3d max - how to triangulate mesh

Gerbeiter

I want to triangulate a mesh, is it ok if I choose 'Convert to -> Convert to editable Patch' ?

Surfa

Yeah that would work and you can turn it back to whatever you had before after words.

But I swear there was a triangulate modifier even though I just checked and there doesn't seem to be in 2009.

SyncViewS

Hi Gerbeiter, this is clueless, but I'd stay away from Editable Patch. I have the bad feeling it could mess up your work.

First, if you want to actually see what's the hidden Editable Poly Triangulation you can use:

$.allEdges = true -- to display hidden edges
$.allEdges = false -- to hide them
provided current selection $ is an Editable Poly

That's only a visual effect.

If you want to make it "real", just Convert to Editable Mesh, which is a safe operation, go to Edge SubObject selection level, select all edges in viewport, under Surface Properties in command panel press Visible. Then you can convert the model back to Editable Poly.

With this process you can choose what edges make visible and what leave invisible. You got some threshold too to let coplanar mesh faces undivided.

MoP

In Editable Poly, you could just select all vertices and hit Connect. Basically does a triangulate (without requiring script).

You definitely don't want to convert to Editable Patch. No no no.

Michael Ghamloush

I've been spending hours trying to figure out why xnormal won't bake my textures and gives me an error. turns out it's because you need to triangulate before exporting. This thread has saved my life. Thankyou

Neox

wow awaken from the dead

if you want to do it non destructively, use the "turn to poly" modifier on top of your model and limit the polygon size to 3.

Macebo

Let's congratulate this fellow polycounter for searching before starting another thread. Kinda rare these days....

Macebo

By the way, about the triangulation thing: recently i realised that a triangulation on export yield different results depending on the targeted file type. In my case, i exported an fbx, textured it and all, but applied the material on an obj. I had some shading errors. I tried everything and was going nuts. But then i realized some triangles were on different directions, because of the different ways these exporters work.

Mark Dygert

In 3dsmax, toss a "turn to poly" modifier on top of your stack, set the number of sides to 3, export and then you can remove the modifier and go back to working with quads.

spacefrog

or use a "Turn to Mesh" modifier and uncheck "Use Invisible Edges" ...

DeathstrokeFTW

Most of the time I just exporth the object as triangulated but when I need to triangulate it in max I select all vertices and use connect.

MrNinjutsu

Resurrection!
I've automated this process by creating this macroScript (i've linked it to my own quadmenu) 

macroScript TriangulateSelection category:"Mesh Editing" internalcategory: "Mesh Editing"tooltip: "Triangulate Selected Mesh"buttontext: "Triangulate Selection"(macros.run "Modifiers" "TurnToPolyMod"$.modifiers[#Turn_to_Poly].limitPolySize = on$.modifiers[#Turn_to_Poly].maxPolySize = 3)

You can use that code or the script attached.