[Forester]

I share your desire, Nasok. When I downloaded it, I did not get an STP version. But, I have an STP reader-converter, and am a Maya user. Perhaps if you could pass me the STP version, I might be able to export a better version of it for Maya and for UV mapping.

If not, I have some free time between projects at the end of this week. I might try re-creating the whole SIMBall in Maya. Would not be ablt to do this without your having posted the picture of the bad STP ball in Maya - so thank you very much for that!

[Nasok]

Hey man sure thing, I've attached the zip folder that I've downloaded from Thomas' website (The Man who initially created that simball geometry back in the days).
That folder has 3dm, stp and mxm files (along with some others like png for textures).

StandardMatScene 06-31.zip

If you could export it into something like FBX, obj, abc or ma (mb) - that'd be amazing. Maya 2018 can import sap - and you've seen the result. Maya 2019 - 2020 - on Mac can't import STP anymore as they eventually found out that it (importer) is not as stable as it should be.

I believe there is nothing too complex to just re-create that simball - but that whole idea was is to have the exact same scene (camera angle, lights, bg, env, etc), with everything being exactly the same - just fixed UVs.

And the more I dig onto that simball the more I like it - and it get's smarter once you start applying transparent and translucent (sss) materials to it .. as it has sss bars to visualise the depth and even (!!!) some bubbles )

[Forester]

Thank you. Got it downloaded, and I'll work on it tomorrow.

[Nasok]

Awesome!
Thanks man!!

[Nasok]

Hey, TIL (with a little help from Laura) that we can simply import MXS into Maya.
I believe I was trying to import it previously but it was giving me the result of like a referenced object or so - which you can't really modify.
But if you simply CMD+I and import it like a regular FBX / OBJ / etc. -it actually works flawlessly.


Sorry for the confusion
Cheers!

[Forester]

Ah!

OK, here are some additional versions. But these are not yet UV Mapped. And this guy is in triangles, so it will be a little bit difficult to map it.

The Maya and *.fbx versions are separated into their individual components.

[Nasok]

Hey! cool stuff!! Thanks.
Well - it was triangulated during sampling so it's still a patterned one - edge loops should work in most cases .. plus the shape is fairly smooth and simple Just thinking where to do the seams to minimise the distortion

[Nasok]

Hey guys, here's a quick update on UV mapping process.


As you can see now the texture is more properly distributed across the entire surface - including the interiors (yep - mapped inside also - for textured glass materials)

For sure there is a little bit of distortion but - well that's a spherical object - so that's expectable.
I've also re-mapped UVs on emitter area (which is useful for custom textured emitters - or for more complex / mixed materials) and of course I've re-mapped SSS bars and the base - so we can go pretty craze customising those also.
I need to tweak a few things and will be ready to upload it for everyone interested to have a look.

Now, while I was doing the UV mapping - have to admit turned out a bit more challenging than I initially thought, I understood that there are multiple ways of creating UVs and planar projection (which is used on existing original simball) is actually sufficient and can do a pretty good job in cases of opaque materials.
It is a bit confusing when it shows you your entire texture map only on a portion of the object (which will never happen in real life) - and that used to trigger some misunderstanding when downloaded materials looked differently from online gallery, once imported into the scene.

But well, for those of us who likes to create their own material collections - this could be a good alternative option.

Cheers.

[Forum Moderator]

It looks nice!

These things always look easy in a quick look, but once you start to get deep into it there are many details to take into account to make it work in as many situations as possible. It gets tricky.

[Tea_Bag]

Great Work!.... A UV Mapped SimBall? NO way!! I would love to use this in MODO - I downloaded the latest from Thomas's site but there are no air bubbles lol