Mudbox 2009 Quick Start Series: Capturing max light rigs for use in Mudbox

Today bring a new vido in the quickstart series that outlines how to capture your lighting rig from 3d max and create a high dynamic range image that can then be used in mudbox for image based lighting.   In this way you can get some great lighting effects.

Mudbox 2009 demo:  On target rendering

I’ve heard a lot of people declaring that mudboxes ‘on  target’ abilities are nothing more than a pipe dream and are useless in production as it ‘can’t possibly replicate’ a full render.  Just to prove how much horse crap actually does come out of some people on forums these days (joke) I recorded this that shows a model matching the eventual target in max. The max render used mental ray final gather and a pretty complex set up.. Mudbox matched to about 99%  and was in real time.

So yes, it is possible providing you read the manual…if anyone says to you mudbox can’t do it…just tell them I told you they are wrong….very wrong….

Video Download link

This quick start video is rather topical this time.   I thought I’d cover getting your mudbox 2009 32 bit displacement maps working well inside of XSI.  It shows how to get the best quality out of your map in (hopefully) an easy to replicate way.  For this tutorial I’m only using a 2k displacement map that was exported as a OpenEXR file from mudbox.  This time its recorded at 800×600 res and encoded as an AVI so that its easier to see what I’m doing, although everything is explained anyway.

I may consider this one done now…we’ll wait 24 hours and see how I feel.  Render is 3d max using mental ray.

This is somethig I started last night as a mess around….he’s got rather a complex back story as sort of a cautionary tale about dangers of genetic manipulation and stem cell reasearch. (Although you dont relay give a buggery about that right?) The idea behind it is this freak of science although quite scary is ‘flawed’ (he’s too weak to pull his huge weight along easily) and due to sicko’s like myself getting a hold of the ability to play god with DNA and stem cells….   Yeah a bit of a heavy concept for me I know!

Also today we went for our 20 week scan on the baby and now know its going to be a girl…  We’d given up hope of ever having one as the majority of kids in both lines are males.. So we’re both over the moon…and kane….well…he’s already been out buying clothes for his little sister to be.

Mudbox 2009:Ground Up Series Part 3

Mudbox 2009 QuickStart Series: Importing pre-painted Multi UV textures

A couple of new ones tonight, Part 3of teh Ground up seris is ow live and covers generating normal and displacement mpas.  Also a new QuickStart video covering a work around for those of you who need to import an already painted (or partly painted) set of multi UV textures into mudbox.  This work around is temporary for those of you who need a work around right now.  They will be supplying a mel script to make import back into maya easy very soon.

OK, I now a lot of you have been after a quick and simple way to merge all your textures into a psd. So Dave Cardwell and myself sat on Skype tonight and while testing things out…I managed to come up with the following workflows for merging all textures in a folder into one document. There is a workflow using Photoshop CS2 or CS4 straight out of the box. It is also possible with CS3 but alas I didn’t own it to video the workflow. You can then use all your textures layers in anyway that you wish in photoshop and as a layered document.

Enjoy…

QuickStart Videos Part 1

QuickStart Videos Part 2

CGarena have now uploaded the 2nd sectoin of the QuickStart videos.  My thanks go out to Ashley over there at CGArena for helping to take the load of the bandwidth for DashDotSlash (which has now exceeded 1/2 terrabyte on these videos in less than 2 weeks!)  There are more to come.

This is a preview video for part of ‘wave 2′ of the ‘From the Ground Up’ series that is being shown over on The Area.  It spans 2 hours and cover the sculpting and complete texturing in real time of a rather cliched orc head.  There is more to Wave 2 that this section in case your wondering.

This brings the ammount of free videos recorded (and many still waiting release) to between 5 and 6 hours….SO FAR!  There is much much more still due to be recorded.  These have been more sucessful than anyone could have nevisioned…the QuickStart series alone has used up 1/4 terrabyte of bandwidth on this site, and they haven’t been out 2 weeks yet!  (As they were short I thought I’d be ok hosting them here, but soon they are being moved to Autodesks server, 3d total’s server and CGArena’s server.  This should spread the load a bit and mean that nothing goes offline and gets lost.)

I’ve been overwelmed by the amazingly positive reaction to these videos… I’m guessing people realise what a major undertaking it is to organise and fund this high res footage for free to everyone.  So spread th word and lets make sure everyone gets some high quality trainging for free as an early xmas present.

Here’s a couple of new QuickStart videos , one covering a pipeline for coverting models between ZBruhs and Mudbox 2009 and the other concerning how to project the details for your high res mesh onto a retoplogised version.

This is a screenshot I thought Id try and experiemnt on..so I took it into combustion (an app I’ve only ever used once before in my life) and did a bit of messing around purely by eye.  It shows that a simple real time render in Mudbox 2009 is truley a thing to scare the crap out of you. :)  I was thinking of taking this to a full render, but after seeing this (even at this unfinished stage) I’m thinking ‘do I actually need to?’  Judging by this I think I might be quite happy with mud screnshots stright into combustion with a little photoshop.

This is sort of a dry run of one of the main projects later in the ‘Mudbox 2009: From The Ground Up’ series. The model will of course be different…