Hello Dear Michael, Dear Community,

First of all, I want to say that I got my first bigger client project, and MoI3D helps me a lot with the creation of the model. Only 2 week I don't have an idea how I would create that object with my standard polygonal modeling workflow.
3 weeks in and I can create already more or less complex objects. That's so great.

However, I would like to ask you how your texture process is. I didn't texturing before. (In Cinema4D I am usually applying just normal materials).
But in this case, I need to create those icons/circles with the digits. That part is no problem. I can create it in Photoshop.

But I don't know how to apply it to the actual geometry of the object. I also heard and read, that because of the "bad topology" from the MoI3d export it's difficult to create such things?

I know, maybe it's not the right topic but maybe you can just share your workflow, so I can check out some Youtube videos than on that process.

What programs do you recommend? I use an old Cinema4D version, where the UV functions are very bad. Maybe Blender? Or something else?

Thank you in advance.






https://www.dropbox.com/s/ax8daqpzppvcupw/Texturing_Question_Project_File.3dm?dl=0



EDIT: 2ND problem
Now I have an other problem. I have an object which should be a solid, but I just found I have a hole in the object (bottom left) and the curves are a bit off so I can't really close it. (What I want to do initially is to subtract the 6 cylinders from the solid so I have the effect like in the reference image. But I can't boolean the cylinders out of the main object, because it is a "joined surface"

How can I close that hole and how I can boolean the cylinders from the main object?
Screenshot 1 (What I want to do)
https://ibb.co/h9VB973

Screenshot 2 (Hole in the object)
https://ibb.co/M8MdXFr

File
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ukpap5d9hhvju0l/hole-joined-surface.3dm?dl=0


Thank you so much in advance!!!

Features such as fine textures or text / graphical printing on an object are normally done in the render program, not the modeling program.

I use Keyshot for rendering and I can create a texture or graphic in Photoshop, then apply it as a "Label" to the model inside Keyshot. I can even add a bump map or Normal Map to give some height to the decal.

I've used Labels & Normal Maps to add flat text to surfaces, realistic tire tread, tire sidewall raised logos & text, raised text on glass headlights, etc. Those type of features are very difficult to model, and extremely difficult to edit once the geometry is created.

Unless your model has text or graphics with a very pronounced height, I would not model these features.

Any good render program will have some type of Decal or Label feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjQyKKziy8o&t=133s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3t9e26f3TY

Ed Ferguson

Thanks.
Yes obviously I did not want to model it onto the object. But I use Octane and checked out your videos and I know that I can move/reposition an texture/logo inside Octane but sometimes it is a bit tricky to get the result I want (size/position/proportions) etc... Maybe I thought it would be easier to make it with UV or something. But yes, if there is no other solution. I'll try that with Octane Render

Hi Nikita,

re:
> I also heard and read, that because of the "bad topology" from the MoI3d export
> it's difficult to create such things?

Where did you hear that? MoI's export is well known for its high quality mesh export because it creates an n-gon mesh with a clean wireframe that resembles the original CAD model instead of just a huge pile of triangles.

But to take advantage of it your render program will need to be robust in handling n-gons.

What it doesn't do is generate an "all quad" mesh topology that is ready for sub-d smoothing. That's a different type of mesh structure.


> What programs do you recommend? I use an old Cinema4D version, where the UV
> functions are very bad. Maybe Blender? Or something else?

Is your Cinema4D version like 20 years old or something?

For the numbers on a dial like that a decal or label type method like Ed mentions above is probably easiest, you don't need to use UV mapping for that.

If you did want to set up UV mapping, Blender would be worth trying. Export out from Moi to FBX format using n-gons for import into Blender.

- Michael

I read sometimes that tris / n-gons are not so good for texturing and quads are better. But yeah that's the thing, I don't know yet a lot about texturing. So I will try it out with the render engine.
And yes the export is very good in MoI. The model in C4D is exactly like the model in MoI with all the correct shading in most cases:)

Hi Nikita,

re:
> How can I close that hole and how I can boolean the cylinders from the main object?

I've attached a version here that has the hole patched up. There is a little edge in there that is making things a bit difficult. I ended up untrimming the surface above the hole and retrimming it with a line that matched up to the little edge better, then i was able to join together the little edge with its longer neighbor and use Construct > Network to make a filling piece.

- Michael

Hi Nikita,

re:
> I read sometimes that tris / n-gons are not so good for texturing and quads are better.

There are some programs that do not have very good support for n-gons. If that's the case then yes for that particular program this might be true but it's not applicable to programs that handle n-gons well.

- Michael

Thank you very much for having a look and fixing it and the explanation, even though I couldn't recreate the fix myself, but yeah I will just be more careful and thoughtful about every step I do in MoI to not come into issues like that later.

And also I found out some ways to align the texture to the exported MoI3D model in Octane. Thanks!