JASS and Blender and Oblongs

heyas;

if i import a sculpt map into blender with jass that has an oblong map, and rebake it, i get an oblong map. if i import an object into blender and bake it, it get a square map.

please please please tell me, very slowly with little baby steps, how to tell blender/jass that i want to use an oblong map on my object.

thank you!

How can you bake an object which you have imported to blender? There must be one step missing... Do you UV-unwrap manually? Or asked the other way: from where did you get the imported object ?

Here is an attempt to help you without exactly knowing what your problem is:

1.) if you start with a fresh object

assuming you work with subsurf/multires:
assume you want to create a sculpty with 16 faces in X and 64 faces in Y

create a new sculpty. Use the following setting:

X faces: 4
Y faces: 16
subdivision levels: 2

The subdivision levels are good for the subsurf/multires levels
====
assuming you work neigher with subsurf nor with multires but want the same oblong as above:

create a new sculpty. Use the following setting:

X faces: 16
Y faces: 64
subdivision levels: 0
====

In both case after creating the object, when you go to edit mode and have the UV editor
open at the same time, you see your oblong sculptmap popping up automatically.
the image has the size 32*128. This is correct for an oblong of size 16*64

Now model your sculpty, bake and you are done.

===================================

2.) If you already have on object (must be a sculpty, or a correctly unwrapped object) and you want to bake it to another oblong map:

2.1: prepare your object
- go to object mode.
- there apply subsurf (if you are using subsurf)
- or apply multires (if you are using multires)
- or skip this step (if you are not using multires/subsurf)

2.2: prepare your map
- go to edit mode.
- open the UV-editor in another window
- create a new image of the wanted size. e.g. 32*128 pixels for a 16*64 oblong
- bake and done.

Note/remember that the number of pixels in each direction MUST be 2 times the number of faces you want to have in your oblong!

Be very picky about the steps above. Double check that you are in object mode/edit mode/uv-editor whenever i state that you should be operating there. Otherwise nada, nothing works!

Just as a benefit: You can create any oblong out of your object. Just tell blender to use another output image of different format (as i explained above) and go for experimentation. Nopte though: If you bake to another format than you model, sometimes the outcome will become ugly...

I hope that could answer your question ?
If not, tell more exactly where your problem is.

heyas gaia;

yes, i create the object in another modelling app, all perfect and square mapped, etc, then import into blender. and it bakes to a square map just fine. now this is the part i have trouble with:

- open the UV-editor in another window
- create a new image of the wanted size. e.g. 32*128 pixels for a 16*64 oblong
- bake and done.



i have the uv display in another frame/window whatever.

i can create a new image of whatever size.

annnnnnd, when i say bake, it makes a square map, ignoring my new image. is it because i am not in edit mode when i make this new image? there is NO other step to have the object use the image i just created?

can't believe blender could be just that easy :X lol!

Yes, it is because you can assign a new image only when you are in edit mode.
Yes, there is NO other step involved besides baking after assigning the new image.
Yes, blender is soo easy (more precise: The Domino scripts are so easy

One caveat though: Rebaking to another mapsize involves recalculating vertex positions. This is where inprecise results might occur. You will probably have to reimport the sculptmap as sculpty (File -> Import Second Life sculpty) and do some fine tuning.

heyas;

wow, that sounds easy! buuuuut....

i just tried it. when i import my lightwave object (lwo file), i CANT get into edit mode, it's stuck with only object mode. :(

is there any hope for me???

haha, okay... im stubborn.


i got it to go into edit mode for imported objects by adding a cube to the scene. it went into edit mode, and then i jump to object mode to select MY object, and it goes into edit mode.

I CANNOT BE STOPPED! mauaahhahahahahahaha!



now my only question is, why does jass break my tga image save as? ::sigh::

If you like, you can send me a .blend file so i can take a look into it ? You can use [email]gaia.clary@machinimatrix.org[/email]

Did you try right mouse click on the object to select it before trying to go to edit mode ? Maybe after import your lightwave object was not automatically selected ?

heyas;

i have no idea, gaia. i import it, i THINK it's selected, because the next thing i do is hit 'bake second life sculpties' and i knows what i'm talking about, to bake. oh, or does it just bake everything in the scene anyway?
i tried clicking it, and right clicking it, and middle clicking it, and double clicking it, and double right clicking it, and dragging across it...

i don't mind the workaround, really. as long as it works. i dont use it that much. (well, yet ; ) ).


as for the tga breaking... after i bake the sculpty, i go to save as.. and change the bottom drop down box that says PNG to TGA. save as a tga, and then neither sl nor photoshop can read the file. apparently, it is still saving as a png, not a tga.

i fixed that by not using the jass blender, but putting the jass scripts into my original blender install. png is good for that, but i prefer to use tga and do my own alpha protection schema stuff to it in photoshop.

No, it bakes only the selected objects.

If you don't mind, i would like to take a look at the .blend file. It appears to me, that either there is a bug in blender, or a missunderstanding in the workflow. Looking at the .blend usually is the fastest way for me to tell, what's going on.


Again looking at your .blend file would be the easiest approach to understand your problem and to find a solution.


Which is a good idea anyways, as the binary jass is not anymore on the bleeding edge, but one release behind Anyways, i would like to investigate your story as it might uncover some bugs...

So , if you like send the .blend file to [email]gaia.clary@machinimatrix.org[/email]

Pssst: try Primstar 0.9.3 - it's File - Import - Second Life Sculptie now supports .obj files. It will count the UV points at 0.0 on both U and V and use that to generate the map image size. So for standard gridded sculpties, it'll automatically generate the correct map size as part of the import.