3ds smothing groups / Maya smoothing
polycounter lvl 18
heydiho,
i want to port a model from max to maya.
i found a good 3ds importer for maya but 3ds fucks up all the smoothin groups. Is this a problem from the file type itself or is the 3dsmax exporter shit?
If the last one is right, is there another 3dsexporter which prevents the smoothing groups when exporting?
Thought the otherway round. Can somebody tell me how to make the smoothing groups in maya? Per128 told me that it is managed via edges. However after i realized that Maya was programmed by Hitler himself i thought i ask you.
Thanks
i want to port a model from max to maya.
i found a good 3ds importer for maya but 3ds fucks up all the smoothin groups. Is this a problem from the file type itself or is the 3dsmax exporter shit?
If the last one is right, is there another 3dsexporter which prevents the smoothing groups when exporting?
Thought the otherway round. Can somebody tell me how to make the smoothing groups in maya? Per128 told me that it is managed via edges. However after i realized that Maya was programmed by Hitler himself i thought i ask you.
Thanks
Replies
it's called "soft/hard edges" not smoothing groups though.
you do apply them to the edges, not the polys.
i would go into Edge sub-object mode, select the whole model, go to Soften/Harden Normals (i think it's called, in the Edit Polygons menu) and set the number to 180 (All Soft), and hit Apply.
That should have the effect of making your whole mesh look like it's 1 smooth group.
Then select the edges you want to appear sharp... and set the Soften/Harden Normals slider to 0 (All Hard), then click apply. It should now split the smoothing along the edges you had selected.
Hope that helps. It's actually a pretty cool method of assigning smoothing when you get used to it, Max's method is pretty weird.
Thanks, i gonna try it...
It was a little weird doing the hotkeys (I probably ended up getting them from whargoul or some other maya guru) so I'll post it here, hopefully it will help save some time
1. Go to windows > Settings/preferences > Hotkeys
2. Choose Category:Edit Polygons (you could choose anywhere but it makes sense to put the new commands here)
3. Hit the "New" button at the middle/lower right of the screen.
4. Pick a name for your new function (I picked polygonSoften)
5. In the big "Command" box, you type in
polySoftEdge -a 180
6. Then use the "Assign New Hotkey" to assign it to whatever you want.
7. Create another new function, to harden the edges, and this time the Command is
polySoftEdge -a 0
8. Do the key binding for that one and you're all set
-Choirboy
However is there a possiblity for making a STL check in Maya or somet6hing like that?
Heh I really dont think that thats the best way to get help Shimmer. If you think that then youre too soon into it and youve misunderstood it. Its a huge app, that trys to do everything. The whole point is that its totally customizable to have it geared more toward what you need it to do. its real power is Mel. Its very different from Max. But to say its a huge bound of shit is just fucking bollocks and youre being lazy.
Now, STL check? Whats that in English and I might be able to help.
Stuff like 3 faces per edge... or having 2 faces share the same 3 verts (back to back).
I don't think there's a single option that checks all that for you. You have to sort of get into the habit of checkin for those things yourself.
The thing with Maya is that you rarely run into having non-manifold geometry. Except for when you force it (like creating alpha channeled wings or whatever).
The geometry will almost never break if it's been created within the scene. Importing objects into Maya will often introduce problems.
Things to check for will be face/vert normals.
If you're getting shading erros (random black blotches on the geo)... Unlocking and Normalizing the verts will fix that.
Edit Polygons > Normals > Set Vertex Normals Options Box
Be sure to be in Vert sub-object mode and to have your verts selected.
To fix the face normals... just select all the faces then go to:
Edit Polygons > Normals > Conform.
Depending on how the faces are orientated the normals may flip the wrong way (towards the inside of the model). If that happens simply flip all the normals again and everything should be okay.
Edit Polygons > Normals > Reverse.
"Smoothing Groups" are handled at the edge level. Which I've found to be very smart. It's much easier to precisely set crease in your geometry. Simply click the edge(s) you want and make them hard. I find it to be a lot easier than have your faces share various smoothing groups.
I have my Hard/Soft edges set up as clickable Shelf Buttons up top. Very easy. They work in object mode, too. Picked them up from Whargoul a while back.
This has been discussed before numerous times... but you can't approach Maya like Max. Everything you can do in Max you can do in Maya. Chances are it's named differently and works in a different manner.
It's a bit like having sex with a new chick. You can't expect her to be into anal simply because the last chick you banged was.
"Oh man Maya is such a huge bound of shit"
[/ QUOTE ]
Dude, haveyou even sat down and given Maya a chance? We all have out opinions of coaurse but any sound rational person would atleast admit that maya has some super fly quarks and screws that stream line the baby.
As for your comment about Maya being a bound of shit... Well gee... I guess all the industry professionals who have been in the CG industry since its birth and use it to create FX for Lord of the Rings, the Hulk and Harry Potter (to name a few) are just plain dumb! Clearly after using Maya for a few days, you are much more capable of accurately assessing the quality of a program than those 2 bit hacks.
I guess I should stop using Maya right now and figure out how to get MAX to... oh, for example, create a flock of insects that move in a pseudo-random, but controllable manner. Or control particles using a ramp texture.
I guess I started it but we should back off on the slapping of Shimmers wrist for calling Maya shit otherwise it'll get out of hand. But you do make an incredibly valid point BF ;-p .
Ive always found that If people start saying X package is shit, its really an insult to its users, suggesting that theyre some kind of idiots for using it in that theyve made the wrong software choice. Thats why comments like that about 3D packages make threads ugly. So save that stuff for cursing at yer monitor!
The thing is Shimmer, and darnit If Ive not said this a million times even on these very boards, Maya started out in the hands of highly technical people in the film industry. Seriously smart people in the days before fancy UI's OS's. Its got alot of legacy, and its modeling tools might first appear basic, but underneath its extremely powerful. It doesnt have the fancy UI or incredible SubD modeling tools of XSI, but it does literally anything you need it to in the field 3D modeling and animation. If youre still using it in a few weeks time, and you find something it cant do, Id love to hear what it is. Maybe you'll still think its shit. But I'll still just think that you're using it wrong ;-p
It was just a "i work 3 days with maya and still havent got this vertices fixed and time is running and money going and cats are maowing and argh I want to...ahhhrgrh" comment.
More sarcasm (call it zynism if you want) then seriousity.
Step by step i realize how maya works, or how it want to be worked. It has some features which are, i dunno why, not invented for Maya or i havent found it.
See it as questions:
Where is a elemeent Sub-object mode?
How can i select backfaces?
How can i make seperation groups or something?
Is the set avarage normal command like welding all vertices in mac which are placed on each other (forgive my english maybe somebody understand what i mean)?
Then something else:
Maya is incredibly slow on my PC. It has real downtimes where i have to wait nearly 30 sec after i made a command, the whole app is frozen. Can it be that Maya needs a huge harddisk for temporary chaching or something like that? Currently i have 900 Mb on my C drive but enough on my others (3 GB, 4GB, stuff like that). Maybe thats the thing?
And guys, never take the stuff too serious i say. Ask poop he is already conditioned...
Things in Maya have different names than in Max, so you can't assume that because you can't find the exact feature in Maya that it was "not invented for Maya".
Sorry about your shock-factor on using Maya. No, it doesn't need a huge space for cache. Maya is very lean. I used to run it on a Pentium 166 irix box. Even the new Maya versions are lean, notice that "Unlimited" fits uncompressed on one CD. Do you have your project set? Maya works best when it you put stuff in the right places in the project folder.
I don't know Max so I'm guessing about the terms you are using:
element sub-object mode- sounds a lot like "component mode" in Maya, to toggle between "object mode" and "component mode" select the object and hit F8. To select one of the component types put your cursor over the object and hold your right mouse button, then drag you cursor to the component you want to use.
Normals tell Maya which side of every poly is "inside" or "outside", they have nothing to do with whether or not the verticies are together. To put the verices together use the merge vertices tool : edit polygons, merge verticies > options box (make sure retain component spacing is turned off). To re-use a command you have selected hit "g".
Good luck!
Im a bit confused about what y'all mean by 'sub' object. Surely anything at the sub object level is what makes up a model?
F9 vertex mode
F10 edge mode
F11 face mode
F12 UV mode
"Dude, haveyou even sat down and given Maya a chance? We all have out opinions of coaurse but any sound rational person would atleast admit that maya has some super fly quarks and screws that stream line the baby. "
What does that mean? Cos I wanna be a Super Fly Quark artist.
I can't remember where it is, probably in Edit Polygons menu somewhere. But if you go to the Edit -> Preferences -> Hotkeys, i think you can set a keyboard shortcut for the "Select Shell" command. I used to have it as Alt+S, it's useful for UV editing and mesh editing.