Model Exporting and Texturing Issues

[Zatch]

This thread is mainly a Q&A but feel free to add in any useful information you've found regarding models and texturing in general.

Okay I have a few problems getting my textures to work right in Maya:

1) I have done all of my UVW mapping in 3d Studio Max and tested the material to demonstrate that the mapping was indeed successful. Unfortunately, when I export to .OBJ (and I check the "Texture Coordinates" checkbox) and then import into Maya, the mapping seems to have warped in some way. I made certain that in Max I was working with a 1024x1024 map for UVW and that the Photoshop *.psd was the same size, but the warping still occured.
http://hw2shipscript.no-ip.org/OBJEx.jpg

2) Also, UVW mapping issues aside, when I applied the hw2shader material, imported the ship shader script, updated the shader's attributes using starfleet's method, and applied my formatted (via the 'make ready for export' Action in Photoshop) *.psd to the material's Color channel, I get something looking like this:
http://hw2shipscript.no-ip.org/MayaBadTex.jpg
Where it appears that the all-white (for testing) Specular layer
is somehow not being recognized as transparent. I'm assuming the black areas are due to faulty UVW map importing.
Just for reference, the model with default tex (in Maya):
http://hw2shipscript.no-ip.org/MayaDefTex.jpg


If anybody has an answer to either of these problems, please post it in here! :)

[evillejedi]

the max->obj plugin is ULTRA-SUCK

it destroys UVs and does wacky things to the face normals


export as .3ds and convert to obj with 3dexploration. You can still find this old version of deep exploration for free if you look hard enough (this was before right hemisphere was really a company) it's not as fully featured as deep, but it still does the job.

[Zatch]

Okay thanks for the advice, I'll go try that now. :) :bow:

[Archanon]

the max->obj plugin is ULTRA-SUCK

it destroys UVs and does wacky things to the face normals


export as .3ds and convert to obj with 3dexploration. You can still find this old version of deep exploration for free if you look hard enough (this was before right hemisphere was really a company) it's not as fully featured as deep, but it still does the job.

Why not convert it to .ma right away... he has got maya he says.... deepexploration is capable of that.... That's the way I do it... Create my model and texture it in 3dmax and then convert it to .ma by using deepexploration.... Only thing you have to do is create a new HW2 Material apply your psd to it and voila......

[Zatch]

Yeah that's what he was talking about. Export into a format recognized by DeepExploration, and then export from DE to the *.ma format (which I have done successfully.) Thanks for the tips evillejedi, it worked flawlessly =).

[thegoatman]

Actually, i;ve never had ANY problems with my Max OBJ exporter.

the rpoblam is probably yourr # of digtis. set this to at least 5. what you ahve now means that .006->1 and 2.45->2 etc. thats really bad.

[Zatch]

Oh haha, thanks for explaining that ^_^. Wow I feel dumb.

Me: !?Digits?! Like a dIgItAl watch?! OOoooOOoo.... But I don't need to tell time... (o_0)

I'll just have to try it when I get back.

[evillejedi]

hmm I've still had problems with it borking up UVWsm though I don't have the same version zatch showed (mines a bit older) but I'm comfortable with 3ds -> deepex -> maya