topic Running away from ngons in 3ds Max Modeling Forum

Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 00:53:36 GMT

i created some text using 3ds max text tool and i convert it to edit poly but problem is when i do this i have to always go in and manually connect vertices to get perfect quads which is really time consuming is there an easier way to accomplish this?

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:30:48 GMT

http://populate3d.com/products/terrain/
It won't be perfect but will do most of the hard work for you. You may find it easier to detach each letter and work on them individually.

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:35:45 GMT

This is pretty good but stil its not a clean solution to my problem, it helps alot but it creates triangles and ngons in some places but i wanted just quads, i guess no one has come up with a solution for that yet. IDK if i should accept this as a solution but its definately a big help

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:57:54 GMT

Dont worry - I wouldn't accept it as a perfect solution either 😉

Problem is, it's not easy to do, even manually, so to do it "mathematically" is very difficult, and even when something gets close, it's rarely perfect.

Take the capital M for example. There's 2 ways I can see to do it, one is quick but is a bit of a cheat because it alters the original vertex placement, the other is a lot more long winded (takes a fair bit of time and effort) but does retain the original vertex placement at the cost of a lot more polys. May be others, but I don't know them.

Brownie points if you can come up with both methods 😉

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:06:22 GMT

Take a look at this for instance, i have ajob right now where i have to make editable poly object from a spline but it is a complicated thing because if i dont have perfect quads or just simply good vertex connections to form faces then when i apply turbsmooth the shape won't smooth the way i wanted and it needs to be and it is a very huge model so i have to do this manually which is such a paint connecting vertices after vertices. i think what is needed is some plugin that looks at the shape and connects vertices to vertices or vertices to edges at a right angle or tangent to the original vertex the connection will be made from in that case there can be alot more faces but that would work in instances like this because later one it is no problem to run pro optimizer and optimize the shape but a tool like this would be a big time saver since i always just get sketches from clients or just AI files i need to import or even autocad files which in the end turns out to be such a pain in the ****. I wish i has the time to learn how to have such a plugin or script but sadly i don't.

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:44:37 GMT

Ahh - ok. With an object like that what you need are quads around the outside of the object - triangles/ngons never smooth properly. So, working on each "branch" separately, select the inner (crossing) edges and Connect them - 2 new edge loops and use the Slide to move them so they're closer to the outsides, The middle of each section is less important because that will likely be flat and not cause too many problems.
What I would probably do is to take the existing object, select the Border around the whole thing (plus any "islands" if there are any) and extrude (Shift+Move) them up. Then, working on each branch, you can Shift+Scale the edges inwards a little (which should give you quads in the right places) then bridge the gap beween them. You may get some triangles depending on the number of vertices on each side, but they'll be in the middle where they matter less.

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:41:24 GMT

These are good workarounds but the interior of the leaves will be connected too and after wards will go in mudbox or zbrush for sculpting, i just tried it on a part of the object and got strange results in some areas, would it be too much for your to demonstrate something like this with images steve?

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:40:29 GMT

If you're taking stuff to Mudbox then you really must have quads, but you really don't want to use any smoothing in Max - do all the subdivision and sculpting in Mudbox. Depending on what you want to do with it afterwards, bring in back to Max having created Normal maps and stuff in Mudbox - that's the normal workflow for games assets (keeps the poly count down).
How is the end result going to be used? Post a scene (zipped!) with the original Splines and I'll have a look, though the end result does have an impact - horses for courses (to coin a phrase).

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:33:43 GMT

The model will be used for machining on a cnc machine. see the attached for the model i have been slaving away at it all day

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:38:28 GMT

Well, I can see why you'd want an automated method - that is going to be very difficult however you attack it. 😞
You've a few anomalies you need to fix, then I'd just go around it, toggling the smoothing on/off and adding extra cuts across each section where necessary. To get those sharp corners create a new edge so you have 2 vertices very close to each other, one either side of where the original one was. A long and painstaking job, as you already found 😞

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:52:00 GMT

very and not to mention i have alot more, a tool to accomplish such a task would be a god send for not just me but alot of people

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:10:06 GMT

I quite agree. Have you checked Scriptspot just in case?

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:05:58 GMT

yeah i have but if it does exist am not searching with the right keywords it seems, scriptspot is always my first go to place.

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:51:17 GMT

Well i found something there is a plugin called QUAD CAP PRO, it stil insists on some work but not as much as you would manually with the shap i sent you,, i tested it and it works well if you specify areas for it to work on since if you select everything it will mess up your shape.

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:58:25 GMT

If it does what you need (or most of it) then cool 🙂
Would interested to see a quick screenie of what it produces - and what happens when you add a Turbo Smooth? Bet there's still issues with those sharp corners 😉

Re: Running away from ngons

ekahennequet — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:03:32 GMT

That looks like cool script, Michael.

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:00:15 GMT

actually steve the plugin does come with a turbosmooth option as well as an inset option, it works great, i will send you a screen cap

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:14:59 GMT

Hi steve, here you go,so quad chamfer basically works on the faces i selected, it goes around and tried to connect all vertices existing but you have play with it a little til it works properly . it doesnt seem to like curves to much unless you have enough vertices to connect

Re: Running away from ngons

Steve_Curley — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:49:34 GMT

Cheers. Not sure I like the way it's producing "long" polys rather than going across more, though to do that would mean removing some vertices and adding new ones. Easier said than done.
Point is that it works for you, which is good 🙂

Re: Running away from ngons

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:34:04 GMT

Well actually thing is what i did was when i got the model it was pretty nasty having so many vertices from autocad so i imported it into AI and then into max for a more normal vertex count, what i did here was reduce the vertex interpolation in editable spine first but to use quad cap pro it would be best to have left interpolation to lets say 3 or 4 so the vertices are more evenly distributed along my spline first of all.