noob question- warped polygons? *photos*

WhiteNorthStar

I'm sure that this has been solved many times before, but I couldn't find anything using google.

It is a problem I have with 3ds Max sometimes. I made a primitive triangle, then chamfered the edges. The main faces of the triangle seem to be warped, they are showing these unpleasant shadows. Sometimes a similar thing happens when I put a cap on a border :poly142:

I guess that I just need to subdivide that big polygon into 4 smaller triangles, and then use smoothing to make that big face appear perfectly flat. Am I right? :poly121:

SPYFF

Hmm, maybe select all of faces, and hit "Clear All" and "Auto Smooth" in Polygon: Smoothing groups rollout.

Bigjohn

Try clearing all the smoothing and assigning them all to one group again. Also try resetting the xForm (in the utility tab). If that fails, try putting an Edit-Poly modifier on top and collapsing the stack.

Those are the most common things I usually do in these cases.

Pola

Looks like it could be due to vertex normals pointing where they shouldn't be Unfortunately I'm a maya user so I have no idea how to fix that in max.

JamesWild

I believe that's actually correct; if you consider how the normals would smooth in this instance it'll be slightly different at each corner.


To "fix" this, inset the sides so the faces' vertices average in the same direction.

WhiteNorthStar

folks, that's great and useful information, thank you very much