I'm glad you corrected my understanding of the normal map "rule", I was indeed under the impression that the relationship between hard edges and shells was a two-way street. I know there are plenty of cases where the distinction doesn't matter but there are plenty of surfaces, like the sphere, where hardening edges arbitrarily based on UVs always seemed...odd? I mean sphere in maya has better lighting/shading *before* we harden any edges so why would hardening an edge fix a problem. And of course it doesn't, it just gives us a seam that the normal map has to now try to 'fix'. It's very interesting, much of the logic people have been spreading about normal maps for some time is basically, "Ignore the shading on your low poly, your map will fix it as long as your high poly is good" and there's an ever-increasing number of reasons why that's just not a great approach.
Thanks, I'm glad you found this video informative. In the somewhat recent versions of Unreal 4 you can use a lot more soft edges than we could two years ago. I found I could bake a cube with all soft edges in Marmoset Mikk tangents and in Unreal there wouldn't be any gradations which surprising to me, I still needed to separate the UV shells, but much better than when we were developing Gears 5.
Because the export high/low rely on the UI to determine what checkboxes you've set you will need to have the UI open for the hotkeys to work. If that okay just leave the UI open and you can use these commands assigned to hotkeys. m341_tbExporter_ExportHigh; m341_tbExporter_ExportLow;
Thanks. Question : Is there any rule that if the Angle between some faces higher than some angle we need make it hard edge. or we can make whole lowPoly as soft doesn't matter with hardedges. (for example can I make a edges in lowPoly cylinder soft including the cap edges are 90 degrees. or what the angle rule that if faces or above some angle we need to make hard and make separate UV shells ).
There is no rule for when to soften or harden edges, but at 90 degrees you'll find you'll get ugly gradients in your normal map for sure. The best way to think about this is make a low poly cube and soften all the edges, in the viewport your cube now looks more like a sphere the way it's shaded. This will bake into your normal map so you need to use one of two techniques. 1. Harden the edges and separate UV shells 2. Bevel the edges and leave everything soft I personally go for less bevels and more hard edges, but that's just me and it depends on what you're making. Some artists have a rule of thumb where they always harden the edge if it's greater than a certain angle, but I just make everything soft first and then bake it and then harden edges to fix ugly gradients in the normal map, I'm not good enough to predict where the gradients will be so I use a trial and error approach with lots of re-bakes and iterations. Basically, if your low poly model has ugly shading on it it will most likely appear in your bake.
Hi, I'm using this tool to export to substance painter, and would love if there were an option not to triangulate the low version, as selecting quads is much easier when I'm using UV-based masking in Painter. Currently I've disabled the triangulate part in the code, but I have to redo that change every time, you release new upgrade.
Technically not triangulating the low should never be done because you'll get triangle mismatch errors after you import your mesh into game and it gets triangulated by whatever render engine you're using and does not align with your quad normal map bake. I'm happy to add the feature though since you're the second person that asked for it. I will be out of town for a week, but then I can update the tool when I'm back. What's your e-mail so I can let you know when it's been updated.
Hello Malcolm! thank you for explaining about normals. But i still cant get my mind around all these soft\hard adges since i am pritty new to 3d. So you first define soft and hard edges and only after you create UV shels based on soft\hard edges? For example, i create sci-fi corridor with pretty complex shapes in terms of edge angles. When I set the 35 degree angle some edges go soft but I need them to be hard. oh maan so difficult to explain what i want due to language barier...(i am russian)
I find the easiest way is to: -Soften everything to start -UV map the model how you like -Bake the model and look for shading errors, where there's an error you can harden those edges and you must separate the UV shell there too -If you're using my easy normals tool you can set the angle to 45.1 and it will automatically harden border edges based on that angle, you can change the value and run the tool again to automatically include more or less border edges based on angle. If you want to include all border edges set the angle to 0. Easy normals is not perfect, it will depend on the shape of your model.
Yes in the latest version you can export animation to the .fbx I don't have a video for how to do it though sorry. Just turn the checkbox on and animation should be included in the .fbx, there aren't any options though it just exports all animation from the scene. If you buy the script and don't like it I can give you a refund, or if you need some extra animation options I can see if I can add those in.
@@dumitrucalughin5114 I believe I just set the fbx export animation flag to on like you would in the regular .fbx settings so it should export anything Maya can export by default into a .fbx file. If you find it's lacking something that you can do through file>export selection I can add that to the tool, but I think it already exports everything. I don't know much about characters or fx so you'd need to give it a try and let me know if it's missing anything.
hello, but to understand all the process to export i've to watch only this video or the first one first --> ( Marmoset Export Toolbox for Maya - Free Update 1) please sorry i tried to understand but as french....not easy thanks ^^"
@@malcolm341 it would also be nice if you we could copy materials applied from entire mesh onto another (Ex: Trim mapping sometimes one mesh in the scene has certain faces for the trim and certain faces for another texture, it would be nice to do it once and then be able to copy it to other meshes in the scene). Possibly have an option for instead of swapping between random MATs you can swap between ones already created in Hypershade.
Malcolm you are the best! I love your AIO package. And you are super helpful. Thanks for being a great tool author.
Thank you.
I'm glad you corrected my understanding of the normal map "rule", I was indeed under the impression that the relationship between hard edges and shells was a two-way street. I know there are plenty of cases where the distinction doesn't matter but there are plenty of surfaces, like the sphere, where hardening edges arbitrarily based on UVs always seemed...odd?
I mean sphere in maya has better lighting/shading *before* we harden any edges so why would hardening an edge fix a problem. And of course it doesn't, it just gives us a seam that the normal map has to now try to 'fix'.
It's very interesting, much of the logic people have been spreading about normal maps for some time is basically, "Ignore the shading on your low poly, your map will fix it as long as your high poly is good" and there's an ever-increasing number of reasons why that's just not a great approach.
Thanks, I'm glad you found this video informative. In the somewhat recent versions of Unreal 4 you can use a lot more soft edges than we could two years ago. I found I could bake a cube with all soft edges in Marmoset Mikk tangents and in Unreal there wouldn't be any gradations which surprising to me, I still needed to separate the UV shells, but much better than when we were developing Gears 5.
This tool makes me want to, finally, switch over to Marmoset, the renaming section alone. Thanks!!
Do it, Marmoset is the best baker.
Hello! Is there way to bind export low and high to hotkeys? (I don't need tweaking settings as default are always fine for me)
Because the export high/low rely on the UI to determine what checkboxes you've set you will need to have the UI open for the hotkeys to work. If that okay just leave the UI open and you can use these commands assigned to hotkeys.
m341_tbExporter_ExportHigh;
m341_tbExporter_ExportLow;
Thanks.
Question : Is there any rule that if the Angle between some faces higher than some angle we need make it hard edge. or we can make whole lowPoly as soft doesn't matter with hardedges.
(for example can I make a edges in lowPoly cylinder soft including the cap edges are 90 degrees. or what the angle rule that if faces or above some angle we need to make hard and make separate UV shells ).
There is no rule for when to soften or harden edges, but at 90 degrees you'll find you'll get ugly gradients in your normal map for sure. The best way to think about this is make a low poly cube and soften all the edges, in the viewport your cube now looks more like a sphere the way it's shaded. This will bake into your normal map so you need to use one of two techniques.
1. Harden the edges and separate UV shells
2. Bevel the edges and leave everything soft
I personally go for less bevels and more hard edges, but that's just me and it depends on what you're making. Some artists have a rule of thumb where they always harden the edge if it's greater than a certain angle, but I just make everything soft first and then bake it and then harden edges to fix ugly gradients in the normal map, I'm not good enough to predict where the gradients will be so I use a trial and error approach with lots of re-bakes and iterations. Basically, if your low poly model has ugly shading on it it will most likely appear in your bake.
I use 3dcoat, this is helpful for that application as well.
Oh cool, good to know. I've made this version more generic with user settings so it could can be used for any baker after exporting out of Maya now.
You save my life again!
That's great!
Hi, I'm using this tool to export to substance painter, and would love if there were an option not to triangulate the low version, as selecting quads is much easier when I'm using UV-based masking in Painter. Currently I've disabled the triangulate part in the code, but I have to redo that change every time, you release new upgrade.
Technically not triangulating the low should never be done because you'll get triangle mismatch errors after you import your mesh into game and it gets triangulated by whatever render engine you're using and does not align with your quad normal map bake. I'm happy to add the feature though since you're the second person that asked for it. I will be out of town for a week, but then I can update the tool when I'm back. What's your e-mail so I can let you know when it's been updated.
Okay I added the triangulate low checkbox, update to the latest version when you feel like it.
@@malcolm341 Thank you very much!
Hello Malcolm! thank you for explaining about normals. But i still cant get my mind around all these soft\hard adges since i am pritty new to 3d. So you first define soft and hard edges and only after you create UV shels based on soft\hard edges? For example, i create sci-fi corridor with pretty complex shapes in terms of edge angles. When I set the 35 degree angle some edges go soft but I need them to be hard. oh maan so difficult to explain what i want due to language barier...(i am russian)
I find the easiest way is to:
-Soften everything to start
-UV map the model how you like
-Bake the model and look for shading errors, where there's an error you can harden those edges and you must separate the UV shell there too
-If you're using my easy normals tool you can set the angle to 45.1 and it will automatically harden border edges based on that angle, you can change the value and run the tool again to automatically include more or less border edges based on angle. If you want to include all border edges set the angle to 0. Easy normals is not perfect, it will depend on the shape of your model.
can i transfer the animation from maya? do you have an example?
Yes in the latest version you can export animation to the .fbx I don't have a video for how to do it though sorry. Just turn the checkbox on and animation should be included in the .fbx, there aren't any options though it just exports all animation from the scene. If you buy the script and don't like it I can give you a refund, or if you need some extra animation options I can see if I can add those in.
@@malcolm341 Character animation with rigging and fx can be exported without problems? or is it simple animation?
@@dumitrucalughin5114 I believe I just set the fbx export animation flag to on like you would in the regular .fbx settings so it should export anything Maya can export by default into a .fbx file. If you find it's lacking something that you can do through file>export selection I can add that to the tool, but I think it already exports everything. I don't know much about characters or fx so you'd need to give it a try and let me know if it's missing anything.
@@malcolm341 thank you verry much!
hello, but to understand all the process to export i've to watch only this video or the first one first --> ( Marmoset Export Toolbox for Maya - Free Update 1) please sorry i tried to understand but as french....not easy thanks ^^"
I recommend watching these two videos before using the tool.
1. czcams.com/video/rTk3KpItl_I/video.html
2. czcams.com/video/r_zs0A6sWEY/video.html
@@malcolm341 thank you very much
very nice
Thanks.
Hi @malcolm341! Please send tbExporter v1.0 link to me!
Sure, here it is gumroad.com/l/NkwzE
is there no cut uv shell shortcut in your toolbox?
Not currently, but we could add cut/sew if you wanted.
@@malcolm341 'cut' and 'move and sew' would be helpful
@@Sportsman134 Okay I'll look into it
@@malcolm341 is there a way to number meshes without the high/low abbreviation? (ex: Floor 1,2,34)
@@malcolm341 it would also be nice if you we could copy materials applied from entire mesh onto another (Ex: Trim mapping sometimes one mesh in the scene has certain faces for the trim and certain faces for another texture, it would be nice to do it once and then be able to copy it to other meshes in the scene). Possibly have an option for instead of swapping between random MATs you can swap between ones already created in Hypershade.