Been testing Moi for a couple of days now, and It seems like a really cool piece of software.
I'd love use it along side 3d studio. However I simply can't figure out a good way to get the stuff I model, into 3ds, without it looking messed up in one way or another.
Can someone please give me some hints on how to go about that?

Thanks!

/J

Hi jna, the first thing is to make sure that models that you create are joined together.

I mean, don't create several surfaces that are next to each other and then try to export them when they are separate - make sure to use the Join command so that pieces share common edges.

When pieces are joined they will be meshed with knowledge of each other and will have things like no cracks and a consistent normal orientation between all the pieces.

If you have a bunch of individual unconnected surfaces, each one gets processed separately and that can easily lead to slightly different mesh structures (causing cracking), and having different normals for different pieces.


Other than that, 3DS Max seems to be pretty temperamental in importing data because as far as I have heard it does not seem to be able to read in the vertex normal smoothing information that is inside of .obj files. This smoothing information really helps reduce shading glitches, it is hard to get perfect shading just from smoothing groups instead of vertex normals.


You might try this other OBJ import plugin for Max:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=6&t=592336
http://www.guruware.at/main/index.html


Does that one do a better job?


Otherwise if you can post some pictures of the stuff that is messed up it may help me give you some more specific advice... It is kind of hard for me to tell what is happening to you just from your description above.

- Michael

With this plugin is a lot better!

I have use it only yesterday, but I was able to import and render a "complex shape". Some little bug it was present, but with the standard 3DS OBJ import it was a mess.

I'm trying the demo of rhino2max fron nPower, but I have to understand how to use it.

Ciao
Luca

Hi Luca, the nPower one is definitely worth checking out, I have heard some people mention they got good results using that.

For OBJ export you may also want to switch to Output: Quads & Triangles when exporting from Moi.

Exporting n-gons puts more pressure on the Max importer to figure out how to triangulate the n-gon which can be a pretty difficult job to do correctly in all cases and any problems there can cause messy imports as well.

- Michael

Yes you are right. I know that Max has some problem with N-gons in OBJ.
I'm trying to refine the export in moi, I'm a totally newbie.
In any case thanks for the link of the plugin (and thanks to Guruware).
Unbelivable that a free plugin is better than a commercial software.
Now Autodesk as acquire Alias, hope this help with OBJ import!

Bye
Luca

Ok, did some more testing after installing that free Max-plugin you mentioned.
It seems as if that, combined with using quads and tris instead of N-gons, did the trick!

Impressed with the quick help I got. Thanks!


/J

Hi jna, you are welcome! I am glad that you have a good method for data transfer now.

If you run into more problems please let me know.

- Michael

Just for the record: "Weld vertices along edges" alwas messes it up for me. If i leave that off, and just go for Quads and Triangles, the result is good most of the time.

/J

Hi jna, thanks for mentioning that, that can help some others in the future.

When that welding option is checked, the OBJ file that is created will be more complex in a certain sense because it will have faces that share a single 3d vertex, but have unique entries for uv and vertex normal for each face.

Some programs don't allow faces to carry independent information on them like this. So when they see "per-face" information they have to do something to try and reorganize it.

Welding turned off basically avoids this situation - adjacent faces will either share all information in common (3d pt, uv coordinate, and normal), or none instead of partial sharing.

- Michael

FYI: Changing the File>Export>Obj>Meshing Options>"Divide larger than: [#]" pull-down to 'All', fixed ALL my problems. :-)

I tried that just now, and that seems to be a winner!

Another, I guess more expensive way to deal with the import situation, is running Npower-RhinoToMax.
An import plugin, that lets you open 3dm files from within 3dsMax. A nice feature is that it lets you quickly 'chamfer all edges'.
Could save you some time.

/J

you have an export file format 3ds direct from Moi ;)

It was immediately after trying that, my search for an alternative began..

.3ds is a very old and limited format.

It is not able to contain vertex normal smoothing information, can only have triangles in it, and is limited to 65535 vertices or faces in a single mesh piece.

It's generally something you should use only as a last resort if there is no other choice.

- Michael