Loading a new UV Set - Daz combining two separate uv's into one uv map
MeneerWolfman
Posts: 424
Hi,
I have some questions loading a new UV set to an object. I had two different props (one an old version, one is a new version) that shared the same geometry for all of the face groups except for one. I wanted to copy/paste the old version's uv onto the new version that matches the same face groups. I was able to do this in Blender and then export that object. I inspected the exported from Blender object's uv and two surfaces in Daz and it looks perfect. However, when I take the new version of the prop and "Load UV Set" the imported object from Blender's UV. Daz superimposes the the new version's uv on top of the old version's uv. Instead of two separate uv's, I get one smooshed one.
I have screenshots to share, however the issue is the prop in question is a male "anatomical element" so I'm not sure if posting screenshots of the UV map is going to get me into trouble.
Can anyone help?
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Comments
What do you mean when you say it superimposes the two mappings?
Instead of seeing two seeing two separate surface groups, each with its own UV map coordinates. The Load UV Set command is importing the new uv set and mixing the reference object into one uv.
I can add the image for reference, but not sure if a uv map of genitalia is going to break forum rules :X
Perhaps if you posted the UV templates - the one you see in Blender and what you get in DS.
Thank you, Richard.
Hopefully they stay in order when I post.
Gen UV Template 1 - That is the default uv on the prop. It's a g8m uv mapped to the model's geometry plus a large anus area.
Blender Hip UV Template - This is coming back from Blender and is just the "Hip" face group/surface using the same template as "Gen UV Template 1". Which I want for the hip area.
Blender Genital UV Template - This is the older version of the prop's UV which is better suited for the umm "Genital" part. The polys and face groups are the same between both prop versions.
UV Loaded Full UV Template - This is what it looks like if I highlight both surfaces. Which would make sense between the two UV templates. "Hip" area is using the new UV, "Genital" area using the old UV
UV Loaded Just Genital Surface - This is with just the genital surface selected, for some reason the Hip's UV is partially overlayed over it.
I'm not really sure how it's doing this. I've tried making sure that the surfaces groups and poly count is the same between both the new prop and the blender exported obj, but that doesn't do anything.
Thoughts? Feel free to delete after looking at them if it's in violation of forums.
Looks to me like you need to create a seperate Surface maps in the geo editor, one for the hip and one for the other that way you have the 2 maps on one object like it seems to be intended.
I did. If you look at the last image, that is the "Genital" Surface, there's a separate "Hip" surface. It's the the "Genital" surface that is messing up when I use the new uv. It's adding that weird partial part of the hip surface to it. It's like it's getting contaminated during the load uv set process
If in the Surfaces pane you turn the Genital Surface bright blue (or whatever will stand out to you) does the blue affect more of the area than you expect?
No, the polys assigned to the surface are correct. only the polys I assigned to the "genital" surface is showing blue. Same if I do the "hip" surface red. Each one seems to have the right polys assigned to the right surface.
How does the UV templaet for the hip look? I'm wondering if some geometry was doubled-up at some point.
That part looks fine. The hip surface is using the original UV and not the one mapped from Blender. The geometry on this part was different than the old prop, so I couldn't map the old uv over to it.
I suspect that there is some of the geometry that should be in the hip duplicated (so you have two of each polygon) with the second set of polygons assigned to the other surface. Try enabling the Geoemtry editor, with the prop selected, then right-click>Geoemtry Selection>Select By>Surfaces>Genital - do you get soem hip polygons? If you hide the surface (you can do that wiith the tool still active by clicking the eye next to iits name in the Tool Settings pane) does that leave a hole? How about f you shopw the surface and hide the Hip surface?
No, that looks right too. I hid the prop, but have selected each surface so you can see. Set up wise, everything seems fine.
Then I really have no idea what is going on, I'm afraid.
Yeah, me neither :/ Thank you for trying. Any other resources or places I can check for advice/info?
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are trying to do, or what you have done in Blender, but maybe this will help.
I am assuming you have two objects with the same vertex count but different UV layouts, and perhaps shapes, and with two surfaces defined in DS on each. The UV layouts represent the entire object in both cases. At this point, you can export object A to OBJ file, then use Load UV Set on object B and select the OBJ file for object A, and set a unique name for the UV set when prompted. You can now select one of the surfaces on object B and should be able to choose the new UV set for that surface from the dropdown list.
I don't think it matters if the UV layouts of the two surfaces on object B now overlap as long as the surfaces themselves do not, and as far as I know that's not possible. So the fact that you have some of the hip area UV in the UV layout you are going to use on the genitals seems unimportant. Does it mess up the result and if so how? I don't see why you need to be copying/pasting UV layouts in Blender, which makes me think I haven't understood your objective. If your two objects have different vertex counts, and looking at the UVs it kind of looks like that may be the case, then that's a different and more difficult question.
It is a little confusing that UV layouts belong to surfaces in DS, not to meshes (~= objects in DS) like they do in Blender. So each surface has only one UV map in DS, but as you may know a mesh can have more than one in Blender. Material definitions in Blender can use more than one UV layout too of course.
You've got most of it. I should say I've done UV loading before, usually it's a pretty simple process. I create a new surface with the polys I want to make the new uv for. Then unfold the uv in Hexagon for that surface's polys and tweak, or sometimes I'll project a new uv template onto the new surface polys in Hexagon. Export the obj, morph load it for the UV set. Then under surface I change the new surface I created UV's to be the UV I changed in Hexagon. I may be wrong with my understanding of it, so much of Daz is a blackbox since no actual documentation exists for it.
This case is slightly different. I have two props, all the face groups except the hip face group has the same layout and poly count between the two version (old and new). I created the two surfaces, Hip and Genital, and assigned the hip polys to the "Hip" surface. I then assigned all the other polys to the "Genital" surface. In Blender I took advantage of the copy UV to copy the old prop's better to all the face groups that matched up (the Genital surface) and left the face group that did not match up with its original UV. When I exported the UV remapped version from Blender it looks great and the UV for each surface is as it should be.
Where it seems to be going wrong is when the UV from the exported Blender OBJ is loaded onto the new prop back in Daz, it leaves the Hip surfaces original UV fine, but when I load the Blender exported UV to the Genital surface, I get the mushed up UV you see in the picture.
I'm assuming maybe something in Blender (which i don't have a ton of experience with) is saved with the obj and Daz is mucking it up when it loads the OBJ's UV. Usually I find this process pretty straight forward :/
When you say in your second paragraph that you are copying all the old prop's better [UVs] to the face groups that matched up, what are you doing exactly, step by step? I assume you are using the Transfer UV Layout option under the Object->Make Links menu - I don't know of another option. This will transfer the entire (active) UV map from the active object to the selected one, and it will only do so if the geometry and vertex orders match (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/editors/uv/layout_management.html).
So, are there separate UV maps for the individual 'face groups' and you are transferring those over? Do they overlap? Are the models both one contiguous mesh or multiple meshes? And are you sure the geometry/vertex orders of the two models match, because looking at the UV layouts you posted I have some doubts about that (it's not clear that the 'Blender Genital UV Template' has a hip area, while the 'Gen UV Template 1' clearly does, and you say there is a face group that doesn't 'match up'). If the geometry/vertex orders don't match, it's possible the transfer may not actually produce an error in Blender, but will give incorrect results.
If you could post the OBJ files for the two models (licence permitting!) I will try to take a look, and your .blend file.
Appreciate it. I'm sure something is going wrong, or it's just too different to make work. Unfortunately, while I've been taking this product and redoing it from Poser to Daz and fixing it, I don't own the rights to the mesh, so I have to get sign-off from that person. Sadly, they tend to go out of pocket for weeks at a time :-/ If I hear back from them, I'll ping you in DM.
Thank you for the help.