Answered: Mesh combined causes smoothness in Quixel 3DO

BrandonTr3

Hi, i am importing a pistol model from Maya into quixel and it is two pieces that i am struggling with, the rail and the top piece of the pistol. They are seperate meshes and when they are exported together into quixel, all of the edges are smoothed (smoothened?) on the rail but when i export the rail by itself and bring it into quixel, the rail has the sharp edges that i exported it as (which is normal and what i want to look like when i import it with the top piece). Is there a way to fix this and do you know what might be causing it? Below are some links to the picture:

http://i1167.photobucket.com/albums/q640/BrandonTr3/gun_zpskvrrqppu.png

Synaesthesia

By "quixel", are you referring to NDO or DDO or just 3DO by itself? Quixel is the company that produces those tools, not the tools themselves.

Could you tell me what software you exported this model from, and what settings you used, in addition to the mesh format that you exported with?

BrandonTr3

Thanks for the fast reply! And I imported the mesh into DDO and it looks the way it does in 3DO. And i am a bit of a beginner. I exported the model from Maya and only normals was enabled. Smoothing, groups and materials are off. I exported it as obj.

Synaesthesia

If they're on the same UV set, you should combine them into a single object before you export. Our tools treat individual objects within a file as separate textured objects, so they need unique input maps and will export to unique textures as well.

If this doesn't help resolve it, you can throw your OBJ to me via jonathan @ quixel . se and I'll take a look at it in Max for you.

BrandonTr3

I do have the rails duplicated elsewhere. Ill send my file to you just in case though and thank you

Synaesthesia

I can't open Maya files - only *.FBX, *.OBJ, or *.MAX.

BrandonTr3

How do i save my project as an obj? Should i export it and send you the obj version of the mesh instead of the actual file?
Edit: I sent you the obj. There might be a couple little problems with the export maybe. I have learned to check the exported mesh here and there to make sure there no black faces on my model

Synaesthesia

Your mesh came into Max as a spaghetti bowl of edges.



This tells me something is wrong with your mesh - so what I'll suggest doing is resetting transforms in Maya, and then re-exporting again. Let me know if that helps out.

BrandonTr3

This worries me because ive modelled quite a few weapons and now seeing it exports as such that tells me to stop and look more into this. But i reset transformations in Maya and sent you the file. Alot of the gun moved all over the place though.

Also i exported the obj i sent you into maya again and it seems normal. I have no idea why i came out as that in Max

Synaesthesia

So I've loaded it into Max successfully (checked Import as Single Object) but there's a lot of mesh issues that you need to resolve before moving this into any texturing tool. Your grip has flipped, inverted faces, with disconnected geometry and twisted edges, etc. The shading is kinda borked as well. This is something I'd upload to Technical Talk and ask for assistance regarding - the users there will be able to assist in-depth with this.

I won't be able to do any more file checks tonight - I'm headed off for the evening, but I hope I've at least gotten you an idea of where to go from here! Once your mesh is cleaned and ready, please tag me with @Synaesthesia so I can see it!

BrandonTr3

Hmm well ill check into it, thank you!