Multi Tile UV Workflow from Zbrush to MARI 2.6

[D3K17]

Hello!

We have been trialing AT2 for about a month now and are all but sold. Our game uses highly detailed 4K texture maps for a majority of our environment. AT2 has not only decreased the build size of our game from GBs to just a mere several hundred megs but has also substantially increased performance marginally. Gone are the days of waiting countless seconds for play mode to start and in game sprinting and or teleporting has no lag spikes anymore.

On to my question. My modeler / texture artist just started learning MARI, for the sake of getting even better quality out of her amazing models. She is attempting to give me some test multi tile patches to try, but I can't seem to figure out where we might be going wrong. Our normals were baked from ZBrush, (from a high poly), and our model is a low poly. In MARI she uses the high poly to paint on. The model was UV'ed in Headus UV Layout, to make the 3 patches. We have 3 UV patches for one of our enemies. While the first patch maps correctly, it seems like instead of using / finding the other patches, it repeats the same patch for the entirety of the model. Perhaps you could point me into the right direction of solving this / getting it working?

Following the guide in the manual, it seems like I've set things up right, but perhaps I need to separate the patches into their own folders? Here are a few pics to help -

Belly is correct here, but the legs and top of body are getting the wrong patch
(Uncut version here: http://gyazo.com/c64d6f28179fe927858ddea3e1e97d38)

The patches in Unity, I am using hoarder-DIF1001 and hoarder-NM1001 for the specified patch in the material

My Virtual Texture


It's the last thing on our list to try before purchasing. Also could you once again re-iterate when you think AT2 will be released (and the early adoption discount dropped?)

Thanks!

[Ricardo Teixeira]

Hello,

Thank you for evaluating AT2, we really appreciate it. We are very happy to know that AT2 improved your workflow and overall performance. Looks like an interesting project, do keep us posted we would love to know more about it. With Multi-Tile UV's you will definitely take it to the next level, regardless of the number of tiles used it will be considered to be a single texture.

You are on the right track, you only need to make a small correction in the naming convention used. There is no need to separate channels per folder but you will have to add the "." separator before the UDIM tile number, this can be easily setup in the MARI export options or by renaming the existing files.

In your particular example renaming and rebuilding the virtual texture will solve the issue you are experiencing:
hoarder-DIF.1001
hoarder-DIF.1002
hoarder-DIF.1011
hoarder-NM.1001
hoarder-NM.1002
hoarder-NM.1011

Let us know if this works for you, you could also be experiencing some sort of UV related issue, we would be happy to help if that is the case. We are currently working on Mobile Support and we are very close to an official release. Stay tuned, we are aiming at June for an initial release.

Thanks!

[D3K17]

Hi Ricardo,

Wow, thanks - that was it. The patches now work beautifully. Out of all the things I would have thought would have been the issue, the file names were the furthest from my mind. Looking back on it, I'm sure I could have figured this out by looking closely at the file names in the tutorial pictures, but really - it is so seldom that file names matter as long as the characters aren't illegal!

I had another question. With this same workflow, how does this work with Alloy. I am looking to get into trying that out but I am unsure on how multi-tiles work with the texture packer that alloy uses. Would you just pack all the various patches and AT2 takes care of the rest, is it more involved, or is this not something that is possible right now?

Thanks again!

[Ricardo Teixeira]

Hello,

It's easy to miss, happy to know that it solved the issue. We look forward to your project, any additional screenshots you could share privately via email?

AT2 is Alloy ready, we work closely with the RUST folks in order to assure the best compatibility and performance. The Alloy material packer works for single textures but unfortunately not with Multi-Tile UV collections, this is something that is planed and will be available in the near future.

I struggled with this limitation in the past but since my Assets were finalized in MARI I was able to export large multi-tile collections with packed maps. Would you be interested in trying that out? I'm going to make a tutorial on that soon.

Let us know if you have any additional questions, we would be happy to help.

Thank you for evaluating AT2.

[D3K17]

Ah, interesting. We would love to try that out. Also any material you would deem fit to helping better / improve workflow from either MARI or ZBrush to AT2 would help tons. We would like to get the absolute most of the plugin and what it has to offer.

Sure! We are still a bit far from initial pre-alpha, but I could show you a test scene I have been working on using AT2, it amazing how much detail we have been able to pack in with the help of AT2. We really stepped it up when we found this plugin. I actually had skimmed over it a year ago (as we also own Motion and Color) but I didn't understand it or saw the benefits for our project. I think I was also too confused about what was AT1 and the new up and coming AT2. After upgrading the quality of the game and revisiting our options to continue to have a smooth running experience, I realized what a grave oversight I made. Funny part was - I am actually a huge fan of John Carmack, RAGE and the MegaTexturing system they used.

How can I contact you? Truly thank you for offering this amazing piece of tech.

[D3K17]

After a bit more testing, we realized our emissive maps aren't lining up quite right on the patches as all the other maps do. Do you have any clue as to why that is happening?

Also is it possible to port a shader to work with AT2? If so what are the procedures involved in doing that?

Thanks!

[Ricardo Teixeira]

Ah, interesting. We would love to try that out. Also any material you would deem fit to helping better / improve workflow from either MARI or ZBrush to AT2 would help tons. We would like to get the absolute most of the plugin and what it has to offer.

Awesome, it works great with Alloy but it can be applied to any other type of shader package as long as it's supported. Consider subscribing to our Youtube channel for immediate updates. We will also add more content to our tutorial page in the near future.

MARI - Exporting Tiles With Custom Chanels (RGBA) for Metallic & Specular Workflows: Youtube Video

Sure! We are still a bit far from initial pre-alpha, but I could show you a test scene I have been working on using AT2, it amazing how much detail we have been able to pack in with the help of AT2. We really stepped it up when we found this plugin. I actually had skimmed over it a year ago (as we also own Motion and Color) but I didn't understand it or saw the benefits for our project. I think I was also too confused about what was AT1 and the new up and coming AT2. After upgrading the quality of the game and revisiting our options to continue to have a smooth running experience, I realized what a grave oversight I made. Funny part was - I am actually a huge fan of John Carmack, RAGE and the MegaTexturing system they used.

How can I contact you? Truly thank you for offering this amazing piece of tech.

Looking forward to it, feel free to contact me directly at [email protected]. No worries it's understandable, we are very happy to know that AT2 is working for you. We eventually discontinued AT1 and we will soon remove/merge all the information available into a single product.

Pre-Ordering AT2 provides users with access to the latest full version(no watermark), source code and private forum access.

Thanks for evaluating AT2, we really appreciate it.

[Ricardo Teixeira]

After a bit more testing, we realized our emissive maps aren't lining up quite right on the patches as all the other maps do. Do you have any clue as to why that is happening?

Also is it possible to port a shader to work with AT2? If so what are the procedures involved in doing that?

Thanks!

Unfortunately, emissive virtualization is not yet available; this also excludes Multi-Tile usage. It's something we definitely want to support in the near future but we do not have an official date for its availability. I will register your request and we will let you know as soon as it's available.

Yes, you can convert almost any type of shader. Conversion information and examples are available in the AT2 Manual, chapter 14.

Let us know if you have any additional questions, we would be happy to help.

Thanks!

[D3K17]

Ah! I completely missed that part of the manual! Sorry!

That explains things. Thanks for that video, I will pass it on to my modeler/texture artist. Thanks. Will send you a mail then.

One last thing, I tried the second normal map on the normal Unity 5 Specular shader and the same issue exists with the emissive. Is this also not supported?

Thanks!

[Ricardo Teixeira]

No problem, let us know if you run into any conversion issues.

I hope the video helps. Exporting custom tiles should not be that troublesome, hopefully they will simplify the process in the near future.

Unfortunately detail/secondary normals are not currently virtualized, I recommend checking out the VT Preset list in order to know which channels are supported. This is definitely something that will be improved in future releases, we are also working on custom and more flexible VT presets.

Thank you for evaluating AT2, let us know if you need any additional info we would be happy to help

Thanks!