J.O Rust:

Thanks for your help. Yeah, I've found that keeping the vertex map seems to (for the most part) keep the renders A LOT cleaner in modo. I will try using NGONs and see how this impacts my results.

What I've been doing is taking the output from MOI (LWO format) and merging the layers as I see fit in modo. Then I would take each layer and run the merge vertex command.

PAQ:

"Do not copy/merge object in a new layer inside modo, or you will lost the vertex normal info"

This is really useful info. I've been taking the different layers that MoI creates and merging them into layers that make sense based on the project that I'm working on.

"Do not modify the geometry inside modo for the same reason."

This is also a really good tip.
-Is there any way to bring stuff in from MOI that would allow you to edit things in modo without having the shading problems? I find that a lot of times I'm not very happy with the bevels that are done in MOI. As a result, I've been edge beveling some of my objects in modo.

"if the object is complex, you can have thousands of little objects (layers) inside modo, and it's not very handy to manage. And as you can't merge them inside a new layer without loosing the vertex info"

This is one of the big problems that I've had with MoI to Modo. I did an archviz test, modeling an entire small building in MoI, but when I brought it into Modo there were 500+ mesh items. I merged them all in modo using seneca's meshcleanup and merge scripts. I think that's where I got the crazy shading errors.

"In .obj, you can use the MergeOBJ editor tool that Michael creates, it will merge every little piece in on single object/surface"

This seems like the best solution for what I am trying to accomplish. Will running MergeOBJ maintain all of the MoI vertex map info?


I guess I have one more general question... most of my modeling is archviz related, however, I enjoy occasionally messing around with stuff that is more organic in nature. Is it a good idea to build a model in MoI and then bring it into modo to turn into an SDS object? Or is using subdivision surfaces on an imported object going to completely mess with the vertex maps?


Thanks for your help, the both of you. A lot of these little tidbits of info are things that I had no idea about. I've been working mainly in Modo for the past year now and hadn't even had to think about the complications that arise when bringing things from one 3d app to another.

Knowing now that merging items in modo messes with the vertex maps, I think that the best course of action would be to export items in chunks from MoI, allowing me to get different mesh items in different layers in modo while still preserving the vertex map info. Hopefully this will be a lot easier to do once Michael adds layers to MoI.

Again, thanks for the help!!!!

rado

>> This seems like the best solution for what I am trying to accomplish. Will running MergeOBJ maintain all of the MoI vertex map info?

Yes it will, that's the main purpose of it ... and you can split the object into different layers in modo after the merge without problems.


>> I guess I have one more general question... most of my modeling is archviz related, however, I enjoy occasionally messing around with stuff that is more organic in nature. Is it a good idea to build a model in MoI and then bring it into modo to turn into an SDS object? Or is using subdivision surfaces on an imported object going to completely mess with the vertex maps?

Yes it will lost (or wrong), but it's not really a problem because if you apply the sds algo on a MoI object, it will be a mess in the topology anyway. So you will have to clean it 'by hand'. Generally when working in sds you keep an overall shading smooth angle around 89.9 ... if you need a sharp angle you can either slice the edge loop to increase sds tension, use edge weight or even just split the geometry.

Maybe we can ask seneca to see if he can do something in his merge layers script to keep this info alive.

Thanks again, very useful info. I was doing some basic stuff quite wrong when trying to go from one 3d app to another.