Hi Martin, re: naked edges - that's a good description but maybe a bit simpler way to describe it is a naked edge is when an edge belongs to just one single surface rather than being joined between 2 surfaces.

It's not automatically an error to have naked edges - if you just draw a simple rectangular plane using Draw solid > Plane, that will have 4 naked edges which is normal and expected because it's just a single surface and not joined to anything yet.

But if your object is supposed to be a watertight solid, that's when there are not supposed to be any naked edges and you can use that script to find areas where things are not joined properly, either because of an unexpectedly large gap between edges leaving a hole there, or sometimes due to some kind of bad trimming boundary like one that criss-crosses over itself or has an edge squeezed down to a single point or some various things similar to that.

So anyway if you have a goal to make your object a finished solid and it does not show as "Solid" in the object type indicator in the properties panel, that means it has some naked edges in it which you can use that script to locate. Those areas then usually need some repair work on them.

- Michael

Thanks Michael - Much better put than my version :)

Martin
(TpwUK)

In my quest to find out more about meshes I found this:

"Distant Unicorn (History|Contact)
Oct 27, 10 6:25 pm
Draw me an extruded pentagon in NURBS (perfectly quadratic mesh too) that only uses 7 polygons (quads) and I'll LOL to the I'm-Sorry-I'm-Wrong-Bank."

I made an extruded pentagon with Moi and it did indeed have only 7 polygons. Probably a bit late to tell Distant Unicorn though.

PS Does anyone know of a page that will explain to me what I should be trying to achieve when exporting a mesh from Moi? Sometimes long triangles seem to cause problems and sort of pinching in places (mostly around holes) and to avoid this I try Ngons. Ngons make lovely smooth surfaces but confuse some programmes into adding extra surfaces. Its very puzzling and working neither in the computer or design industry I have no one to ask and few options for experiment.

Hi Keith,

re:
> Does anyone know of a page that will explain to me what I should be trying to
> achieve when exporting a mesh from Moi?

I don't know of a page for that, but I can tell you that there isn't just a single answer because it depends on what you are trying to do with the mesh and what program you are importing it into.

For example if you're going to be sculpting the mesh in ZBrush adding little pits and bumps onto it, you will be looking for a different style of mesh than if you're rendering it.

If you could give more details about what you want to do with the mesh, what program you're trying to bring it into, and what file format you're currently using, that might help me to give you some advice.

- Michael

Hi Michael
I think I don't fully understand the basic concepts that others here have been taught or have learned through having a job that involves modeling in some way. I work in mental health services and consequently understand a lot of stuff that other people don't ever need to know about health regulation so I understand that when you guys discuss things there is an implicit understanding and a language that I will struggle with. My simplistic idea for a retirement hobby was to do something artistic; so making props for DAZ or selling models on Renderosity seemed a possibility. I'm ambivalent about the selling aspect as I don't actually need the money but on the other hand I do want to make things good enough to sell. After that I might just give them away:)

The problem I am grappling with (and its unfair to share this with you I know) is that Moi to Polymesh or Quads > Texture> Render is quite tricky and at every point there is a steep learning curb. To me most of the attached pictures have things that I didn't expect to see and it upsets the perfectionist in me. Not because there is anything wrong with Moi (its amazing) but because I can't work out how to correct them, or indeed tell if they need correction. They are as they appear in Blender, Carrara and Moi.
Keith

Hi Keith, so in order to get a smooth render, there is a piece of information that is part of the mesh called "vertex normals" which is important to get used in order to avoid shading artifacts.

Unfortunately I seem to remember that in recent versions of Carrara they stopped reading in this information and without the vertex normals being used you will tend to get shading artifacts like you show. I don't think it used to be a problem so it's something that they changed in Carrara at some point and after that change it is not very good for rendering CAD data anymore unfortunately.

If you can find any import options for the Carrara import, see if there is anything labeled "Vertex normals" which you can enable, which would then likely solve the problem.

Blender has also had the same problem but I think it may be fixed up in the most recent version of that. I'm not entirely sure though.

Pretty much every other rendering program than those 2 will work better. You might try the demo version of Simlab composer and see if that works better for you.

For all 3 of these programs (Blender, Carrara, and Simlab composer) you would want to use OBJ format for saving out from MoI, with Output : "Quads and Triangles".

But I think it's likely that if you try a different rendering program that does support reading vertex normals from the .obj file that would get you higher quality shading and avoid those problems.

- Michael

Hi Keith,

Hopefully this will help a bit. Consider the below image:

PIC 1

At the default Mesh Option settings with an Angle of 12 (dot 1), you can see there are lots of large triangles on curved surfaces, which when rendered ABSOLUTELY WILL cause artifacts using any polygon renderer. The angle determines how and when to break up curved surfaces. As you can see (2) the surface outline is most facetted, which won't look good unless you are creating a very small render or building for games. This setting creates a very small model size (3), only 34K polys.

PIC 2

By just decreasing the angle (4), we can create more polys along the curve (5), which will render somewhat better. But we still have those pesky triangles and it would be nice if we could raise the number of polys on the longer curves (5). Note decreasing the angle increased the file size to 106K polys.

PIC 3

So, to get rid of the long problem triangles, we typically need to fiddle with the Divide larger than number. Here we've set it to .2 (dot 7) which means any polygon larger than .2 units on any size will automatically be divided. Wow it's very smooth! (8) We set the dropdown to All, but we could also set it to Curved since there aren't any flat planes in this model. As a rule, I typically set it to All unless either a) the geometry is regular (boxes w/out slow curved surfaces); or b) I want to use micro-beveling in KeyShot (which doesn't work well with small flat polys on the same plane). This setting turns out is overkill for this model and the poly count is up to a whopping 182K! More polys = longer renders and slower performance ;-)

PIC 4

This is a pretty good setting for this model to be rendered at a fairly high quality. The Divide larger than is set to .5 (dot 10) and the model should be exported as OBJ and import fairly well into most rendering packages. Fairly decent curve resolution (11) and a poly count of 120K.


The exported OBJ can be found here.

Thank you both for your help. I know that Michael has been patent enough to explain about Carrara and normal before so I am Doubly grateful this time. Chipp that was a great pictorial explanation too. The model I copied on turbo squid http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-cartoon-crab/822724 has only 5,646 polygons and looks very smooth. Do you think the problems I am having are to do with the software I am using rather than the models I produce? I think my modeling is getting better but my renders are disappointing.

Hi Keith - yes I do indeed think that the particular problems you were indicating are due to limits in the rendering software that you're using.

The specific problem is that it's easy to get glitches exactly like you show if a particular piece of data called "vertex normals" is not loaded from the polygon mesh file and used to shade the object.

The 2 renderers that you are using (Carrara and Blender) happen to be about the only 2 ones that have this problem. In the past Carrara did not have this problem but apparently they've changed stuff in it in more recent versions that has introduced this problem and made it problematic to use for rendering CAD data. I seem to remember that very recently this may have been solved in Blender but I'm not completely sure about that.

I'd recommend saving your model as an .obj file out from MoI using the option for "Output: Quads & Triangles" and then loading it into SimLab composer and see if that gives you a better looking smooth shading. You can get a trial version of Simlab composer here:
http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-products/simlab-composer-trial.aspx

Also if you want smoother looking results, moving the slider a little bit to the right to increase the number of polygons created can also help with that, like Chipp shows above.

But the key thing to get a good looking render without shading glitches is to make sure that the vertex normals smoothing information in the .obj file is being loaded and used by the renderer - apparently Carrara is not doing that anymore and so that will lead to shading glitches exactly like the ones that you have been showing that you want to avoid.

- Michael

Hi Keith - here's an example showing the difference that using vertex normals will make - I loaded your Crab.3dm file and exported it out using the exact same settings you show above (the somewhat coarse default angle = 12), and loaded it into Cinema4D and rendered it there - notice that all of those glitches that you pointed out on the claw are completely gone with the same polygon mesh density.

If you want to get better looking results you will need to use a rendering tool that works better with CAD originating data and can load all the information from the .obj file including vertex normals rather than skipping the vertex normals and just having them created by averaging polygon faces which is what creates those glitches that you pointed out above. Simlab composer would be good choice to use because it's pretty easy to use and not as expensive as many of these other fancier rendering and animation packages.

Anyway here's what your same data (with same density as you used above) looks like rendered in Cinema4D:



- Michael

Hi keith, just one more note about this part:

> The model I copied on turbo squid http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-cartoon-crab/822724
> has only 5,646 polygons and looks very smooth.

That's 5,646 polygons for the "base mesh" - that model was created using a technique called "subdivision surfaces" and the super smooth render that you see is because of additional polygons being added just for the rendering process.

That particular type of modeling method also called "sub-d modeling" is set up like that where you have a coarser control mesh and then a smoothed down result that adds more polygons when it's rendered. It's a different type of model structure than what you will get with a CAD model.

If you wanted to specifically make something with a low polygon count that used that same process you would need to model it in a polygon modeling tool by manipulating cage points, it's a different way to create models than the curve oriented CAD method that MoI is based on.

The models that you build with MoI and export as polygons will not be further refined just at render time by the rendering program, so because of that if you want them to have a smooth looking silhouette you will need to generate them with more polygons in them when you save them out from MoI.

- Michael

Hi Michael
>If you wanted to specifically make something with a low polygon count that used that same process you would need to model it in a polygon >modeling tool by manipulating cage points, it's a different way to create models than the curve oriented CAD method that MoI is based on.

A couple of last questions if you have the time.

1. Once you had loaded, for example, my crab into C4D could you then have converted it to a subd model or is there something about the mesh that Moi makes that is fundamentally different to the mesh made in a native subd modeling program?

2. If I made a model with a lovely render with moi + Simlab and put the OBJ on Renderosity. Do you think people would curse me for wasting their time because the model was not made in a subd or polygon modeling program?

I'm tempted to buy Simlab and will definitely try it out.
Regards
Keith

Hopefully I can save Michael some keystrokes.

1. No, you cannot change a MoI OBJ into a SubD model. There are tools called retopology which can help this, but mostly it's a tedious process.

2. AFAIK, there are no problems sellling on Rendo or other forums a NURBS based topology model vs a SubD one. I used to sell a bunch of stuff on Cornucopia (another Rendo like marketplace) and none of it was SubD. In fact, I would wager most of the content on Rendo is NOT SubD.

Vitaly Bulgarov sells a bunch of SubD and non-SubD models at his kitbash store:
http://vitalybulgarov.com/3d-kitbash/

Some of the models were created in MoI:
http://vitalybulgarov.com/3d-kitbash/black-widow-attachment-blocks-pack

Here's a wire for the same set and is a good example of the mesh options density which works well in poly renderers (click to enlarge):

Hi keith, just one additional comment on this one:

> 2. If I made a model with a lovely render with moi + Simlab and put the OBJ on Renderosity.
> Do you think people would curse me for wasting their time because the model was not made
> in a subd or polygon modeling program?

Like Chipp said, I don't think so but it might be a good idea to include a shot of the wireframe as well just to make it clearer.

You also wouldn't want to claim that the model was something like "ready to animate", when someone is trying to use the model for an animation for something other than rigid body motion, like if they want it to walk around with flexing limbs and stuff like that, that's when a sub-d created model is helpful.

Other than that particular kind of flexing animation you would not want to be so worried so much about a low polygon count like you seem to be, for a static render you would actually want a higher polygon so it looks smooth. A low polygon count is usually only specifically desirable for a sub-d type model, especially one that will be animated, or for models that will be used in real-time game engines. For models that will be used in rendering you should not be so worried about it.

Also some rendering programs can have difficulty dealing with n-gons so for widest compatibility you'd probably want to export with "Output: Quads & Triangles" rather than "Output: N-gons", or maybe include both types.

- Michael

If you only have Carrara and only want to render the model, you can save it as a sat or a step and use Carrara's meshing parameters to get a nice result. If you want to first create the OBJ's, then MoI's mesher will be much better, but as mentioned, Carrara has done something with the OBJ importer....

Hi everyone
Thanks for being so helpful. I learned more today than I would in weeks of trawling as when I do a search its just chance that some answered my question in the past. I used SimLab and all the things I have discarded look a lot better than I thought possible, and where there are problems I can understand why; in most cases at least.

Chipp the stuff you posted really helped too and has given me some perspective. A lot of you who have spent a career doing this stuff amaze me because you know and do things I don't even know are possible.

BurrMan, I stumbled across people talking about Daz turning towards selling assets and no longer supporting Carrara, which if true makes me sad. It does a huge amount of stuff but the renders I can produce (that looked cool to me when I started) are poor compared to the ones regularly posted here. When Michael told me about the problems with smoothing I upgraded to 8.5 and found the import of 3dm to be present but had no better smoothing than the standard version. I assume that there are more people who want and are able to pose girls in bikinis with hefty swords than people who want to make models. My guess is that Cararra is going to be just another way of posing genesis and 89.7 smoothing (or whatever it is) works best.

To be honest I'm well into uninformed speculation now so will leave you all in peace until my next ill informed venture causes me difficulty.
Many thanks
Keith

Hi Kieth,
So just a couple last additions here, since it can help you with the NURBS and Poly's differences you are discussing.

(And my comments will be in regard to the NURBS we are starting with in MoI)

Most importantly, when you are bringing in you model to a poly/rendering application, anything you see referencing "Smoothing", will be throwing out what Michael referred to about "Vertex Normals"... (These are very important to your CAD (NURBS) model going into these other arenas ) If they are not being read in, then that will self destruct your CAD data.

""""""""""It does a huge amount of stuff but the renders I can produce (that looked cool to me when I started) are poor compared to the ones regularly posted here""""""""

Well, remember you are looking at people very skilled at doing that..... Some of the renders you see in the MoI Gallery are from "Carrara"...... Simlab is a great choice though, like some of the others. They are geared towards creating great looking renderings with very little input. But you sacrifice from some of the other programs like Carrara, which allow you to have control very deep into the render.... (I keep mentioning Carrara because you mentioned it. Like you have noted, the development is not really going to keep up. Something like Modo would be far superior....)
But having very deep control of the render can be not so good for someone starting out... If you don't set all those parameters well, then the render will suffer.

You mentioned earlier about a guy's challenge to "show your polygon" or something like that... The simple answer is we don't have "polygons" in NURBS, but we can create them from our NURBS objects.

Thanks BurrMan
I get what you say, I hope. I like nurbs but coming at it from an uninformed direction did not really understand why there were several types of modeling. You have all helped m understand something that to most people is very specialist knowledge. I have HUGE respect for you all and have been trying to explain to my wife, a psychologist, how you all make things out of maths, points and lines. I think she humors me:)
Keith

Hi Keith1961 from Mauro(1962) :)
talking about Moi mesher to obtain a good export it depend also what tools you use
let me show few example,pictures talks better than my english ;)

an egg shape obtained first with a revolve,then from solid, extracted isocurves for loft and add two points at the poles





now exporting you can see little differences between them, a better sudbivision for loft at the pole area




now a wavy surface using same extracting method:sweep and network




again little differences, better regular subdivision on the network




the egg should be done obviously using revolve but if you don't need an accurate shape,it can be done using loft because of better subdivision at the poles
it's better to export with the good foot before render ;)

M