Can Fusion 360 quadrify when exporting?

Altea

As other similar programs, to allow deforming in 3d programs as Max. Yes, there are triangles, but with the same pacing than the quads and not breaking the flow of the polygons needed for deformations or subdivisions.

musashidan

Yes, I think it can in recent versions, using the Mesh tab. But it's still going to be pretty much polysoup. Out of curiosity, why would you build the above mesh in 3DF if eventually looking to export a deformation-friendly mesh to Max?

Altea

It is a lot quicker to do this type of meshes in a cad program than in Max and ironically creates a cleaner topology. And yes, this exact model can be done without problems in Max, but the model can be quickly a lot more complex with CAD tools without topology extra work as in Max.

The problem of Max is that even you could do this it becomes increasingly difficult to chamfer the edges without editing heavility  the model because the chamfer tools are too dependent of the topoly in Max. Specially when you need booleans.
But the model is not "game ready". This workflow is only OK for some circumstances as concepting or high res only modeling.

I suppose that polysoup means less clean that this? The feature here is not that it can quadrify but that it can divide in regular quads any surface. You simply set the size of the quads and it is divided when exporting. Quadrify in a irregular way can be a mess.
Having meshes in Max that can not be edited or are difficult to edit as it is typical of CAD has many limitations.

musashidan

You probably just need more practice modeling in Max. This mesh can very quickly and easily be done in Max. smoothing groups to control chamfers. Perfectly quadrifying a hard-surface mesh using an auto-topology solution is an on going problem that's yet to be solved in any program.

And yes, I've used Fusion 360 a lot when testing new workflows and realised that the extra retopology work just wasn't worth the hassle when I can get my low-res/cage geo for 'free' in Max.

Altea

Well, I said "this exact model can be done without problems in Max" It was simply an example for the topology export problem.

But chamfers and booleans are yet a problem in Max. When you do a boolean in Max you can not go direct to do chamfer without some clean up. And where there are lots of chanfers and booleans this become an increasingly difficult problem.
I know Max, perhaps not so well as you. But I want to complement it with a nurbs program for certain tasks and I was trying find what one is the best: Fusion 360 or MoI.

I know that for many things cleaning the topology that comes from Cad programs is not worth the effort. But as commented this should not be a problem for concepting or high res models.  Having in mind that cleaning the topology from CAD is a main headache I was trying to find what of those 2 programs have a better export system.

poopipe

One big benefit of fusion is that you can take live(ish) data into max,  I'm not sure if that's possible with moi

I'm not really sure where the problem is to be honest though,  making the low res model isn't the difficult bit. 

musashidan

Sorry, but maybe I'm missing what your goal is. Are you creating concept/illustration meshes, or meshes that you want to animate? Are you rendering offline animations?

Also, boolean cleanup isn't as big an issue as you may think. It just comes down to your experience with topology: where to add strategic edges/etc.

There are scripts to de-triangulate a mesh, which might work alright on your example, but would be useless on a more complex mesh.

If your end goal is indeed deforming animated meshes then cage-modeling is the way to go. If you're having issues with that very basic example then the more complex your heavy, dense, CAD models become, the more polysoup you will encounter.

If offline rendering then you also have opensubdiv creasing and rounded edge shader as options.

Altea

Lately there are two kind of programs that pop each time more in the media, from one side Blender, that I don’t think will take a look at the moment and the other are relatively friendly CAD programs, Fusion 360 and Moi.

For example they appear frequently in Learn Squared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727fEYKy5iQ

Things like this can take several times more to do in Max that Moi, mostly based in Booleans and chamfers, because chamfers need a clean topoly and booleans in Max are always needed of some cleaning. Even this cleaning can be done when this is multiplied by dozens of times as in the example below it is simply slower than the straightforward Moi or F360.

 I don’t pretend to substitute Max with them but complement it, if that makes any sense.

 

Poopipe, Even Fusion 360 can import “alive” objects to Max, but they are yet very triangulated and will react badly to deformations. You can change his settings in Max or Fusion but it won’t make too much difference, at least compared with Moi. Also the quadrify options of Fusion 360 are not great apparently compared with Moi, and the ones inside Max are terrible.

Musashidan, I think you have taken a look to Blender, do they have really a tool that is a game charger enough to justify using it?

poopipe

I still can't see where there's a problem. 

You don't need clean quad topology for a render or source bake mesh.

You don't  need clean topology for a low res mesh either really when it comes down to it. 

If you're trying to avoid doing modelling then you have to accept that automated solutions are going to produce results that aren't ideal. 

If you're going to be picky about the output I'd say you have to suck it up and do it by hand.  Currently there is no substitute. 


In terms of going from high res to game res automatically I did some research into automation for rapid prototyping at work a while  ago .. 

Zbrush decimate is very powerful

Houdini has some excellent features if you're prepared to put the time into building something. 

Pro optimise in max is pretty decent but it lacks 'guidance'  features found in the others

Also there's simplygon,  it has some really powerful features and although I've not tried it on a high res mesh I expect it'd do pretty well. 

musashidan

You're not winning me over with your examples. Your last example can  be done very quickly in Max and almost entirely out of spline shapes.

I've been through them all in search of new hard-surface tools/workflows for game-ready assets: Modo, Blender, Fusion360, Houdini, rounded edge shaders, Substance designer chamfer, inset chamfer scripts for Max, Dynamesh......

And for the moment I always just come back to my tried and trusted hard-surface workflow in Max. I get the high for free. I don't worry about topology as I build. It's fast. It's simple. It works every time.

So, do you have an actual output goal for these assets, or are you just running tests? Are you baking or are you animating for offline? I insist on asking this as the workflow can change quite a bit.

Altea

Arrimus points the advantage of a program as MoI3d and he explains well what you are asking me. But it seems he lost soon interest as it is the part 1 of only 1 tutorial with nurbs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5r3xc_Go3o&t=185s

 I’m trying myself to understand this workflow. I’m simply curious if these kind of “easy” nurbs tools can be helpful in any way (Fusion or Moi). There is a chance that only can be useful for concepting or some type of high res models as the topology they have the tendency to create is difficult for UVs etc.

 And using Moi as complement of a standard 3d package (as 3ds Max or Maya) comes from Vitaly Bulgarov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_7r7pl56U8&t=627s

 He uses Moi3d instead Fusion 360, even I understand that his choices of programs is very personal. Also deforms the meshes from Moi3d in Softimage, in the same way could be done in Max. But this kind of deformation is not possible if the mesh has not been quadrified regularly, as Moi3d can.

musashidan

Oh, I know that the CAD programs can be very useful. I have used Fusion360 extensively. In recent years there was a trend in 3D concepting to use CAD+rounded edge(evolution of using Dynamesh for concepting)

funny that you mention Vitaly. He spent half of his life using Max booleans.

And yes, of course they can be helpful. But, again it depends on your output. But, if you're asking about concepting then simply boolean modeling in Max+rounded edge shader in Vray or Corona is a much better solution imo.

Also, Blender is a great option. Hardops/boxcutter is very powerful, and 2.8 has a rounded edge shader plus a fantastic PBR viewport renderer: EEVEE. But, although Hardops is a brilliant toolkit, it isn't magic. You still have to deal with all the usual issues that might occur when boolean/chamfering like crazy.

The thing is that there are just so many options available to us nowadays that you just have to get in and experiment for yourself and see what works best for your workflow, and what you can throw out. Personally, I threw out Fusion360 because it didn't add much to what I can already do, and in the case of production assets, nothing at all.

musashidan

Here's a simple example of the rounded edge shader(Corona renderer) Boolean mesh in Max. Zero cleanup. Polysoup topology. The most important thing to note here is that the group of cylinders are just floating meshes jammed into the boolean. They share the material and blend seamlessly into the boolean. This is almost impossible to achieve with filleting in F360. The forms/angles are so tight that the topology overlaps and breaks the filleting(or chamfering in Max) This is a big advantage of using rounded edge shading: you can just kit bash anything at all together, and even vary the chamfering width by using multiple materials. Topology also matters very little.

Of course, it isn't perfect. No one-click solution ever is. The shading effect falls apart at certain angles and lighting, just like normal maps. But who cares? If it's a concept it will most likely receive heavy paintover. If it's an animation it will hardly be noticed.


And here it is with a Quadify Mesh and 2xBend modifiers applied.

Altea

Moi3d. I just have used it a couple of hours. I don't think is a very powerful program but seems handy for some stuff. What I don't understand at all is his snap system.




Probably these meshes are not yet production ready but at least is a bit cleaner than normal Cad stuff. And by the way to do that in Max "clean" doesn't feel easy thanks to those nested cylinders.
Shading effect is locked to the renderer, and that reduces his use. It would be nice to be able to bake it in Max as it is possible in Modo.

musashidan

Altea said:

Shading effect is locked to the renderer, and that reduces his use. It would be nice to be able to bake it in Max as it is possible in Modo.

Yes, I have posted several idea requests on the Max ideas forum(and tried to push for these features on the beta forums: mikk tangent basis, modernised baking, native PBR .HDR environment Nitrous mode. So until mikkT is implemented in Max, RTT remains dated and practically obsolete.

As for Modo baking of rounded edges. It has its issues too. It can't render a lot of surface angles correctly and results in a lot of artifacts.

Shading effect is governed by the renderer, but I've a feeling that OSL in 2019 will solve that. There is already a Blender OSL bevel shader but I haven't had a chance to test it in Max 2019.

alinraqus

It is not necessary to quadify solid mesh in cad programs, it is easy to make it in 3ds max and even control its density (quality)