Texturing an object after sculpting

[tolae]

Hello all. I started a little project of a old-time wooden well and I've got a question about texturing it. I plan on bringing it into Mudbox to sculpt the wood texture. My question is what to do after the sculpt is complete. Should I texture using mudbox's tools, or would it be better to bring it back into 3ds Max and then texture it the traditional way in Photoshop? My worry is that when I go to start texturing that via Photoshop, that the grain sculpt might not match with the texture. Thoughts?

[astroAJ]

I've recently been using Mudbox for my texturing and have found it very easy and similar to Photoshops interface.
If u prefer PS for texturing, u could do a base texture in Mud to block out the defining features of the sculpt and then finish it up in PS.

[tolae]

Thank you for your input. I'll give it a shot and let you know how it goes.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

what you do is, create a AO map in mudbox, maybe even a normal map. Take those maps into photoshop, overlaying them ontop of your UV layout. Texture away.

The AO/normal will give you guidelines on where your sculpt is, as far as the uv layout is concerned.

[tolae]

Thank you for the advice. Sorry for the late reply, parents were staying over for a few days and didn't get any time to work on it. I'm still blocking out the model and will hopefully be porting it into mudbox tonight. I will start a wip thread and put the link here. Thanks again you guys.

[poopipe]

max's viewport canvas is very good as well.

I use all sorts of apps when colouring stuff in - don't restrict yourself in any way if you can avoid it, all the tools have their strengths and weaknesses

[tolae]

Hey, another question. I have the the modelling done, and have collapsed it into a single object and have done the uv's and packed them. My question now is that when I bring it into mudbox, since it is a collapsed object, I can't isolate the individual pieces to sculpt. Should I instead leave them as separate objects so i can tackle them one by one? If so, how would I setup the uv's?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

the good news is, you did already. Now that the mesh is unwrapped and collapsed, you are good to go.

Go into editable poly mode and select the parts of the mesh you want isolated. Use the detach option. The uv's are saved to the mesh, so you don't need to do anything to adjust them.

When you are done sculpting, take whatever maps you make and bring them all together later in photoshop, or whatever it is you use to texture.

[tolae]

So, when after i bring the maps back into max, I can just reattach the mesh objects and the maps will still work like normal? Or, would I have to go into photoshop and crop around the particular area of that object's map. It's difficult to explain. My thought is that when you export a map even if a little area of the full map is the actual object, isn't it going to fill the rest of the "blank" area with something? Am I going to have to go in and stack the maps when finished? Sorry for the confusing question.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

you will need photoshop to make all the little maps into one map. Then, in max, attach everything back together, then add the new texture map.

[tolae]

Thank you so much for the help. I have tomorrow off of work. Will start then. Thanks again!

[tolae]

- WIP Thread -
http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=108651