thank Michael for your answer, there is also a Rhinoceros translator. The Rhino translator reads and writes .3DM files.
Do you think it could work with .3dm files from MoI?
And if not could Moi users have a similar translator?

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/plugins/plugin_rhino_translator.aspx

Hi Yannada, unfortunately the 3DM translator that you are referring to there is very limited - it only extracts polygon mesh data out of a 3DM file and does not read any NURBS data from 3DM files.

Since MoI only stores NURBS data in a 3DM file and not polygon data, that translator actually does not work with 3DM files saved from MoI.


> And if not could Moi users have a similar translator?

There is actually a translation method already available fo MoI users - you can export from MoI as a .lwo file - that .lwo file can then be imported directly into Modo.

Modo is a polygon modeling package so it is difficult for it to deal with NURBS information directly in a plug-in. So that's why the translation method is to use MoI's meshing method to convert it to polygon mesh data.

- Michael

I probably miss something, but it looks like this rhino translator is a joke. To import .3dm inside modo, you have to 'bake' the Rhino model to a polygonal mesh ... so what's the difference of just using .obj format ? In the other hand Rhino can import .obj or even .lwo as well ... so what's the point.

Btw Modo it's the most unstable peace of software I ever work with ... I like it a lot, but still ... so I prefer that MoI stays away from this Nexus stuff :P

I agree with you.
The modo 3dm imported is pretty poor, and disappointing.
It only makes sense I guess from someone who does not have access to Rhino and needs to bring in 3dm directly into modo.

I find moi to be by far the best way to translate 3dm info into polygonal meshes.
As soon as layers are supported, this will be even better

I know there is no groups,layers system in MoI yet but I see is coming soon (COOL).
.lwo Will then hold groups/layers/etc on export ?

I looking for a way that I could mesh the objects/parts individually in Moi, organize them in groups,layers and then export all in one go.

Hi Yannada,

> .lwo Will then hold groups/layers/etc on export ?

I think so - there is something in LWO that is called a "Layer", although it is also kind of used as a way to organize faces into "objects" as well I think...

But if you make a compatible structure in MoI where each object belongs to one tag, then I think it should be possible to send that grouping information over as well.

- Michael

thanks, I am looking forward to the layer/group system...
and last but not list a .lxo export option from MoI to Modo, could it make things more concrete or not?

Hi Yannada,

> and last but not list a .lxo export option from MoI to Modo, could it
> make things more concrete or not?

Is there any technical documentation available that describes exactly how an .lxo file is structured?

There was such information available for .lwo files, which is one thing that made it possible for me to do those.

Is there something important included in .lxo files that is not included inside of .lwo files?

- Michael

>> Is there something important included in .lxo files that is not included inside of .lwo files?

.Lxo stores the complete scene, that includes rendering and surface settings (modo shading tree), lights, cameras, animations, etc ...

... I don't see anything else that MoI could export that is not available with the .lwo format (surface name and colors, basic shading (color, diffuse, specular, gloss, transparency, bump), layers, multiple uv's, vertex map, morph map, and recently normal vertex map)

It's not a terrific mess to be compatible with all system of existant layers progs?

Not for someone that seems to sleep 2 hours / day :P

I think the original idea of the Rhino translator was that it could extract the display mesh from the 3DM file. So you shouldn't have to extract the meshes yourself. But it never worked as it was supposed to. I complained about this on the discussion forum, but was never responded to by any moderator... Luxology has said the final version of the translator will have many improvements based on user requests, but we never saw an update to the beta plugin so we don't know what was fixed or not fixed. Who knows if they were addressing any user problems. Let's wait and see what happens... As a Rhino user, i see little reason to use the translator to go from Rhino to Modo unless they have added 2 of my requests -

1) converting Rhino's "named views" to camera objects.
2) importing of Rhino lights and Environment.

Then it would make Modo a viable solution for render composite work. And this will be very interesting now that Modo will have a fiber generator, something that no Rhino engine has at this moment...

And going from Modo to Rhino, I hope they will automatically bake/assign/export materials into the RDK material format (rtml) and not use the basic Rhino material. If they do not write directly to the rmtl format, then all materials will have to be rebuilt by hand in Rhino. So there would be no advantage. This is one area where i think Modo falls short, that you cant automatically bake all textures for a scene and have the maps reassigned to the shaders in a one-click operation. And of course, exporting cameras to Rhino's named views, and exporting lights are necessary as well. Rhino's SDK can support all of these things. It's up to Luxology if they want this translator to be truly production ready or not. Otherwise, we might as well use OBJ or LWO... Sorry i know this is not related to MoI, but just my thoughts on the subject!

jonah


ALSO - Not sure what all the hype is around NEXUS architecture. Aren't most modern programs just a core with lots of plugins attached? What makes NEXUS any different?

Hi Jonah,

>What makes NEXUS any different?

I guess it is just fairly new... So probably they would say it follows some modern paradigms and can have a slicker more modern UI, stuff like that...

- Michael

Well I suppose it's quiet hard to give this kind of compatibility between two software, more over when it's about shading stuff. I mean modo shading tree can be quite complex already and I'm really not sure Rhino can handle stuffs like layers mask by object id for example, something really typical from modo ... or stuffs like vector displacement map.

I'll be really happy if the translator allow to just render Nurbs in modo, like npower translator for max ... that would be huge !

Yes, of course! But Modo can bake maps for transparency, diffuse, roughness, etc. And this can all be reassigned in Rhino's rmtl format, but perhaps it's just not worth Luxology's time to explore this. Perhaps some nice person will come along and write a good modo to Rhino material converter on their own. I won't hold my breath though! :)

And yes, I also wish that more engines could support NURBS directly. Even better if they can render NURBS directly without a render mesh. AIR (for Rhino) supports this and it's really so cool. But AIR is a RIB renderer, not sure how modo could support that feature. Unless of course Pixar wants to share that tech with Luxology... :)

jonah




PaQ wrote...
"Well I suppose it's quiet hard to give this kind of compatibility between two software, more over when it's about shading stuff. I mean modo shading tree can be quite complex already and I'm really not sure Rhino can handle stuffs like layers mask by object id for example, something really typical from modo ... or stuffs like vector displacement map.

I'll be really happy if the translator allow to just render Nurbs in modo, like npower translator for max ... that would be huge !"

Hi Jonah,

Never ear this air rendering engine, I'm google it right now (I was thinking that every rendering engine have to tesselate the nurbs model :)).

Hi Pascal. Here is the link...

http://www.sitexgraphics.com

Hi PaQ,

> (I was thinking that every rendering engine have to
> tesselate the nurbs model :)

I guess it kind of depends on what your exact definition of tessellate is...

But the REYES / RenderMan style approach is to subdivide NURBS surfaces into smaller and smaller pieces until you get pieces that are smaller than a pixel (a "micropolygon").

So it kind of does tessellate because there is a conversion from NURBS into polygons, but on the other hand it is a different style of tessellation than the conventional kind of mesh conversion because it happens to a level of detail to where you can't see any evidence of the polygon conversion...

- Michael

I'm playing with the demo right now (air space), not super intuitive, but there are a lot of doc to read :)

Thanks for the link !

> Indeed Michael, that's what they seems to call geometry tolerance in the settings (you can drop to 0.25 pixel) ... well ... I like the idea :)
I know the technique for micro-displacement map, but I didn't know it was used for rendering nurbs ... learning new stuffs everyday !

And yes, I also wish that more engines could support NURBS directly. Even better if they can render NURBS directly without a render mesh. AIR (for Rhino) supports this and it's really so cool. But AIR is a RIB renderer, not sure how modo could support that feature. Unless of course Pixar wants to share that tech with Luxology... :)

jonah

 


PaQ wrote...
"Well I suppose it's quiet hard to give this kind of compatibility between two software, more over when it's about shading stuff. I mean modo shading tree can be quite complex already and I'm really not sure Rhino can handle stuffs like layers mask by object id for example, something really typical from modo ... or stuffs like vector displacement map.

I'll be really happy if the translator allow to just render Nurbs in modo, like npower translator for max ... that would be huge !"

 

LEARNING EVERY DAY REALLY THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT MUCH APPRECIATED...


Has anyone request any of the above features to Npower or Luxology?