Quads turned to tris. Pls help

[pjgreen94.pg]

Right, I've been box modelling a hand, pretty simple stuff. I've only made it as far as the fingers though, as i was creating the knuckles so i could go from box the edge modelling I had some tri I needed to convert to quads, again pretty simple stuff, but then i noticed that every face was, in fact, two tris. I've tried Quadify-ing the mesh but it doesn't help. I don't mind remodeling, but this has become a reoccurring theme when i try to box model. Is the fix some where in my settings? if so then why did it not happen when i was modeling the arm just a couple hour beforehand? I feel like i'm missing something that's right in front of me. Any help would be appreciated.

[Fadhil_Farook]

Actually that's a viewport setting. You which means, those triangle lines don't exist and you won't be able to select them either. You may have accidentally turned on the option to see the triangle lines. Turning them off will do it.

   1. Right click on the object and click Object Properties

   2. In object properties > Display Properties - turn on Edges Only.

[Fadhil_Farook]

Actually that's a viewport setting. You which means, those triangle lines don't exist and you won't be able to select them either. You may have accidentally turned on the option to see the triangle lines. Turning them off will do it.

   1. Right click on the object and click Object Properties

   2. In object properties > Display Properties - turn on Edges Only.

[Fadhil_Farook]

Sorry, the post got duplicated.

[pjgreen94.pg]

hey man, thanks for replying. I already have that set up, it you look at the new image you can't actually see dotted line but you can see where the poly is distorting.

[bob.bernstein]

Polys distort because the vertices are not planar.  You can show this by selecting one that is "deformed" and click on "make planar" in the align tab of the graphite ribbon.

[pjgreen94.pg]

I've tried that but every time i fix one face and move the the next it distorts the first. 

[bob.bernstein]

You misunderstood my suggestion.  The point of "make planar" was just to show you the validity of the root cause.  

If the polys cannot be planar in your model, there are not enough of them to support the shape you are attempting.  If you subdivide the part, you'll see fewer distorted polys.  

Have you rendered the part to see how the results look?  

[pjgreen94.pg]

ah okay. you can still see them when rendered.

[har1sf0x]

Hello there,

 I would like to add something so as to have it in mind.

 I suppose that you are modelling using an Editable Mesh or Edit Mesh modifiers since the dotted edges that you see are hidden edges. Every object that results in 'mesh' stores the vertices used in a face in triangles (only) and has a hidden edge flag that says which edges are visible and which are not.

 In max there is also the polyObject type (Editable Poly or Edit Poly modifier) which stores the vertices used in a polygon in an array (the array can be of more than 3 vertices) with also a flag of edge visibility. If you use a polyObject in order to see those dotted edges you must enable the 'Edit Tri.' in the Edit Edges rollout.

 Smoothing Groups of a face or polygon are the responsible ones for the hidden edges to stay as much 'invisible' during rendering (if the two faces of a polygon share the same smoothing group or not).

 I hope that gave you some insight of how 3ds max works.

Best regards,

har1sf0x

[pjgreen94.pg]

Hey man, 

I was actually modelling using edit poly and only converted it to an edit mesh after i noticed the deformation of the faces. DO you think adding a smoothing group will fix the situation?

[Fadhil_Farook]

More subdivisions + smoothing groups should work. Smoothing groups work by polygon angles. Adding lines where the deformation occurs can mean that smoothing group numbers are distributed very well.

[har1sf0x]

Hello again,

 Adding a smooth modifier is a good start but as it is already been said, if there is not enough topology and the polygons are way too much distorted the problem will remain.

 With the 'edit poly' modifier you could also 'Turn' some tris. (at edge sub-object level) that give you the most trouble and you could probably see a substantial difference.

Enjoy,

har1sf0x