SciFi - Maintenance Fury

[Eden]

I’m still just playing with Softimage and not 100% up on all the terminology, so there's a good change I have know idea what I am talking about here and this is probably not what you want at all, plus I think it only works if your U.Vs are created within Softimage, (best to wait for bill! he's the man) but you could combine them so that they are one object this will give you all your UV's in a single map. Property editor/ Model/ Create/ PolyMesh/ Merge the newly created object stores the different materials in clusters representing your former objects so you should be able to use a single texture map.

Edit: Don't take my word as gospel....try it on a test mesh first

[BillS]

Ok... Its been a long day but I had to jump in here and answer this for you. Its a weird area in soft. There is a couple ways to do what you want. The merge would sorta work since they would be all one object. But you would have to do it before you assign the material to it. You could select the different objects and add them to a group and assign the texture to the group/cluster... ( I think that one will work, Not sure.) What I normally do is simpler than that. Pick one of the objects and assign a material to it.. phong, blinn whatever works. Set up your textures on that object only for now. Make sure that the texture space is set to explicitUV's. That is what you'll get back out of UVLayout. When you're happy with it; select the objects that you want to use the same material, leaving the one that you have set up unselected. Click Get/Material/Assign Material (Top entry). That will put you in a picking session. Select the object that you have textured. Done. Now they all share the same material. You can check this by pressing ctrl+7 and bringing up the material manager. The material thumbnail at the top should have 2 check marks in the lower right corner of the thumbnail view. That shows that the material is assigned to more than one surface/object. The rest of the thumbnails that have been unassigned won't have a check and if its only on one object then it will just have one check. Alternately... still in the material manager. Set up one surface as before. Right Click on one of the other ( in your example) phong materials. Click "Select objects with this material" It will highlight. Right click on the finished one and click on assign material. Just a different way to do the same thing. Third way and could be the easiest. Set up one like before. Open the material manager (ctrl+7) again. Select all the objects that need it applied. Left click and hold on the material thumbnail view. Drag it on to the mesh in one of the views (perspective etc.) Once the mouse is over a selected part, the cursor will change. Let go of the button. Done.

It seems an odd way to go about it but once you get a handle on it, its REALLY quick to do. And nice part is that you can hide all but the part that you're working on and drag out a render view to tweek it. Then drop it on the rest of the model.

Another thing to get in the habit of doing in material manager is to click on materials/Delete unused Materials... Also naming materials. Its my one pet peeve with XSI. You assign a phong say and name it .... Arm. When you look in the thumbnail view of material manager they will all show material1,material2. Its not until you select them that you see that "phong" has been renamed Arm. Select the material thumbnail and hit F2 to rename.

Lemme know if you hit a snag and I'll help where time allows.

[Pete Paterson]

Eden thanks for your suggestion, that would work I think, and yet I want to keep my objects seperate with their repositioned centres for parenting and animation set up later.

Bill, thanks for taking the time, particulary when you could do with putting your feet up. These are detailed and easy to follow solutions to something that is powerful once you know its there in xsi. I'm back on track :-)

Cheers, owe you a beverage of your own persuasion

[Eden]

Your welcome Pete! ….think I will just keep quite next time tho…. bills the man for the job! anyway how’s it all coming along?

[Pete Paterson]

Hey Eden, nothing wrong what so ever with your idea so dont ever hold back man because it got me thinking.

As for progress, being able to have a method like Bill suggested in order to get my mapping to work, was the equivalent of getting that boulder to rest in a safe plateau and stop it rolling all the way down the hill again. I'm happy to let it rest there while I research and practice my texture making skills. Colour, diffuse, spec maps, etc, how best to get that effect here and there, going over tutorials and becoming comfortable with the process is where I am now. That and playing warhammer, going to the pictures, walking the dog with visits to the seaside and walks in the forrest with the kids and wife, and life in general, are interfering with my obsession are all taking their toll

This thread is being mulled over in the background.

As an aside, what you focussing on just now?

[Eden]

Thanks Pete! Sounds as though you have some really nice distractions at the moment

My main focus for this year is to try and push my work to the next level, seam to be hanging in limbo at the moment, my skills are not regressing but they are not moving forward either….so Sub-D modeling techniques that emphasize efficiency and accuracy, then hopefully the speed will then come into play, and i must get a handle on mudbox!!

[BillS]

Originally Posted by Eden

Your welcome Pete! ….think I will just keep quite next time tho…. bills the man for the job! anyway how’s it all coming along?

Oh good lord man, don't do that. I, in no way claim to be the expert. So by all means toss out all the idea's you like. I never miss an opportunity to pick up a tip that I hadn't thought of before.

[BillS]

Don't forget Pete that there is no equivalent to LW's diffuse in XSI. The only way around it that I've found is using mixers and pipe in the colour and "diffuse". Multiply them and use the percentage slider to set it how you need it. That's how I usually recycle maps on a LW model that I've brought into XSI.

[Pete Paterson]

Originally Posted by BillS

Don't forget Pete that there is no equivalent to LW's diffuse in XSI. The only way around it that I've found is using mixers and pipe in the colour and "diffuse". Multiply them and use the percentage slider to set it how you need it. That's how I usually recycle maps on a LW model that I've brought into XSI.

That never dawned on me! Cheers

[Pete Paterson]

Originally Posted by Eden

Thanks Pete! Sounds as though you have some really nice distractions at the moment

My main focus for this year is to try and push my work to the next level, seam to be hanging in limbo at the moment, my skills are not regressing but they are not moving forward either….so Sub-D modeling techniques that emphasize efficiency and accuracy, then hopefully the speed will then come into play, and i must get a handle on mudbox!!

Im sure it will come, its just keeping a focus, not forgetting what motivates you, and not losing sight of where you have improved...bloody day job kicking in

[Eden]

Originally Posted by BillS

Oh good lord man, don't do that. I, in no way claim to be the expert. So by all means toss out all the idea's you like. I never miss an opportunity to pick up a tip that I hadn't thought of before.

That’s cool bill….Thanks

Originally Posted by Pete Paterson

Im sure it will come, its just keeping a focus, not forgetting what motivates you, and not losing sight of where you have improved...bloody day job kicking in

Thanks for the supportive words Pete! Am sure it will all click in to place with some continued effort on my part am probably a little too curious/enthusiastic and motivated at times, but if I don’t push know one's is going to do it for me.

[BillS]

If I get a chance this weekend I want to take your Rolex into XSI and play with it... Not making any promises but it could be a fun experiment.

[BillS]

OK...needless to say this has been bugging me and since I needed it while I was playing with Eden's Rolex... Smoothing CAN be applied at different levels beyond Geometry Approx. You can apply it on a per poly basis if you want to. It was another case of the terminology tripped me up. We should have been looking at normals, not smoothing.

Take a look.

[Eden]

Yep terminology can be a problem when bouncing from one app to another…many thanks bill for digging a little deeper in to this subject much appreciated.

O.k enough hijacking on with the Maintenance Fury!

Here a link I found after reading your post mostly for future reference!
http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/...ygonMeshes.htm

[Pete Paterson]

Hey Bill, excellent news about the normals! Thanks for the link Eden.