Odd MudBox issue...?

odium

Ok, so long story short, I've created terrain at multiple sub-division levels. Pretty standard. HOWEVER...

When I export my mesh it doesn't seem to be quite right polycount wise. If I export the lowest sub-division, its fine, it says in MudBox 20,000 polygons or there abouts and when I open the model in Max, yup, 20,000 or so. Bang on. But thats too low for what I need, so I go to the next sub-division up in MudBox, which is 60,000 or there abouts... Bang on detail wise and flow. Thats perfect...

But when I export that mesh and open it in Max, it now reports as 120,000 or so polygons...?

Am I being ultra thick here, and missing something really basic? Because the sub-d level in Mudbox CLEARLY says 60,000 or there abouts, yet in Max, it clearly reports differently (And thus, wont let me export the mesh in the needed format).

Thanks inside a Game Boy Advance.

yiannisk

I think it has to do with the way polygons and triangles are counted. FBX is to blame for some inconsistencies in the way things are imported.

fbx supports better maya pipelines. for instance in max even though you have an editable poly you need to add on top of the stack the edit poly modifier in order for fbx to recognize the polygonal nature of the max object and not pop up fbx warnings about triangulation etc. also if your polygonal object comes in max triangulated then automatically you get a higher count of "polygons" although they actually are triangles.

It is a bit confusing but.. unfortunately that is more or less the way it is. most probably there is nothing wrong with the polycount.

odium

Odd that the lowest sub division reports fine then and the same in both programs, but yeah, the lowest sub division is the default imported mesh anyway, so that may be why... Bums.

20k polygons really is too low, sadly, and 120,000 is way, way too high.

.morph3us

u could try out meshlab for that, just export the subdiv level2 and then reduce it to like 60k in there...
it really does a great job on that!
though it will be triangulated afterwards...

odium

The problem with that was that I needed to use the msh for vertex paint, and not only did it place a LOT of holes and odd geo in the mesh, it also made some really strange topology which didn't really work for vertex painting... Plus when I pelt mapped it, wowzers, it went to shit...

So what I've had to do, is scrap the mesh and start over. This time, I made damn sure that the base mesh I used would be equal in sub devision. Now, at its lowest level, it sits just under 64k polygons (Which would be the ingame mesh) so I know for a fact it will work withen the budget PLUS I know the topology will be ok still. Seems to be working much, much better now, and 64k VS 20k ingame makes a MASSIVE difference let me tell you... Looked so messy before...