Place Material on Selection won't work on imported mesh (model)

[Jondamon]

I imported a mesh obtained from Turbosquid. I guess Dimension refers to it as "models", not mesh. It came with all the materials and textures needed. When I tried to import those assets, they were all grayed out. If I tried to use "Place graphic as decal" Dimension would recognize the files, but of course that doesn't work because the images have to surround the mesh, not just function as a mapped image (like a decal). Is this a limitation of Dimension?

[Ussnorway]

Jondamon  wrote

Is this a limitation of Dimension?

yes

I load the turbosquid model into Photoshop and (fix the textures) | export as wavefront obj then open that in Dimension

turbosquid is a great source for free | cheap models but many of them need a little help to rendor correct... each model is different

[Jondamon]

Thanks for the workaround. I’ll try it. I appreciate it.

John

Sent from my iPhone

[Heidi5D2D]

Hello can you explain what you mean by "fix the textures" in photoshop? 

[Everson Silva]

I've exported some complex Maya mappings and this mistake has already happened to me. I fixed this problem by saving all my textures with names with no special characters or no spaces.

Example:

"I used to save

"Coca-Cola Label.jpg"

-I now save

"rotulo_da_coca_cola.jpg"

[Jondamon]

Interesting. That’s kind of weird. I think it’s interesting that Adobe wants to enter the arena of 3D rendering. And I’m sure they can cover a certain segment of users. But there’s no way it’s comparable to Maya or Modo or many of the other poly-based 3D programs. But of course Maya and Modo are very expensive and Dimension is part of CC, which is great. However, I use Modo for rendering, not do much for model creation. The program is well equipped to create models, I’m just not well versed in using that function. In my situation I’ll stick with Modo instead of Dimension. I hope Adobe can work out some of these issues to allow the use of imported files. Thanks very much for your response and help.

John

Sent from my iPhone

[JeanetteMathews · Accepted solution]

Hi John!  Can you direct me to the model you're using?  I'd love to see what you're experiencing.  I'm not sure what you mean when you say they were all grayed out after importing.  What was grayed out?

If your model comes with materials and textures you don't want to load those images as decals.  Decals are designed to 'float' on top of the material to apply isolated images like logos.  Instead you'll want to load the texture images into the base material.

Double click on an object to select the material assigned to that area.  In the properties panel you'll see the list of material properties (color, glow, roughness, etc.) . Click on the thumbnail next to each property to open a color/image browser.  Load the textures for each property here.

We are working on the import process and making sure we're bringing in data more reliably, so examples of files that don't import are the most help!  You can e-mail any files you're having issues with to tickets@adobedimension.com for review.

[Jondamon]

Hi Jeanette,

I think you'll see in my post I was referring to the materials that came with the imported model. I also indicated I know I don’t want to use a decal, but I mentioned it because that function would recognize the jpegs.

Here’s what I posted:

I imported a mesh obtained from Turbosquid. I guess Dimension refers to it as "models", not mesh. It came with all the materials and textures needed. When I tried to import those assets, they were all grayed out. If I tried to use "Place graphic as decal" Dimension would recognize the files, but of course that doesn't work because the images have to surround the mesh, not just function as a mapped image (like a decal). Is this a limitation of Dimension?

Thanks.

[JeanetteMathews]

I think a screenshot or the files would still be helpful in understanding what you're trying to do.  You mentioned that the files need to 'surround the mesh, not just function as a mapped image like a decal' so I assumed you meant you were applying the textures to the whole thing (which is what the base color textures do).

If you're trying to layer another image as a decal that wraps around the whole object, Dimension can't really do that very well right now.  Decals are intended to float and have mixed results when wrapping around edges depending on the complexity of the object.

[Jondamon]

Hi Jeanette,

You mentioned that you’d like to have the file because Adobe is trying to improve the functionality of imported files. That’s why I sent the link.

Also, you keep mentioning decals. I’m very aware that I don’t want to use decals. I’m very familiar with UV mapping and I know what they are for and how they function. I mentioned it because the import function from the menu sees the jpegs for decals. The “Place Material on Selection” does not see the jpegs. That is what is grayed out. However, using the technique of drag and drop that you pointed out worked pretty well. It surrounded the mesh in 360 degrees on the Base Color. I was happy to see that. The attached screen shot shows a duplication of the model which is rotated to show another side.

The only thing I’m questioning at this point is the drag and drop does not work for Roughness, which is where I would assume texture maps would go.

Thanks again.

Do you have plans for the future to allow editable lighting instead of just environmental?

[JeanetteMathews]

Hmm your screenshot didn't come through on the forum post when you're talking about duplication.  This is probably in relation to the UVs of the model and how the model was built.

"Place Material on Selection" does not load .jpgs or any type of images.  It loads materials.  Materials are pre-packaged information that includes data about color, roughness, translucency, and patterns.  Our supported format for material import is .mdl which you can get from Adobe Stock or export from Substance Painter and Substance Designer.

The most common material type included with .obj assets on sites like Turbosquid is .mtl.  At the moment there's no way to individually import the .mtl file for the material alone.  When you import an .obj Dimension will look if there is an .mtl file in the same directory and try to load the .mtl and any associated textures with the object import.  If that fails then Dimension was unable to parse the .mtl correctly.  In this case (for anyone else reading as well!) please send the file to tickets@adobedimension.com.  We're working on improving the .obj import for Dimension so it's more robust in reading these files.

If your model imports without the textures then right now you'll have to manually configure each texture to the correct channel.  If you open the properties panel you'll see swatches next to each property and you'd want to load the associated image texture from your model into each channel, matching the names/purpose.

Here are some alternative names you might see if you're loading images manually:

• Base Color:  Color, Diffuse, Albedo
• Opacity:  Transparency
• Roughness:  Gloss (if it is called gloss you should probably invert the black/white values of the image as it will likely be backwards in Dimension).

[Zhino5DE5]

I had a similar problem with the .mtl file not opening, although it had the same name as the .obj file. What I had to do is this:
1. open the .mtl file with text edit and find the line that references a .jpg file.
2. If the the jpg file named here is in a different folder move it to the SAME folder where the .obj and .mtl are and then change the reference from folderX\myJPG.jpg to a simple myJPG.jpg (in the mtl text).
3. open the object (.obj) again

Hope this solves it for you too!

[Ussnorway]

it was two years \builds ago and had nothing to do with the name of the file or its location mate

the materials show gray when Dimension sees a file type it can't read... back then that was most files but there are still a few [like Bmp] which cause issues even now