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Getting started part 1: Upload scene by Viz4D Plugin
In this part, we’re gonna upload scene from 3dsMax to Viz4D with our plugin.
The video below is an overview of this part (Upload scene by Viz4D Plugin):
Step 1. Open plugin and validate scene
- At the main menu bar, open the Viz4D menu and click on the “Open Viz4D Plugin” item.
- Next, login to your account.
- Then you must click the “Validate scene” button, for Viz4D Plugin to automatically detect unsupported features and recommend a solution. It’ll take a few minutes for the first validation.
- After clicking, a window will appear. This window has 4 sections:
- Important : Must be solved. If not you can’t upload scene to Viz4D.
- Warning : Should be fixed but you can ignore them. If you ignore it, the result might be different from the original scene, but mostly can be fixed manually later in Viz4D Editor.
- Advice : Nice to have, giving better optimization.
- Summary : Summarize information such as total triangle, required credit, etc.
- After solving the problem, press “Re-validate” to update the status.
Viz4D will bake lightmap with the lighting in the active viewport. So in your active viewport, switch to the camera that you want to bake lightmap.
(Active viewport is the viewport with highlighted yellow border)
- You must transfer LightMix to actual lights by clicking the button “> Scene” (Corona) or “To Scene” (V-Ray).
- After transfer, we suggest you turn off LightMix and re-render to guarantee the light is exactly what you want.
Step 2. Fix incorrect face orientation
Lightmap only contains lighting on the front-facing, so you must solve the incorrect face orientation.
- Click the “Preview Backface” button to detect the back face easily. After clicking, all back faces are highlighted in green.
- In most cases, you need to choose the faces with the incorrect orientation and flip it:
- When you solved all back-face, click “Exit Preview mode” button.
Step 3. Setting Lightmap density
Please follow each step. Setting for lightmap baking:
1/ Click “Preview LM density” button to see lightmap density of all objects. This mode will display the target resolution of lightmaps. Each small square is roughly equivalent to 1 pixel in lightmap (this’s optional, do it if you need to see).
2/ Let’s edit Lightmap Base Density. The higher the lightmap density, the higher the resolution of lightmap. Our suggestion:
140px/m means 1m x 1m surface area is covered by 140x140 pixels lightmap. It’s good balance between quality and performance.
For interior, if you want really high quality without caring about performance of older mobile device just set the lightmap base density to 250px/m.
- For exterior: 80px/m
This pixel is calculated based on object with dimensions of 0.8m x 0.8m.
3/ To have the most optimal lightmap, Viz4D Plugin allows you to adjust lightmap density for each object (called Density ratio).
The lightmap density will correspond with each option in “Density Ratio”:
- x1 = Lightmap Base Density
- x1.5 = Lightmap Base Density x 1.5
- x2 = Lightmap Base Density x 2
……
- 1/2 = Lightmap Base Density / 2
- 1/3 = Lightmap Base Density / 3
……
So all you need to do for Density Ratio is:
- Set Density Ratio to x3 or higher to increase resolution for object that you want to see up close, or that has a hotspot, configurator.
- Set Density Ratio to 1/4 or lower to decrease resolution for unnecessary objects:
- For interior scene, the unnecessary objects are those used as background (usually outside the window, maybe a building, a road …).
- For exterior scene, the unnecessary object is the surrounding landscape such as a yard, a road, a mountain …
- How to set Density ratio:
You are almost done. Keep it up 👏👏
Case to note when set density ratio
For the wall or wardrobe that has many moldings, you should set density ratio to at least x1 to avoid deficient resolution of lightmap.
The comparison of wall’s density ratio (based on lightmap base density is 140px/m):
This is the setting used to bake lightmap. The higher the render setting, the less noisy the lightmap and the longer the baking time. It has 4 options:
Type | Description |
Medium (default) | baking time is fast so sometimes lightmap appears noise but you always can rebake lightmap to remove noise |
Good | good enough quality bake for final result |
Ultra | ultra quality bake (usually used for fix noise in lightmap when rebake lightmap). Remember that it takes a lot of time. |
[Advanced] Keep current | to use your current render setting |
Recommendation about lightmap:
- (highly recommend) The wall, floor and ceiling should have thickness to Prevent light leaks
- Using as few lightmaps as possible to decreases the loading time and memory usage. To do that, follow this guide: Reduce lightmap usage
- The number of lightmaps has good performance on mobile devices should be less than 5 x 4k lightmap.
Step 4. Upload
- Fill out the title and description (you can re-edit this information in Viz4D Editor).
- Please make sure you have followed the steps above, especially setting density ratio. Then click the “UPLOAD SCENE” button.
- Check all things again and click the “CONFIRM UPLOAD” button.
- Now, Viz4D will automatically process your scene. When the process is complete, the window below will appear and you’ll receive a notification through email. After that, you can go to part 2.
- Don’t close this Max instance while it’s processing. You can use your PC as usual, including working on other Max instances and you can upload several scenes at a time.
Viz4D's cloud server will automatically optimize, generate multiple LODs, convert, compress every mesh and texture in your scene, then return you a low-poly version of the original 3D scene to bake lightmap.
Suggestions
- It would be better if your scene is at real-world scale. Some of our tools require real-world scale to operate correctly (i.e. measure tool).
- Use as few materials as possible. Similar materials should be reused. We recommend having less than 300 materials to ensure good performance on mobile. (Total materials used are written in the “Summary” section in the “Validate” window)
- Should be limited use of similar textures to MultiSubTexmap and AO because they require baking, which will make scene heavier too much.
- The mesh of objects such as grass, fur, macrame, rattan ... can not optimize much. So avoiding these meshes to reduces load time and increases interaction performance for the viewer.
- Although we support converting all types of materials, you should prioritize using simple materials. Because the results of complex materials are more likely to be different compared to the original (you can always adjust the material in Viz4D Editor later).
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