Hi Pozero...

I think you must look at "Boolean".
Try to search on this forum by type boolean.

Hi Pozero - to make separate polygons you will first need to create different surfaces for each part.

Some parts may naturally be modeled as different surfaces that are then booleaned together, but if you have one larger surface that you want to export as separate polygons you may need to draw a curve and use the Edit/Trim function to split the surface into smaller pieces.

For 2 pieces that touch along a common edge, you should generally make sure that they are joined together (use Edit/Join if necessary, or this is also built in to when you use booleans) so that when converted to polygons the polygons will match along the common edge.

Then to enable breaking apart into separate polygons, when you save to a mesh, expand the Meshing options dialog by clicking on the little arrow in the bottom left corner, and un-check "Weld vertices along edges".

When that option is checked, MoI will produce a mesh that has one single set of shared vertices along a common edge.

When that option is unchecked, the polygons for each surface will have their own vertices along the common edge, making it easier to separate the polygon out into different chunks in your polygon modeling program. Usually there will be some option in your polygon program to separate out different pieces or to select only all polygons directly connected to each other, those are the kind of options that you can use to break it into separate pieces when you have exported an unwelded mesh.

- Michael

I appreciate your help Michael but I can't see any little arrow in the left corner and "Weld vertices along edges" option.
Please put some screen shots if you can. I am begginer in MoI so I often need some help with basics but I think that he is best modeling software I ever saw and I want to use it now for separating polygons.

Thanks to everyone on help

Hi Pozero - when you mentioned separating polygons, I thought you meant saving to a polygon file format, like .obj, .3ds, or .lwo format, to be used in a polygon modeling program.

Maybe you mean something different than that?

When you export you model to a polygon format, this dialog box will appear that gives you some control over how surfaces will be broken up into polygon facets:



If you click the arrow circled in red in the lower-left corner, the dialog will expand and the welding options will appear:



If you turn off welding, it will make it easier to separate your polygons in your other polygon modeling program, but you will need to use some functions of your polygon program to do it, different polygon modeling programs may have different names for it.

- Michael

Yes, we talk about same things. That's what I was looking for. I using POSER 7 software and I will try to see what can I do with rhis option unticked in Poser 7 SETUP room.

Thanks Michael

I exported my MOI prop to Poser 7 with unchecked WELD VERTICES ALONG EDGES option but I don't understand how to choos polygons which I need to texture and colour in Poser?

Hi Pozero, I'm not really familiar with Poser so I'm not sure what options it has to control selecting connected regions of a mesh.

You'd want to look for some tool that separates a mesh into different pieces where vertices are not shared between faces, or some kind of "select connected" faces mode.

One thing you can try is to use Edit/Separate on your model in MoI, this will break it up into different independent surface objects, and then each of those will be exported as a separate object in the OBJ file. However, you may get slightly different meshing between different pieces leaving some very small cracks in between things.

- Michael

Hi Pozero - I took a quick look at Poser. After you import your object (that had welding turned off when exporting from MoI), select it and from the Editing Tools, pick the Grouping Tool, and then try using Auto Group.

If that doesn't work, it looks like it is necessary to pick the polygons you want to separate individually and make them into their own group. It would be great if Poser would implement a "select connected" option to make it easier to select all the polygons that shared vertices with each other.

- Michael

Thanks Michael. I imported my MoI prop in Poser and now I understand how to get separated polygons in Poser. Now in Group Editor menu I have different areas coloured in red and every of that areas represents different polygon. Now I need to find out how to use that separated polygon mesh so I can put bones inside and move each of that separated polygon parts independent of each other.

Regards Michael....you're the BEST :-)