Need Help! 3ds Max is looking "wierd"?

MakaoCloud

I'm just modeling a house for a college portfolio and what ended up happening was that these weird black smudges appear on the front of the house as if some vertex or something is going crazy. Any idea as to what that is and how to fix it? When I render it leaves these huge gaps as well. I had a similar problem when I used a blueprint on a plane and the problem was because it was too thin. But I don't know how I can apply those rules to this problem.

These are the smudges:


This the smudge when i move the perspective around:


This is the smudge from the inside of the house:


This is what happens when i render it:


And a final question. Why are some of the UVW templates red?:


Thanks for trying to help, and hope to get some help soon.
Thank you,
Makao Cloud

Will Faucher

It would seem like your normals are bugged. It's a rather complex thing that happens sometimes. Fortunately, it is a simple fix. Here is what you do:
Select your building, and add the "Normal" modifier twice. Yes, twice. Once you have two "Normal" stacks in your modifier list, right click and do collapse all. That will solve your problem. Or so, I think.

Hope this helps!

renderhjs

broken vertex shading array or so, had the same recently. I solved it by exporting to FBX and importing it back (OBJ apparently preserved that error).
Made me once already to write a script that rebuilds a mesh and creates clean arrays under the hood, because the same shit happens sometimes with UV verts as well.

MakaoCloud

renderhjs wrote: »

broken vertex shading array or so, had the same recently. I solved it by exporting to FBX and importing it back (OBJ apparently preserved that error).
Made me once already to write a script that rebuilds a mesh and creates clean arrays under the hood, because the same shit happens sometimes with UV verts as well.

When i do that it says "Don't know how to save to that file type". And I don't clearly understand what it is you're trying to say.

MakaoCloud

Prophecies wrote: »

It would seem like your normals are bugged. It's a rather complex thing that happens sometimes. Fortunately, it is a simple fix. Here is what you do:
Select your building, and add the "Normal" modifier twice. Yes, twice. Once you have two "Normal" stacks in your modifier list, right click and do collapse all. That will solve your problem. Or so, I think.

Hope this helps!

Tried this and no luck whatsoever

TheBat

It feels like your geometry has gone a bit wonky. Maybe there's some double edges, some unwelded vertices that kind of things. If you apply the STL modifier, it might give you some impression if this is the right direction!

Hope this helps!

Piflik

Triangulate or Quadrtlate your mesh...having big NGons is not clean modeling and doesn't make you object have less faces...it should also solve a lot of your shading problems (which I think come from SGs and your big NGon folding onto itself...also causes the rd spots since the polygon is overlapping itself...really bad...)

Mark Dygert

Looks to me like you have some messy smoothing groups probably because of a boolean that caused some messy geometry. it looks like some of that geometry bends at extreme angles and its assigned to the same smoothing group without enough supporting geometry.

It looks like you have polys facing back to back and they're in the same smoothing group.

What does it look like when you render? The default viewport runs its shadowing in vertex lighting meaning it might be different than what you see in a game engine or in offline rendering that takes ages to calculate more accurate lighting.

What does it look like when you cull back faces? (select the object, right click, object properties, turn on cull backfaces)

A quick fix would be to auto assign your smoothing groups. It won't fix the underlying problem of wonky geometry that needs to be addressed but it will probably get rid of the smoothing errors.

MakaoCloud

Ok I was able to fix it up by welding and such (took forever). The problem now however is I have this weird line running down the side of the house. I used STL check and its definitely there. I checked to see if there were 2 vertices on top of each other but nothing. Edges are fine and so is everything else. I used the CAP tool and it still didn't fix it. Any ideas of how to fix this?

House Fixed:


STL Check:


Rendered:


Thanks again guys for trying to help, we're atleast getting somewhere!

TheBat

Maybe you could post up the max file, i might be able to cast a quick glance on it tonight (don't have max here) to see if i can find the trouble. It does still seem like some double polygons, double edges, that kind of things.

Please post up a bit larger images next time, it's hard to tell from this size images to really see what's going on.

My personal solution for this kind of trouble was never using the boolean operation, and preferably using the connect tool instead of the cut since the cut tool can sometimes cut across the wrong planes and create weird stuff.

MakaoCloud

MakaoCloud wrote: »

Ok I was able to fix it up by welding and such (took forever). The problem now however is I have this weird line running down the side of the house. I used STL check and its definitely there. I checked to see if there were 2 vertices on top of each other but nothing. Edges are fine and so is everything else. I used the CAP tool and it still didn't fix it. Any ideas of how to fix this?

House Fixed:


STL Check:


Rendered:


Thanks again guys for trying to help, we're at least getting somewhere!

I was able to fix this guys, I don't remember exactly how but I did. I just need now a modeling technique advice. I basically had to delete the front of the house. This is the visual effect I want to achieve:


But I had to delete the front wall because for some reason the windows were not part of the "house":


So after I had made the windows all detailed and selected the borders of the front wall I entered CAP and this is the result:


You cannot see the amount of detail put into the window because when I make the window flush with the wall, the extrudes and bevels that I had done go behind the wall as they are not part of the wall but are part of the house:


If I try to move the element of the windows to show the detail then it is no longer flush with the wall and is just out of place:


So how can I go about fixing this issue? I thought of doing a Boolean type thing but I don't really know how to get it to work. Any ideas? Once I fix this I can get straight into the texturing. Thanks again guys !
Makao Cloud

Eric Chadwick

You'll want to Cut square holes out of the front wall. I count eight separate windows, plus you probably want a door.

I don't have Max open to verify settings but... probably the easiest way to make the holes would be to select the top and bottom edges of the wall and open the options dialog for Connect. Choose 8 segments, because you have six windows in the first row. This will give you nine polygons down the front. Move the edges laterally so each of the six windows has its own surrounding polygon.

Select the nine and open the options dialog for Inset. Switch it to Polygon mode, so each polygon gets its own inset. Scale each inset polygon to match, then delete them.

Make sense?

MakaoCloud

EricChadwick wrote: »

You'll want to Cut square holes out of the front wall. I count eight separate windows, plus you probably want a door.

I don't have Max open to verify settings but... probably the easiest way to make the holes would be to select the top and bottom edges of the wall and open the options dialog for Connect. Choose 8 segments, because you have six windows in the first row. This will give you nine polygons down the front. Move the edges laterally so each of the six windows has its own surrounding polygon.

Select the nine and open the options dialog for Inset. Switch it to Polygon mode, so each polygon gets its own inset. Scale each inset polygon to match, then delete them.

Make sense?

Alright I was able to fix it but the only thing that i did not do was just use the inset tool. I just made sure the segments I made went behind the edged faces of the corners of the windows. Then I just deleted the polygon. The only problem now though is that I have some edges sticking out (lines) of the windows and if I remove them or delete them, the wall gets deleted. And the same thing happens if i remove any of the vertices from the lines (edges) that I deleted, then those crazy shade things appear as well as some of the wall getting deleted. So i have to keep those vertices and edges there correct? It wont have any impact if I import it into unreal or anything like that right? I'm at 483 polygons right now, is that bad?
And can someone explain to me why when I go to UVW Unwrap some of the things are not straight and how i can fix that?

http://www.fototime.com/%7B0B226C85-E708-47A3-86DA-B37E8921AC49%7D/origpict/House3.0.jpg

Thanks again guys after this I am ready to start texturing!:)

Eric Chadwick

Sounds like you need to develop basic modeling skills. Might help to check out the Environment Modeling section here. http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryEnvironment

MakaoCloud

EricChadwick wrote: »

Sounds like you need to develop basic modeling skills. Might help to check out the Environment Modeling section here. http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryEnvironment

I know I have to start getting better at this but there is nothing wrong with my model it looks perfect now. The only thing i was asking is if it is normal to have an edge just sticking out of the window and if I delete it the wall disappears.
And is that how the UVW wrap should look like? And how do I fix it since its not straight? I just want to know why it didn't come out straight and if that's normal. If you can link a great tutorial on UVW mapping that would be great and I checked out the link you gave me and it wasn't able to help my problem. I will bookmark it though there was some interesting stuff on there.
Thanks again for helping me out
Makao Cloud

Eric Chadwick

Your last picture link is broken, it says "A subscription is required to use your photos on third party websites".

I didn't mean to be insulting, it just seemed you didn't know about deleting edges.

There are some good tuts in that wiki section about UVs for environment models. Also modular modeling/texturing is a big time- and work-saver.

MakaoCloud

EricChadwick wrote: »

Your last picture link is broken, it says "A subscription is required to use your photos on third party websites".

I didn't mean to be insulting, it just seemed you didn't know about deleting edges.

There are some good tuts in that wiki section about UVs for environment models. Also modular modeling/texturing is a big time- and work-saver.

I basically just rotated the uvs and will texture the house hopefully this weekend for you to see. Its ok, i understand where you're coming from. And I think I do know how to delete edges. Aren't I supposed to select the edge and click 'remove'? That seems to work but not in this case for these
Ill try to check that out, but the thing is I have a portfolio due for college on Monday, so I'm really trying to get this house done by then.

TheBat

Good luck on getting it textured / done and remember to show us the result when done!

"The only thing i was asking is if it is normal to have an edge just sticking out of the window and if I delete it the wall disappears."

Although i don't think this is normal, your next model probably won't have this / will be better.

Cheers and keep it up!