How do I properly bake Archipak wall textures?

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

Hey All…

Learning how to texture… some things are easy and are moving along well… however, I am having trouble with properly baking Archipak walls.

You would think that the UV would set it all, right? Well… not in my case…

Notice in the above image… The brick on the upper top wall is what it should look like… however when I add the UV Map to it… the brick pattern changes. As seen on the bottom half of the wall.

The inner walls however seem to work and stay in tact.

All the textures are procedural except the brick which is an image texture.

This is the UV Map:

What is the proper way to do this and get a good texture bake?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: I am using bake wrangler to make my images if that helps.

[joseph (J)]

You need to redo your UV map- you have massive amounts of wasted space, thin stretched islands, and scaling issues. All of these are a problem

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

Hi Joseph…

What would you suggest? I have tried several combinations… Regular UV mapping, Smart UV Mapping… With marked seems… Without marked seems. Sharp/not sharp seems… nothing seems to hold the texture on the brick image texture.

When I take it into edit mode… it looks to me as if it is adding that image to each and every square in the mesh and not the overall mesh itself. (ok that makes sense in my head… I hope it does in yours too LOL)

I have even tried to take the texture out to bake the rest then add it in afterward as it exports fine without baking. However, it replaces that texture in the mesh with another in the list. I suppose I can just delete the images out of the texture making it a plain white then change that out at the end when importing the bakes. It sounds logical but I have not tried it.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

The inner wall behind the counters is the same on both sides… and all procedural so it seemed to bake fine however I did lose the stripes on the bottom for the black/red that is along the top of the wall. I can live with that… the bricks though… I am at a loss.

[Ulan_Cabanilla]

Have you applied the Scale of your building? Based on the image you provided of your UV layout, it looks like you haven’t (granted, I’ve heard Blender’s UV unwrapping system isn’t the best, and it can get wonky sometimes.)

Also, to further expound/explain @joseph’s point, your current UV layout has so much empty black space that it looks as if you’re wasting almost half of the image. You’re going to want to maximize the amount of space by packing your islands tightly, but also neatly.

Quick example: The larger a UV island is, the more pixels (from the texture) it will take up. Taking up/covering more pixels=more detail in the texture will be preserved. With that in mind, some islands can (and arguably should) be smaller than others, based on importance. For example, if you have a Cube representing a wall or pillar in the center of a room, and you wanted to unwrap the Cube to bake textures, then the top and bottom faces could be separated into their own UV islands and those islands could be shrunk waaaaaaaay down (since they’d be covered or obscured by the floor and ceiling anway.) Meanwhile, the sides of the cube should be the largest islands, to maximize the amount of pixels they’ll cover in the final baked image texture. Applying this idea to your current problem, you’re going to want to make the UV islands for your interior walls significantly larger than the islands for, say the top and bottom of your walls. The floor could probably be one single island, scaled to fit around 10-15% of the UV grid (it’s important, but arguably not as important as preserving detail on the interior walls.)

If you look at the 2 shapes by the bottom left of the UV layout image you provoded, the shapes could probably benefit from an additional 3 or 4 cuts each. Separate the curved section into its own island by marking a seam where it meets the straight and flat walls. (The flat walls themselves can also be separated into individual rectangles instead of having them be L-shaped, but that’s up to you.)

As for the problem you’re having with the brick texture on the outside, where the top part is as you’d like it and the bottom 3/5 looks wonky…just based on that image, it looks like you’ve got a UV seam right there, hence the discontinuity in the texture. Maybe you accidentally selected and edge and manually marked it as a seam? Or, perhaps you did Smart UV project and Blender added one in there for you

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

Ok so smart uv is not so smart then LOL… I can understand some of it and can see the bottom two from the left is the total wall… not sure why there are 2. straight right is the one of the inner walls, the one with the jukebox against it spanning the entire wall front to back.

The similar ones above are the outer walls, the brick texture. on the left the back wall that matches the bottom image that looks triangulated. I assume the one above the one on the furthest right is the inner wall mesh above with the triangulation. The rest… not sure. Maybe the two curved items top left with the straight edge are the glass sections.

Where things get a little tricky here is the archipack thing. I have searched and searched for something that would explain how to get good exports or texture bakes… all I can find are how to use the plugin.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Separate the curved section into its own island by marking a seam where it meets the straight and flat walls. (The flat walls themselves can also be separated into individual rectangles instead of having them be L-shaped, but that’s up to you.)

That outter shape (bottom left) was created from the “Draw Wall” feature. The curve was auto generated within the plug-in. The windows were tricky as when you make any changes to the wall preset… say move the wall a bit… all the changes made are now lost as it reverts. The curved window was just cutting the wall mesh then adding a glass texture to it. This is not a window insert that the plugin provides. So to separate them out might not be an option or at least one that I can handle at my pay grade

I have tried different methods to get it as a stationary mesh (meaning that changes would not revert) but must be doing something wrong.

Again… total noob here… I depend on the plugin (any plugin) to do the work for me as I don’t have a clue on how to do it without. I am actually learning blender from seeing what the plugins do. LOL.

Honestly, if I export without changing any UV, baking any image, it actually exports fine with the exceptions of the procedural textures.

This is an early version… exported as an .obj then imported into iclone. Notice that all the wall cuts held and are separated into their proper texture areas… problem is… they do not look like they do in blender as blender is using procedural. When exporting only the base color is exported as a texture from those procedural.

This is the Blender version:

Maybe I just need to singularly make images out of the procedural then replace the procedural with images and not worry about it.

EDIT: I may just redo the the outer shell… I messed up the mesh it seems… I tried to take out the subdivides and it distorted into something awful Nice thing about archipack is that it will not take long at all.

[Ulan_Cabanilla]

@Applebite_Michelle

Ok so smart uv is not so smart then LOL

Well, kinda. It works a lot better with flat surfaces, or objects with a lot if flat planes, than with curved ones. Or so it seems.

@Applebite_Michelle

not sure why there are 2.

Maybe one is for the very top of the wall and one is for the botton, so the walls are made of a closed mesh? That’d be my guess.

@Applebite_Michelle

The curved window was just cutting the wall mesh then adding a glass texture to it. This is not a window insert that the plugin provides. So to separate them out might not be an option or at least one that I can handle at my pay grade

Now you’re making me want to try the whole “Draw Wall” function of Archipack for myself, to see if I get the same problem and see if I can discover a fix it if I do. Normally when I’m building a room, I use mesh primitives like Cubes and stuff.

Hmm…you said “cutting the wall mesh”, did you delete faces or use a Boolean modifier?

@Applebite_Michelle

When exporting only the base color is exported as a texture from those procedural.

Well…yeah, that would make sense. The procedural texture is being generated in --or by-- Blender, so exporting without baking results in a loss of that procedural texture. Also, obj formats don’t contain as much information as fbx, so there’s that, too. XD

@Applebite_Michelle

I am actually learning blender from seeing what the plugins do. LOL.

I get that this is your preferred way of learning, but if you’re really serious about getting into the 3D industry and learning how to model, texture, and build whole scenes that you can then sell and make (at least part of) a living off, I’d recommend starting simple with a beginner tutorial for Blender and learning the fundamentals. This sort of, “learn as you go, click on buttons to figure out what they do” approach is applicable when you already know want you want to do and have a general idea of how to go about doing it, but also want to experiment with a feature (like Draw Wall from archipack) to expand options for your workflow. It’s not the ideal way to learn a piece of software, what its capabilities are and how to utilize them to achieve a desired result. At a certain point very early on you’re going to realize you could’ve saved a lot of time and energy by just following a (free) introductory course, then branching out and exploring different fields and aspects of asset production (like texturing or UV unwrapping) instead of just feeling your way through from the very beginning.

@Applebite_Michelle

I may just redo the the outer shell… I messed up the mesh it seems…

At least you figured it out and know how to avoid repeating the mistake in the future. Progress!

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Hmm…you said “cutting the wall mesh”, did you delete faces or use a Boolean modifier?

Yes, I made loop cuts then selected the faced I needed glass then applied the texture. Once glass, you could see in-between the walls— you know the gap between front and back… so I then hid those glass sections and closed the inner mesh so that it looks solid almost like a frame but not frame looking.

This is diner shell version 5 LOL.

Notice I changed the shape of the diner hoping that a more uniformed shape would hold the mesh better. The bottom one kinda bulges out a bit near the door. But alas no… same issues. Now I like the new one better

NEW

OLD

I am still having the same issues…

This is a GREAT plugin!!! I mean you can make buildings in no time. All the walls, windows, doors all come set… I just need to use image textures and forget the procedural for these buildings I guess.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Also, obj formats don’t contain as much information as fbx, so there’s that, too.

Right, but I thought .fbx was more for characters and bone sets. I know with Character Creator you need their fbx key to import any character into their software.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

This sort of, “learn as you go, click on buttons to figure out what they do” approach is applicable when you already know want you want to do and have a general idea of how to go about doing it, but also want to experiment with a feature (like Draw Wall from archipack) to expand options for your workflow. It’s not the ideal way to learn a piece of software, what its capabilities are and how to utilize them to achieve a desired result.

I watch the youtube videos… but they are too slow for me. Or doing things that are too basic. I have always had this approach to learning… Then I also have a book next to me when I get to points where I need help. The internet eliminated the book but sometimes the internet does not have what I need. Like now with these walls. When I get more curious about making characters from scratch, I do have a book for that, but it’s a little dated now.

As for getting the plugin… if you create a lot of buildings, I highly recommend it. It is SUCH a time saver. It takes me less than a day to make a 2 story house with basement. Walls, roof, doors, windows floors, ceilings… everything,

This is my 3rd attempt with archipack. Found floorplans on the net, set one for each floor then start drawing. Aligning the holes for and adding the stairs can be a little time consuming to get perfect alignment… other than that… Too easy LOL. The outter walls are all image textures… they all exported fine, this was before I learned about the procedural ones LOL.

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

UPDATE::

Ok, so I was correct. For me, this may not be the proper way to do this, it works…

So I removed all procedural textures and replaced with image textures in the walls, inside and out. I did still bake the floor as it seemed to work fine baking with it’s UV map.

Then I exported as .fbx (as suggested) then imported into Iclone. This is the result.

I need to adjust the glass… not a blender texture.

The only problem with this method is that it does not create all the image textures but one combined for the imaged texture. For the floor, I was able to bake all the texture files…

I am going to try this on the original walls and see if I can keep moving on with that… but I am really starting to like this building shape better. Maybe I will just piece this all out from both files… then assemble in iClone.

[Ulan_Cabanilla]

@Applebite_Michelle

Yes, I made loop cuts then selected the faced I needed glass then applied the texture

Ah. Well, this method works, but another way would be to make the glass its own separate object (or at least make the glass into its own standalone geometry, if that makes sense.)

@Applebite_Michelle

Notice I changed the shape of the diner

While I personally prefer the old diner shape (I just think it’s visually more interesting) the new shape looks a lot more practical somehow. Like you can imagine the bottom floor or part of the bottom floor of a building to have a shape similar to the new diner shape.

@Applebite_Michelle

I thought .fbx was more for characters and bone sets

True, that’s another benefit of fbx over obj. But to be honest, I’m far from an expert on file formats so there’s bound to be someone out there who has a better grasp of this topic than me XD

@Applebite_Michelle

I watch the youtube videos… but they are too slow for me.

Yeah, I know what you mean. There’s quite a lot of videos out there where most of the time it’s just rehashing stuff you’ve already figured out on your own, or just unnecessary color commentary. I actually stumbled across a 6-minute video on angry facial expressions, only to have around half of the runtime be devoted to color commentary, and another two minutes devoted to stuff besides the actual process of making believable facial expressions.

@Applebite_Michelle

When I get more curious about making characters from scratch, I do have a book for that, but it’s a little dated now

Okay, now I’m curious. This is going off-topic, but is this a book on how to use your preferred software to create a character, or more of an anatomical guide/reference book?

@Applebite_Michelle

This is my 3rd attempt with archipack

WOAH THAT LOOKS COOL. Okay, so the texturing could obviously be a bit better, but still…it’s a whole house. Gives me early-2000s first-person shooter vibes, like Counter-Strike or Left 4 Dead, which I love.

@Applebite_Michelle

UPDATE::

Nice. The image texture tiling is a bit obvious for the exterior brick, but if this works for you and you’re happy with the results, then this is the way to go (at least for now.)

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Ah. Well, this method works, but another way would be to make the glass its own separate object (or at least make the glass into its own standalone geometry, if that makes sense.)

Yes, this does make sense and I am sure a much better way to do this. This method, where not perfect or even good for that matter, worked and I am not real good with curves yet. This was the easiest solution for me at this time.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

While I personally prefer the old diner shape

Agreed, after looking at this over and over… I do like how it bulges in comparison to the more straight and conformed look of the new shape. Ok, another nice thing about Archipak… I can delete the walls and have them re-build automatically from the foundation slab. Granted I had to put all the doors and windows back in but so much faster than trying to put all that into a new file or building from 0 again.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

There’s quite a lot of videos out there where most of the time it’s just rehashing stuff you’ve already figured out on your own, or just unnecessary color commentary.

The Reallusion webinars are notorious for this type of stuff… the 1st 20 min is a sales pitch then they rush the seminar because of time constraints so all they cover are basics.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Okay, now I’m curious. This is going off-topic, but is this a book on how to use your preferred software to create a character, or more of an anatomical guide/reference book?

The book is called “Learning Blender - A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D animated Characters” 2nd Edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Blender-Oliver-Villar/dp/0136411754/ref=asc_df_0136411754/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459709175715&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12206180263363442964&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9019658&hvtargid=pla-923231717465&psc=1

It had good reviews… is it good? No clue, I have not cracked it open yet… had it 6 months or more LOL.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Okay, so the texturing could obviously be a bit better, but still…it’s a whole house.

LOL, yes… texturing is just slapping in some PBR textures I downloaded… nothing but playing/learning how things worked.

IT was built from these plans…

Basement

1st floor

2nd floor

Where the plug in makes it extremely easy to assemble a house/building quickly… I am sure its my inexperience with the program or software because my house did not look anything like this:

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Nice. The image texture tiling is a bit obvious for the exterior brick, but if this works for you and you’re happy with the results, then this is the way to go (at least for now.)

I’m sure I can play with that a bit. That was a test to see how the walls would export without baking textures. That is a straight export then imported into iClone… which again will be a process as it will not pull in all the texture images… maybe it’s in the naming, IDK. But I usually have to manually add the metalic, rough, normal etc… And since I am not baking these textures, I get what Blender exports only. The coloring is way off… the wall pattern inside should be red and white… not red and gray or dark maroon or whatever it came out LOL.

And just as I am making progress… today is my Monday and so begins another work week… UG! Why couldn’t I be born rich instead of good looking

[Ulan_Cabanilla]

@Applebite_Michelle

The Reallusion webinars are notorious for this type of stuff…

Man, that sucks. I get that product placement and advertising helps pay bills, allowing people who make free tutorials to keep making them, but the Reallusion thing you mentioned seems really excessive.

@Applebite_Michelle

The book is called “Learning Blender - A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D animated Characters” 2nd Edition.

Thanks for the link! It looks interesting and insightful enough, plus it’s specifically for Blender so it’s not like you’re going to have to figure out how to translate Step X, Y, and Z from abother piece of software into Blender.

@Applebite_Michelle

LOL, yes… texturing is just slapping in some PBR textures I downloaded… nothing but playing/learning how things worked.

Ahhhh…I remember how I spent almost my first year of using Blender by texturing objects this way. XD Really, you only need Diffuse/Albedo, Roughness, and Normal maps for most materials. Maybe some Ambient Occlusion for stuff like bricks or stone. Then you add in a Metalness map if your object just so happens to have metal components.

Once you’ve got that down, then the real fun begins with creating masks and blending 2 or more sets of textures together.

@Applebite_Michelle

am sure its my inexperience with the program or software because my house did not look anything like this:

Hahahahahaha well, okay, what you made is very far from the reference. But, as a project/test/ learning exercise, I’d still say the house you made is pretty good. It at least looks plausible in terms of design, as opposed to some wonky thing out of a Salvator Dali painting XD

@Applebite_Michelle

The coloring is way off… the wall pattern inside should be red and white… not red and gray or dark maroon or whatever

I can’t be 100% sure about this since I’ve never used iClone, but the apparent difference between the textures in Blender and iclone might come down to the shaders. Blender has the Principled BSDF shader, and from what I understand it was designed to allow artists to easily create a variety of realistic textures. Not sure what the corresponding shader in iClone is, but I’ve some experience converting models from other software like Source Filmmaker, and in order to get something decent-ish and not looking like a plastic toy you really need to go in and replace all the default shaders with the Principled BSDF one.

So, assuming I’m correct here, you may want to see if the iClone shader settings can be tweaked to achieve something closer to what you get in Blender.

[Applebite_Michelle (Michelle)]

@Ulan_Cabanilla

But, as a project/test/ learning exercise, I’d still say the house you made is pretty good.

Thanks… I have sinced learned that there is a way to make holes in the roof, and to customize the roof sections a little better… but have not really dove in and done anything yet. I got started on the diner and been here since.

I think that one thing that threw me off when building this project is that the floor plans do not match the outside. The entryway, there is a window up there however there is nothing in the blueprint to show a room over that area, loft, vaulted ceiling or anything… not even a door for storage. If you align the 1st and 2nd floor at the stairs… it looks like a hallway… but does say loft. Thinking that was called loft and not 2nd floor…

I think at that point I was frustrated with the roof, aligning the stairs I stopped caring about the outside looking the same and just making a well build house. As I learn more about archipack I will be able to make houses more like their images. (I hope )

@Ulan_Cabanilla

Thanks for the link!

Glad to be of help. CC has a free plugin to bring characters into Blender… For now, with everything else I am trying to learn… I wil save making characters in Blender for a later day LOL

@Ulan_Cabanilla

creating masks and blending 2 or more sets of textures together.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

then the real fun begins with creating masks and blending 2 or more sets of textures together.

Masking ah… that I need… texture painting… I have been playing with a lot of mixing… I am not shy about tossing a bunch of items in the shade editor and seeing what I can create.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

I can’t be 100% sure about this since I’ve never used iClone, but the apparent difference between the textures in Blender and iclone might come down to the shaders.

Yes, its a different system and has some controls I can play with a bit. I can even use the original image files and not have to worry about exporting from blender. All areas marked, just drag and drop image into the proper image slot. However since I have added to the basic images… scratches, dust, etc… I do have to bake that into them and export if I want to keep that effect.

@Ulan_Cabanilla

you only need Diffuse/Albedo, Roughness, and Normal maps for most materials.

Right… I think I generate too many images… but bake wrangler makes it easy… I get the set up then just change out the object for which I am baking, hit bake and it makes all the images I set it to make. This was originally set for neon so there are things I may not need in every texture set but hell… rather make them and not need them than to need them and not have them baked