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getting textures to work with acrobat 9 pro

uncookedtrout
uncookedtrout's picture
Registered: Aug 30 2011
Posts: 1

I'm trying to bring in meshes and have them be textured. I'm using maya and I've tried exporting as .dwg as well as .u3d. The cad, .dwg, file doesn't open at all. The .u3d just brings in the mesh. I do not have acrobat 9 pro extended. I also can not find anywhere with in acrobat that it allows me to add/ edit a texture so I assume the texture is suppose to just show up if everything is done correctly. adobe support for this seems very poor and most tutorials are for 3rd party programs like tetra 4d.
 
Can anyone point me in the right direction. Thanks.

UVSAR
UVSAR's picture
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
You're correct in assuming that with a properly-assembled U3D file, the material textures will appear by default.

Without Acrobat 9 Pro Extended or Acrobat X Pro with the Tetra4D plugin, you can only import 3D models in the two official formats for PDF, namely U3D and PRC. Support for writing to PRC is extremely limited, so for all practical purposes you're limited to working with polygon meshes in U3D. There are no tools in Acrobat Pro to edit or replace materials in 3D scenes, aside from a limited ability to temporarily-change materials via runtime JavaScript.

Unlike with OBJ, 3DS etc., polygon textures are embedded into U3D files. However they must be bitmaps rather than procedurals, so if you want a brick wall you have to use a JPEG or PNG of a brick wall, rather than a "tile" map. U3D when imported into PDF will accept bitmap textures for diffuse color, opacity, reflections and bump. We don't support 2-sided polygons, normal maps or displacement.