topic Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 19:22:45 GMT

Where i can find settings for mesh resolution for OBJ export?

Exporting speed are annoyingly slow - how this can be solved?

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 20:55:20 GMT

There are no controls available to set the mesh resolution for .obj export. It is what it is!

The .obj export is done through an online/cloud exporter. Sometimes that's just slow and there's nothing that can be done by the user.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 21:36:23 GMT

Thanks for answering. Im never ever could imagine that level of idiocy and clumsiness for software for which they ask for money.

Un. Freaqing. Believable.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

glencandle — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 04:29:01 GMT

Agreed! I just got into F360 and am having a hard time wrapping my head around how behind the times it feels (especially coming from C4D & Blender). I know it's not a VFX application but come on. Can't even do GPU rendering?

Anyway, I figure I'll realize my designs in F360 and then send to Blender for product viz. But I just did a test...

A basic primitive solid that's a few extruded arcs, not even 1000 polygons, took about 3 hours to export an OBJ. THREE HOURS. I am absolutely flummoxed by this.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

Johnc911 — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 04:37:24 GMT

Keep in mind when exporting to Blender or any other poly program you're going to end up with triangles so rendering may be problematic.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 06:49:47 GMT

It isn’t if you keep an eye on the mesh resolution. But only .stl export offers a control mechanism for that.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 14:45:37 GMT

STL are complitely useless for rendering purpose or baking normal maps for video game models because STL doesnt write custom vertex normals.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 15:09:44 GMT

They might be useless for your specific use case (baking normal maps), but I've been successful in using exported .stl files in renders. But then I don't create models for computer games.

As a matter of fact, the vast majority of CAD users (90%+) don't use the software for that purpose so it isn't a surprise that the mesh export implementations are lacking. I'd love to have better FBX export with the ability to define mesh resolution on a per-object basis but I don't believe that'll happen any time soon.

I can also tell you for sure that aggressive and juvenile attitudes rarely result in added features!

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 21:42:48 GMT

@TrippyLighting wrote:
They might be useless for your specific use case (baking normal maps), but I've been successful in using exported .stl files in renders. But then I don't create models for computer games.

As a matter of fact, the vast majority of CAD users (90%+) don't use the software for that purpose so it isn't a surprise that the mesh export implementations are lacking. I'd love to have better FBX export with the ability to define mesh resolution on a per-object basis but I don't believe that'll happen any time soon.

I can also tell you for sure that aggressive and juvenile attitudes rarely result in added features!

No, im actually pretty clearly notice baking normal maps for game models and exporting models for regular offline rendering of high poly models.

Exporting models for render - not a specific case at all for any CAD software.

There's no way you can get good shading on STL model without custom vertex normal data.

Proof im wrong and show us rendering of STL model exported from 360 please.

@TrippyLighting wrote:
I can also tell you for sure that aggressive and juvenile attitudes rarely result in added features!

Oh i guess so. As an adult i will not pay too much attention to you passive-agressive commentary.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:59:39 GMT

So I did some research on the topic of custom vertex normals and I've learned something!

They can make a significant difference in a render! I created a simple scene to highlight the issue roughly based on a model I've seen online. Here is a link that explains what custom vertex normals are and this youtube tutorial based around Blender also provides some visual examples surrounding normals.

The image below shows a.obj export from Fusion 360, imported into Blender and rendered with LuxCore. The mesh has 21146 triangles/faces:

This image shows the same object but was exported/imported as a .stl with a similar face **** of 21182. The artifacts due to missing custom vertex normals (custom split normals in Blender terminology) are clearly visible:

The only workaround - which might only work for this scene - is to export a rather ridiculously high .stl file with 644349 faces. That is hardly a practical option for many scenes:

I'll take this to the EE Slack channel and solicit some feedback from the Fusion 360 team.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

hansvaneven — Tue, 21 May 2024 11:31:46 GMT

So we're in 2024 and still no optons to export the whole F360 project into high quality .obj or .fbx files ? So I'm stuck to export each part individually before I use it in Blender ? This is unbelievable for a paid software.

Don't get me wrong I love F360 but this is the part I don't understand, I think this is basics, please get this right Autodesk.

Note: I tried export options with external plugins like prototech FBX exporter, paid for it and wasn't happy with the results so I'm using .STEP files and use a plugin in blender to import it but the results aren't good, so I need a good solution to be able to use my .step files in Blender and Substance painter thanks.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Tue, 21 May 2024 11:44:46 GMT

@hansvaneven wrote:

... I think this is basics, please get this right ..

I would also love to see this improved, but this isn't basic. If you can name one mainstream CAD software that provides this ability then I'd love to hear it!

A feasible workaround is to export the design in STEP format and use Plasticity CAD and its Blender Bridge to render it in Blender.

That provides all the control you need!

I have asked the Fusion team to provide a tool like the Blender Bridge. I don't think I received a response!

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

hansvaneven — Tue, 21 May 2024 12:43:41 GMT

I just checked out this addon which seems to work best for now, testing more and will buy it but I think this is the kind of functionality that has to be standard in F360. https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Detail/Index?id=161925079138285899&appLang=en&os=Win64#reviews

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

HughesTooling — Tue, 21 May 2024 12:52:37 GMT

@hansvaneven wrote:

So we're in 2024 and still no optons to export the whole F360 project into high quality .obj or .fbx files ?

If you right click the top folder in the browser and use save as mesh you can export to OBJ and have control over the mesh refinement settings.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

glencandle — Tue, 21 May 2024 15:46:52 GMT

I don't know why they don't make this more widely known, but if you right click a component there is a little option to export the mesh in the dialogue there that works perfectly every time. No need to use the Export option when sending to Blender, and it also exports your file in an instant rather than having to wait for the cloud (which I agree is ridiculous behavior for such a high end software).

Hope that helps you as much as it has me 😉

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

hansvaneven — Tue, 21 May 2024 16:16:24 GMT

Hello and thanks, ok stupid me it's indeed possible to export a whole project this way just testing out a few things, thanks mate! Sorry for the above comment then

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

glencandle — Tue, 21 May 2024 16:16:00 GMT

Oh, yeah, I didn't even consider exporting all the mesh objects
separately. I usually just go into Blender in Edit mode and hit L + P
to quick separate all the combined meshes into parts.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

hansvaneven — Tue, 21 May 2024 16:23:20 GMT

Good advice much appreciated this has been an issue for me since a while, and avoids spending 50$ for an addon 😊

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

TrippyLighting — Tue, 21 May 2024 16:28:48 GMT

@glencandle wrote:
Oh, yeah, I didn't even consider exporting all the mesh objects
separately. I usually just go into Blender in Edit mode and hit L + P
to quick separate all the combined meshes into parts.

Yes, but as opposed to .fbx the .obj exports don't maintain the assembly structure and proper instancing.

Anther problem with the export resolution is that the set export resolution applies to the entire geometry that is exported.

If you want to make a closeup of a larger assembly, the resolution of the object(s) in focus might not be good enough.

What I do is to export in .fbx at the risk that it might take a while for the cloud exporter to do its job. Then I export those objects that I need in higher resolutions and replace them in Blender manually. When you are using .fbx for the overall assembly, because it maintains the assembly and instancing structure, replacing an instanced object, replaces all instances.

Re: OBJ export resolution settings. Annoyingly slow exporting speed

hansvaneven — Tue, 21 May 2024 18:46:17 GMT

The only thing that's better with the obj addon is that it keeps the part names need to dig further into this to check it out