 Page faults
1507.625 Mb Peak total size(Estimated)
464.332 Mb Peak arena size
====================================
1539.695 Mb Current
26.875 Mb MEL
6.985 Mb Arrays
0.047 Mb Pixel Map
0.313 Mb Data Blocks
23.334 Mb Render Cache
405.334 Mb File Texture Mipmaps
0.750 Mb NURBS AG
0.013 Mb Render Geometry Arena
0.619 Mb Object Arrays
0.125 Mb Transforms
====================================
Time For Tessellation (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Shadow Map (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Post Process (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Frame Render (hh:mm:ss): 00:02:20
Finished Rendering C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/My Documents/maya/projects/dreadnought/images/torsotest04sep2_perspShape_tmp.iff

------------------------------------------------------------

Script Editor
Scene optimized (Removed invalid NURBS Curves and Surfaces, Removed unused NURBS curves, Removed unused constraints, Removed unused pairBlends, Removed unused deformers, Removed unused groupID nodes, Removed unused animation curves, Removed unused snapshot nodes, Removed unused unit conversion nodes, Removed unused rendering nodes, Removed empty transforms, Removed empty display layers, Removed empty render layers, Removed empty sets, Removed unused referenced items, Removed unused brushes, Removed duplicate shading networks) - see Script Editor for details.
defaultNavigation -dtv -d Bolts.normalCamera;
// Result: fractal1 //
defaultNavigation -dtv -d Bolts.normalCamera;
// Result: fractal1 //
// Error: An error has occurred. Rendering aborted. //
// Error: An exception has occurred, rendering aborted. //
// Warning: Failed to open texture file C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/My Documents/maya/projects/dreadnought/sourceimages/NR_EngineFIX.psd //
// Error: Free memory is low. Memory exception thrown //

MayaRenderLog
Rendering current frame.
Glow: Filter Width = 25
Resolution = 0.638943
Halo: Filter Width = 63
Resolution = 0.260847
GlobalAlloc: Bad file descriptor
Error: Free memory is low. Memory exception thrown
====================================
Cause of memory exception
====================================
6.113 Mb Free Memory
2048.000 Mb Free Swap
16.000 Mb Size of alloc
10.000 Mb Low Memory Threshold
====================================
Memory use when exception was thrown
====================================
====================================
946347 Page faults
535.723 Mb Max resident size
1815.430 Mb Peak total size(Estimated)
526.213 Mb Peak arena size
====================================
1847.535 Mb Current
480.000 Mb File Texture Mipmaps
3.125 Mb MEL
5.467 Mb Arrays
0.750 Mb NURBS AG
20.000 Mb Render Cache
0.007 Mb Render Geometry Arena
0.434 Mb Object Arrays
0.313 Mb Data Blocks
0.125 Mb Transforms
====================================
Warning: Failed to open texture file C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/My Documents/maya/projects/dreadnought/sourceimages/L_arm_tex1.psd
Error: An exception has occurred, rendering aborted.
Frame triangle count: 87240

====================================
Resource Usage At End Of Frame
====================================
122 Page faults
1815.430 Mb Peak total size(Estimated)
510.213 Mb Peak arena size
====================================
1847.535 Mb Current
480.000 Mb File Texture Mipmaps
3.125 Mb MEL
5.467 Mb Arrays
0.750 Mb NURBS AG
20.000 Mb Render Cache
0.007 Mb Render Geometry Arena
0.434 Mb Object Arrays
0.313 Mb Data Blocks
0.125 Mb Transforms
====================================
Time For Tessellation (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Shadow Map (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Post Process (hh:mm:ss): 00:00:00
Time For Frame Render (hh:mm:ss): 00:06:38
Finished Rendering C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/My Documents/maya/projects/dreadnought/images/torsotest04sep1.000.iff

------------------------------------------------------------

Error: An error has occurred. Rendering aborted.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the above is when rendered from the Maya GUI, and the result is this:
user added image

When rendered from Smedge I get this:
user added image

(but still missing sections) user added image

The textures are made up from 11 PSD files(1024 maps + 3 2048 maps) and they range from approx 1mb to 52mb.

I did a search on Google and it seems a known issue. So I tried the following:
OptimizedRender so that Maya could BOT the textures - Cached the texture files, removed all lights and replaced with one spot light (with DepthMap Shadow at Dmap filter 3) but the problem still occurs.

I think as you suggested I may need more Ram (or render on a Unix it seems!). I'll try and render over my network today with Smedge and see if that works.

Any other suggestions would be great! user added image

Cheers,
Trev

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# 25 05-09-2004 , 02:58 PM

EvoxReloaded

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Well Ram would be the best... Maybe a workstation grakka with at least 256mb(or 512) of texture mem..I would go with a matrox card or a wildcat.. it will work fine in a pc.. do you have more than one rig?? If so use them both together to render your scene. Spider 1.6 is a good net renderer.. BTW ill give you my Indigo Workstation for your 9800.. lol

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# 26 05-09-2004 , 05:19 PM

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BTW ill give you my Indigo Workstation for your 9800.. lol

Originally Posted by

Thanks for suggesting Spider, I've heard good things about it. user added image

Cheers,
Trev

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# 27 06-09-2004 , 04:11 PM

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those 10 weeks did great user added image

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# 28 06-09-2004 , 05:43 PM

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Well, you have a Gig and a half of Ram... I would think that'd be plenty. Have you tried rendering at a smaller resolution?

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 29 07-09-2004 , 03:15 AM

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those 10 weeks did great

Originally Posted by

Hi Ransick - user added image

yup!

Have you tried rendering at a smaller resolution?

Originally Posted by

Hi Mtmckinley - Yup, tried 320x240 (largest res I was trying for was 720x576) but still had no joy user added image

...but with the help of some chaps at Escape Studios (cheers fellas!) it was suggested to drop the psd textures and use tiffs for the bump,spec,colour etc - and it renders (seems to render quicker using tiffs than when the psd's were working too)! user added image

I kept the texture files the same size e.g 2048 but just saved out the psd layers as tiffs and used the tiffs in Maya normally.

Thanks,
Trev

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# 30 12-09-2004 , 02:38 PM

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Thought I'd put a Marine into the scene user added image

Started yesterday so still have much to do. The lower legs need to be moved forward slightly and maybe rotated slightly to match the upper leg angle.

Cheers,
Trev

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