I’m importing a lot of external FBX/OBJ prop models into iClone, and most of them have some type of maps included and need to be manually mapped. Some of these assets have 100+ sub-meshes, so manually reassigning materials isn’t realistic.
I’ve tried using MTL/FBM folders, watching tutorials and the forums and I’m back to square one. I can’t find real support for .iMTL outside of iClone.
Is there a reliable workflow that works? I’m trying to do this only in CC4 on how to auto-load textures for external assets, or is manual setup the only option?
With OBJ models you will normally have the .OBJ prop itself and an accompanying .MTL fie (not to be confused with our own .iMTL format).
So for example, you may have a Chair.OBJ and a Chair.MTL file. The .MTL file can be opened in a text editor like Notepad, where it will display the folder location of the external textures. When correctly setup the MTL file tells Character Creator where to find the textures for the model.
So the key here is to make sure the textures for the model are in the same folder location and are named the same as the textures you have. When this is done correctly, Character Creator should import the prop with the textures correctly mapped.
For FBX models it should be even easier. Normally you will have say Chair.FBX and an accompanying FBM folder of the same name containing the textures.
So again providing the naming is correct, and the FBX model and FBM folder are in the same place when importing, then the textures should be applied automatically.
I’m interested in learning how to update the .FBM folder after exporting from DAZ3D so that it includes materials that often get dropped in the process (like opacity or displacement maps). My goal is to add those textures back in, rename them appropriately, and have CC5 recognize them during Character Creation/Import so they’re placed in the right slots. I know Transformer can handle this automatically, but it also modifies the bones, which I’d prefer to avoid. Has anyone refined a workflow for manually editing the .FBM folder so CC5 picks everything up correctly?