quadrangulate in max

_Shimmer

does sopmebody know how to quadrangulate in max 7. Turning tris into quads? i got a model exported from XSI, while the head was made in max attached in XSI then exported from XSI, now the body is triangulated the head in quads, VERY strange.
However does somebody know how to turn tris into quads in max?

Toomas

You sure you converted it into editable poly?
And i would remove the unneeded edges by hand (loop and ring tools come in handy :P )

MoP

Loop and ring selection tools won't work if the mesh is triangulated...?

Alas I don't know of a tool to do this in Max. I know Maya has one, hmm. There must be a way to do it in Max! I haven't found one yet though, and I've looked for one myself from time to time...

Husch

Well, which file format do you use to export from XSI? You can try to export .fbx or .obj and after import in Max the mesh should keep quads instead of tris. It works at least when I export .fbx or .obj from Maya into Max.

monster

This is they way I end up doing it. Works most of the time.

_Shimmer

wow, monster thanks alot. Was the stuff i was looking for. I need to make some optimizations but hey its it. thanks

MoP

Indeed, thanks. I remember learning about this a looong time ago, but never needed to use it, so it had totally flown my mind!

RageUnleashed

Thanks monster, but theres gotta be a way to set it so the surfaces are always quads when you create the object, at least, thats what tutorials show but don't explain.

monster

Rage: If you create a primitive and convert it to Edit_Poly then it WILL be quads/polies. For the Sphere in my example I had to manually triangulate it to show Shimmer an example of how I go about quadrangulating a model.

RageUnleashed

D'oh, yea spoke too soon, monster is right.

usagi

i have a similar problem but it just seemed to happen on its own. that sort of thing happens a lot to me
is there any other way to get the same effect as monster's method? it seems to quadrangulate (great word btw ) some but not all of the triangles, other than going in and cutting/welding? i dont wanna fuck up my uv's

MoP

Usagi: Well, convert your mesh to Editable Poly, then press Backspace when you have any edge selected that you want to remove (like an edge turning a quad into 2 triangles). The edge will disappear, leaving the geometry and UV's intact.
Backspace is the default key for Remove Edge.
The "Delete" key also removes edges but I believe it will delete the faces surrounding the selected edge too, so don't hit that. Unless my memory is faulty, then I've got these 2 keys the wrong way round.

usagi

sweet, thanks MoP