Smooth Model Problem. Help Please!

[Anonymous]

I have models that I extract from an emulator, I want to make a project, but I'm having problems. I export the OBJ scene from the emulator and import it into 3ds max and delete the objects until I get what I need, the problem is that when I apply the smooth, it doesn't get completely smooth. What to do? For your to know what I'm talking about, see the pictures.

Photo 1 is the original OBJ model

Photo 2 i applied smooth in OBJ model, this is not good for me the edge faces appear in the model 

Photo 3 is another downloaded model, this is the result i want obtain, a correct smooth. (This a 3DS model extension)

Thanks in advance, blesses

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Probably it is smoothing groups that you need to adjust.  Assuming the mesh is an editable poly or editable mesh, go to the smoothing group section of the editable poly/mesh rollout and with all of the polygons selected, click on "Clear All" and then "Auto Smooth".  

[Anonymous]

hello dear thanks for reply. I did just that in the second photo, i selected all the mesh  and tested auto smooth and smooth group 1. The result is te second photo.

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

In that case, go to the Editable Poly rollout and check "Display Hard Edges" and see if the green highlighted edges correspond to the edges you want to be smooth but are not.  If this is the case, all you have to do is select the edges and hit the "Smooth"  button right above the "Display Hard Edges" option and smoothness should be restored.

I am not sure exactly how you are 'extracting models from an emulator' but maybe the creator of the model specified some "Hard Edges" that Max recognizes.   Hope this fixes your problem.

[Anonymous]

Hi dear, thanks again for help me... i using 3ds max 2010 ,my old copy and dont have this option... is possible i send to you my model for you making test in your 3ds max? thanks in advance!

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Sure post the file here and I'll take a look.  I think there is a 5 Megabyte limit here for attachments but shouldn't be that large if you just include the problem mesh in your max file.

[Anonymous]

Hi dear, thanks for reply... here the link of my OBJ export from emulator. I put in my account on mediafire. I be desesperate to solve this

http://www.mediafire.com/file/z77opnrxdy573zv/export.obj/file

thanks in advance 

[10DSpace · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

Here is what I found and what I did to fix it in your file:

1. The Characters were at a small scale for Max (around 2 " high).  So I scaled the entire scene up by 35 X using the Rescale World Units Utility in Max.  In addition to making the characters more "Real World scale", this makes it easier to do certain operations like welding with the correct threshold value (see below).

2.  Your characters were actually composed of many separate meshes.  Character 1 was 88 separate meshes and character 2 was 94 separate meshes.   So when you applied a Smooth modifier to all of these separate meshes it could not achieve very good results.  It also makes further tweaking of the model geometry and texturing unnecessarily difficult.   It is best to make low poly characters like these a single Editable Poly.  So, I did the following steps which you can do in the future: 

1. Select all of the meshes for Character 1 and "Isolate Selection".  Then in the Edit Geometry section of the Editable Poly Rollout,  click on the little box to the right of "Attach". This brings up the Attach list dialogue; Select All and then "Attach" and accept the defaults for the Attach Options Dialogue by clicking OK. Now the character is a single Editable Poly.

2.  The next step is to reduce (by welding) the number of duplicate vertices.  There are duplicate vertices along the border of where each of the original 88 individual meshes lined up.  Those duplicate vertices will make polygon editing operations a nightmare.    So the solution is to weld these vertices with an appropriate threshold value.  I did this in 2 steps:  First, select all of the vertices and with a threshold value of "0.0" (yes, I mean zero) click on "Weld." This reduced the number of vertices to an extent without affecting the smoothing of the model.  Then in step 2 I selected all of the vertices again and this time I welded with a threshold value of 0.01.  This reduced the vertices further and provided a smooth result.   The goal here is to not have any duplicate vertices over the surface so that Max can smooth properly across all regions.    Overall, the model was reduced from  2285 vertices when attached to 601 vertices after the welding operations.

Now do the same steps for the other mesh.  Attached is the max file with both the smoothed single mesh versions and the original multiple mesh versions for your info.   Hope this is helpful to you and answers your questions. 

[domo.spaji]

1. Around 2 " can be 2 mm or 2 km, that will depend on units one using in max. Around 2 meters seems like good measure.

Rescale World Units Utility just scaling on Transform coordinate center (0,0,0) and that is where pivot will end up if importing with obj importer anyway. Also there is option for re scaling in importer but you should know the source.

That will not make characters more "Real World scale", vertex position in obj files doesn't have units.

Units system in Max can help you if you relay on "real world" measurement and units when working/modeling, but shouldn't constrain you.

E.G. if transferring from Max to Zbrush with dinamic bridge if you don't have good scene units setup it's best to scale model to something close to 2 whatever scene units, put it in 0,0,0 pos. and send.

Don't bother with resetting xform in any way, could read scale value when get it back.

Reset xform is used more in wrong way or unnecessary cases, loosing true purpose specially with uniform scaling...

[domo.spaji]

If you import  not as EPoly -preferred way and as single mesh you could skip attaching part.

Put Vertex Weld mod. (preferred) on editable mesh with default 0,1 and skip lucky 0,0 step from epoly.

When clean everything you can apply EditPoly mod. and look further. EditPoly on Emesh will split flipped faces if there are any, thus create new vertices, easy notice by switching EPoly on/of.

Save as... 2010😊

[10DSpace]

@domo.spaji 

Thank you for the reminder that @Anonymous is using Max 2010.   I completely forgot that and am resending as an .obj since I have no way of saving to Max 2010.   

@Anonymous  

Sorry, I forgot you were using max 2010 and would not be able to open the Max file I sent previously.   I have attached an .obj file to replace it. Just import this .obj file with either "None"  or "Zbrush" selected as the import format and do not check  "Import as a single Mesh" so that you can see the differences between the characters you sent me. 

@domo.spaji 

The reason I did not go into the option in the .obj import dialogue to import as a single mesh is that the originally posted .obj had multiple meshes  -- 2 characters and other smaller items, all of which would become part of a single mesh. Then the OP would have to detach by element each of the meshes in a separate step and I was trying to keep it simple.  The Edit Mesh workflow is a viable alternative but doesn't improve the result.   Again, a judgement call about explaining things in a simple way on my part. 

I am well aware of the points regarding "Real world Scale",  and the interaction with System (and Display) units selected in Max.  But I was creating  a max file for @Anonymous with the default system units of inches and I again was trying to keep things simple and focused on the specific request for help.

[10DSpace]

For some reason the .obj file was not sent with above post.  Hopefully will work this time.

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Here is a dropbox link to the file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/torjujowmlrudm0/Smoothed%20Character%20Version.obj?dl=0

[Anonymous]

OH MY GOD. It worked exactly what I wanted ... But when I export in 3DS the model loses a little bit of smooth. see the image. 3DS file is the final file i want. My project working with 3DS files. I Want mantain the Smooth of .OBJ file in exported 3DS file. And now?

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

If I export the model to .3ds and then re-import I do not get any change in the smoothing of the model.  The re-imported .3ds model comes back into max as an Editable Mesh instead of as an Editable poly which it was exported as.  But like I say, this didn't matter to the smoothing of the model.   Note that if you did the same as I did and exported via .3ds and then re-imported the .3ds into the same scene, the re-imported model will come back in exactly the same place, so you will now have 2 duplicate meshes in the same place.  You probably already found this out, but just make sure that you are only looking at 1 mesh when evaluating the smoothing. 

I am using Max 2020 and I really do not know if the export re-import process via .3ds is any different in 3ds max 2010 and I have no way of checking this.  I can tell you that the .3ds Export dialogue box for Max 2020 has only 1 option which is checked by default and that is "Preserve Max Texture coordinates", but this has no effect on smoothing.   Are there any other options in the .3ds Export dialogue of the 2010 version of max? If so what are they and what settings did you use?

What is your reason for choosing .3ds format for export?  If it is for use in an external program, what program?  Sometimes other formats like .obj and .fbx are acceptable alternatives.

[Anonymous]

I use .3DS for my PS2 game project, it is a unique extension that can edit and maintain the texture coordinates I never tried with the .OBJ extension because it has the MTL file and the .3DS file contains the texture coordinates in proper file. About the dialog box the only one that appears is about keeping texture coordinates

see the image i print the mesh you edited and the reimport in .3DS, this **** modified automatically

Could my 3DS MAX have problem? If necessary i take a new version... I need make my project.

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

It looks like the polygons in the chest area are no longer part of the same smoothing group as the rest of the mesh.  Check to see if this is so by selecting the polygons and checking the smoothing groups.  Also, if ultimately this character is going to be in the PS2 game engine, do you know how it appears there?  In other words, do you know for a fact that .3ds export will look unsmoothed?

[Anonymous]

I have other characters from this same game that I download in one forum and they are smooth in game and work perfectly. Do you think it could be a problem in my 3d max? 

I'm desperate, I don't know what to do ...

[Anonymous]

I checked the smooth group and it remains number 1 in the entire mesh

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Try the following 2 things:

1) converting the mesh to an Editable Mesh before you export to .3ds. 

2) Converting the mesh to an Editable Mesh and then select all of the vertices and "Weld Selected" with 0.1 as threshold.  Then export to .3ds and see if that fixes the issue. 

Hope this helps.