Michael are there any plans to allow the obj exporter to export an all quad mesh that was subdivision friendly? I for one would really like such a feature.

I agree, that would be a Nice To have.
I could use this also.

Glenn

Hi hhal, re:

> Michael are there any plans to allow the obj exporter to export an all quad mesh that was
> subdivision friendly? I for one would really like such a feature.

It's something that I'd like to experiment with in the future but there is a very considerable amount of work involved because it would require a totally different meshing mechanism than the current mesher.

Things that involve a huge amount of work are difficult to promise as far as when and if they will actually become implemented.

In general the mesh output from MoI is meant to be rendered, not to be used for a sub-d control cage. If you need sub-d friendly output you should generally plan on doing retopology work to make a sub-d friendly topology using a mesh editing program.

See these previous posts for some description on this:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1244.48
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3854.15
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2451.50
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3869.64

- Michael

Ok Michael I thought it was a pretty big ask but if you ever did manage to crack it an amazing selling point as I've yet to come across any other software that does it.

I don't think anybody has cracked it yet.

I think a lot of artists (rather than cad people) will relook at nurbs modelling if someone does crack it though.

Indeed I have never seen anything really usefull in that area ... Auto-retopo system like the one you can find in zbrush is fantastic, but really far from the topology an artist will create by hand.
Those automatic system also create very dense mesh, and doesn't really care about creating loops along sharp edges to keep tension right.

For instance an SDS cube model with sharp (tension) edge require exactly 56 quads, not 5000.

I think the coolest topology I've seen is the one created by groboto and Meshfusion ... Groboto was amazing in that area, but 'only' worked with a limited number of primitives.
Meshfusion gives really good result (still a little bit dense, and not quad only), but meshfusion also use SDS models as input mesh, so it probably helps a lot.

Hi PaQ,

> Those automatic system also create very dense mesh, and doesn't really care about creating
> loops along sharp edges to keep tension right.

One of the areas that the existing automatic systems tend to have difficulty with is trying to deal with changes in scale, like when small detailed features are close by larger undetailed flat areas.

They often tend towards trying to make uniform sized quads throughout the whole thing, and then in order to capture some smaller details that uniform target size has to be pretty small.

One of the difficulties with trying to do similar things to CAD models is that CAD models can very often have that type of scale changes for different features like little cut out areas inside of a big flat plane.

Usually when an artist is doing retpology work they are using a lot of skill and judgement to guide the topology that is being created. Processes that require that type of judgement about them tend to be fundamentally difficult to automate, it's like trying to create artificial intelligence...

- Michael

Hi, I'm recently needing this feature for doing texture displacement. For example I have a wall and I apply a brick texture with displacement. So it doesnt have enough geometry from MoI and I have to subdivide the mesh but the subdivision doesnt go well with ngons nor triangles. So, itll be very usefull to have just quads because textures with displacements are very common on arc viz.

Hi Ed, for displacement it's generally good to use the "Divide larger than" setting to generate more evenly diced up triangles.

See here for an example:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2833.5

re:
> So it doesnt have enough geometry from MoI and I have to subdivide the
> mesh but the subdivision doesnt go well with ngons nor triangles

So do you mean you're trying to do the subdivision _after_ you've done the transfer from MoI into your other app?

If so then try doing it at export time from MoI instead, using "Divide larger than" as shown above.

That should produce a better result since the subdivision will be based off of the CAD model instead of trying to generate polygons on top of polygons.

- Michael

In Cinema4d r26 you can Auto retopo Moi3D Objs

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjnYHzKqQ_u/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjqEXINKPO5/