Editing Vertex Normals in Softimage XSI Mod Tool 7.5? How do I do it?

RexM

I've searched a ton but to no avail.

Here is the closest thing I have found:

http://www.xsibase.com/netview_forum/index.php?board=16;action=display;threadid=32431

It didn't work, unfortunately. I loaded the work group and there is no XSI_UserNormals option when alt-rmb'ing a mesh. There also isn't a XSI_UserNormals folder anywhere to be found.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I've found out how to display the vertex normals (the little lines coming from the points), but still can't edit them...

This is what I want to do:

http://wypierpapier.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

I want to make vegetation lit like that, with no black planes.

cryrid

Prior to 2010, it was an addon you had to install manually that was included in
XSISDK\examples\workgroup\Addons

I don't think the SDK comes with Mod Tools though, so perhaps you could find an old trial mirror for XSI 7 and grab it from there.

RexM

Thank you, I found mod tool 6.0; I'll give that a try.

EDIT: It looks like Mod tool 6.0 doesn't have it either.

I suppose I'll try an older version.

cryrid

I meant a trial for XSI itself (7ish), not Mod Tool.

RexM

Dang, can't believe how stripped down Mod Tool is..

Thanks, downloading a XSI 7.0 trial I found.

RexM

Well, turns out the normal editor was terrible for my purposes. Either that or I just didn't know how to use it well enough, but there is simply no documentation on it and I messed with it quite a bit.

I guess I'll just send the geometry to Max and use NormalThief....

Too bad I couldn't import a Max script into XSI. Anyways, the end result will be worth all this hassle.

cryrid

I think you just don't know how to use it to be honest; it does the same job. Press the ? in the corner of the PPG for documentation just like any other thing in XSI. In the case of the tutorial, hit the button to align the normals by the axis you want so that they all point up. From what I can tell of the Chrome translation and images provided, he then rotates the top normals a bit. To manually edit individual user normals, just select the normal you want to edit (by selecting the vert), hold b to activate the UserNormal mode, hit the rotate button, and rotate it as desired.

RexM

Looks like I'll have to use it in the XSI trial.

It's really very buggy, slow, and barely functional in Mod tool.

By the way, is there any way to freeze the normals so that when I move the vertex points, the normals don't change?

RexM

Awesome, the XSI 7 trial seems to handle the plugin just fine.

Now that I think about it though, it can't be that hard to write a script to do this, basically having all normals align with the polygons and point outwards for planes, making sure it was between the edges so to speak. I'll have to look into that.

Anyways, one issue I am having is that it seems like once I run the plugin, I can't turn it off? I tried unchecking the 'active' check box, but that only turns off the ability to select the normals. Hmm, on further inspection it added something called 'MyCustomPass' in the realtime shaders drop down for choosing 'texutred', 'textured decal', etc.

One I turn on the plugin, all the textures disappear even though the material settings are just fine.

cryrid

It's a little buggy as it is an older plugin from around the XSI 3 era. 2010/2011 has editing user normals as a standard feature which works a lot more smoothly.

There's quite a few different ways you can go about bypassing any visual glitch and seeing it with your texture in older versions, though I generally only use two. The thing to note is that the models/uvs/materials don't get messed up so they export fine, it's just how the scene now tries to display them. You can either:

• Deactivate the User Normals, delete the realtime node it created, and then use the the XSI Browser (select the objects you want and hit alt+8 ). You can work on the model there normally, including seeing the texture applied. If you're not happy with the UserNormals, you can go back and tweak them in the same scene.
• If you're happy with the smoothing result and done with editing the usernormals, simply export the models (not the scene) and either relaunch XSI or have a second window of it running and waiting to import them (I'd recommend this method if you're unsure of the Usernormals and want to continue editing them in the first window). Since the new scene would have never touched the plugin, they'll display there perfectly even with the user normals. Emdl is the best method as it will preserve everything, but a standard obj or Collada can save usernormals and basic materials too.