Imported mesh + vertex paint + 5way vertex paint + 3rd Uv channel

My goal is to import a static mesh that comes with three vertex painted colors.
The basic color is for the walls, a 2nd color for the floors and a 3rd to blend between some unavoidable seams that are hidden by a 3rd unique UV channel.
This means I could have two additional colors left for others to paint additional details on either the walls or floors.

I came across two problems:

  1. The moment I use more than one additional vertex color and import the mesh the blend wont show up.
  2. How can I address this 3rd UV map (the 2nd being the lightmap) with the correct vertex color? (I did make the lightmap uv in 2nd channel, and additional uv map in 3rd channel)

For the 5-way vertex paint setup I used this example: Create a Material for 5-Way Texture Blends | Unreal Engine Documentation
But on import none of the colors show up. (they do show up on a 2-way vertex paint setup, but 3-way, 4-way and 5-way wont)

Images:
5-way setup:

Mesh browser view:

Mesh in 3dSMax:

So, here is a list of questions to recap:

  1. When painting the mesh in 3dSMax, are there any specific things I need to take care of?

  2. When using the 5-way (I will settle for/might prefer a 4-way) blend setup, what are things I need to look out for?

  3. How can I make sure that one of the colors uses the 3rd UVmap layout?

  4. For one specific mesh I need one of the UV colors to show transparency, shouldn’t be a problem right?

  5. Any chance I could get a good howto/example on how to achieve this.

I know it must be possible, I had to set up meshes like this a lot back in ued 2.5…
thanks for your time and help!

  • Luos

So after a lot of trial and error i got a 4-way working, but the moment I create the 5-way the 5th color (alpha/OneMinus) takes over all the colors of the imported colors.

so to answer a few of my own questions:

  1. Make sure I am painting black/white/red/green/Blue colors

  2. No clue yet.

  3. Set "coordinate index to channel 2 (which is the 3rd channel made in max)

  4. Not yet adressed

  5. Not yet adressed.

Getting there :slight_smile:

/me smacks myself around with a trout.

re-answering my questions:

  1. Make sure i am painting with White + alpha 100, Black + Alpha 0, Red + Alpha 0, Blue + alpha 0 and Green + Alpha zero.
    By finding this out, I solved all the other problems.
    (13 years of 3dsmax and never knowing there was such a thing as “alpha” in the vertex paint options, so was only trying black/white with an alpha of 100)

  2. make sure to set up alpha correctly in vertex paint.

3 Set "coordinate index to channel 2 (which is the 3rd channel made in max)

  1. not yet adressed but not important atm.

  2. no need for it.