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Help! Complex mesh > Clean > Reduce > Make Normal Map.
Skills
I've dabbled in Maya (and Blender) and wrote low-level rendering experiments to display the classic Elite ships: https://codepen.io/SarahC/pen/QqobmO?editors=1010
So my experience is broad, but very limited. Full of holes - like my meshes! hah!
My model versions
Here are my models, the original, the "fixed", and the "reduced".... recording the disaster one step at a time:
Where the model came from
I'm using the Angel tutorial model.
Why I want to simplify the mesh and make a normal map
I plan on uploading my own models to sketchfab - as I'm using a free account, I can't upload my own scans raw - as they're massive - check out the vertices in this monster from the 3DF team:
https://sketchfab.com/models/2e83fb6...258537b126d4f9
As you know, Zephyr makes huge polygon count meshes as you can see from the link, so I plan to reduce the polygon count, and add a normal map. It'll be fun to work it all out.
I thought a good basis for sorting out the massive meshes down to something I can upload would be by using the tutorial model - as that's going to be the best-case model I can expect to create when I make my own.
Experience so far
I've spent the weekend (and last weekend) learning the steps I need to do this in Maya 2018 for the mesh simplifying (it can simplify small areas too, which will be very useful) and I've found I hit glitches almost at every step.
When I import the Angel mesh into Maya - I can't "reduce" the mesh because there's non-manifold geometry. So I go into "Cleanup" and select the "Remove non-manifold geometry.
Sometimes at this point - the UV's get stretched!
Other than that the model looks fine after this step.
I then hit "Reduce" with the options all at default, apart from the reduce-percentage, which I set to about 80%.
At this point I then see holes in the mesh! HOLES! Now I'm typing this up and thinking it through, is this because the non-manifold geometry removal left holes, and didn't close the gap?
I've tried filling this model's holes, and carrying on with "Substance Painter" using the high poly mesh and the low poly mesh to bake myself some normal maps.
You might be laughing at this point at the tragedy of it all, but as you can imagine..... the normal maps are blank.
Finally - the last step I haven't properly got to yet is the normal map baking in Substance Painter:
This is the video of the high/low poly mesh workflow I'm trying... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEixVr6elpw
I'm using this one because I don't need a bounding box for the model, and one less step is great for me due to my lack of skills.
I mention it because I might be needing to do something specific in Maya for Substance Painter, but I'm so ignorant I don't know so I'm throwing this in too.
I've dabbled in Maya (and Blender) and wrote low-level rendering experiments to display the classic Elite ships: https://codepen.io/SarahC/pen/QqobmO?editors=1010
So my experience is broad, but very limited. Full of holes - like my meshes! hah!
My model versions
Here are my models, the original, the "fixed", and the "reduced".... recording the disaster one step at a time:
Where the model came from
I'm using the Angel tutorial model.
Why I want to simplify the mesh and make a normal map
I plan on uploading my own models to sketchfab - as I'm using a free account, I can't upload my own scans raw - as they're massive - check out the vertices in this monster from the 3DF team:
https://sketchfab.com/models/2e83fb6...258537b126d4f9
As you know, Zephyr makes huge polygon count meshes as you can see from the link, so I plan to reduce the polygon count, and add a normal map. It'll be fun to work it all out.
I thought a good basis for sorting out the massive meshes down to something I can upload would be by using the tutorial model - as that's going to be the best-case model I can expect to create when I make my own.
Experience so far
I've spent the weekend (and last weekend) learning the steps I need to do this in Maya 2018 for the mesh simplifying (it can simplify small areas too, which will be very useful) and I've found I hit glitches almost at every step.
When I import the Angel mesh into Maya - I can't "reduce" the mesh because there's non-manifold geometry. So I go into "Cleanup" and select the "Remove non-manifold geometry.
Sometimes at this point - the UV's get stretched!
Other than that the model looks fine after this step.
I then hit "Reduce" with the options all at default, apart from the reduce-percentage, which I set to about 80%.
At this point I then see holes in the mesh! HOLES! Now I'm typing this up and thinking it through, is this because the non-manifold geometry removal left holes, and didn't close the gap?
I've tried filling this model's holes, and carrying on with "Substance Painter" using the high poly mesh and the low poly mesh to bake myself some normal maps.
You might be laughing at this point at the tragedy of it all, but as you can imagine..... the normal maps are blank.
Finally - the last step I haven't properly got to yet is the normal map baking in Substance Painter:
This is the video of the high/low poly mesh workflow I'm trying... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEixVr6elpw
I'm using this one because I don't need a bounding box for the model, and one less step is great for me due to my lack of skills.
I mention it because I might be needing to do something specific in Maya for Substance Painter, but I'm so ignorant I don't know so I'm throwing this in too.
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