Smoothing Problem

[Anonymous]

Can anyone show me how to fix this problem? In the image you can see where there is a clear problem with smoothing. The polys should appear to be flat and continuous but it is "breaking" along this edge. Any ideas? I attached the scene.

Also I'd love to hear some general guidelines to help avoid smoothing problems, if anyone has anything they'd like to share.

I'm using 3dsmax 2008.

16008_aWKx6v3EJlmZgqMy1e94.zip

[Anonymous]

Most issues with smoothing are caused by not enough polys to get a nice smooth. This results in the darkening of some polys from side to side.
In your case, the wall and that pillar that comes out all have the same smoothing group. I highlighted the corner in the images to show where the problem is coming from (it's on the other side of the pillar as well). I would suggest adding more detail on edges/corners to help decrease the darkening issue, or give the pillar a different smoothing group.

Also, check out this thread.
Link

[Anonymous]

Thanks, that helps! It also seems that its best to always model in quads. There are many times when it is tempting to create a tri to close off an area instead of creating a bunch of extra polys that would come with a quad. But with respect to smoothing groups, it seems quads is the most cooperative. Do you agree with this?

[ekahennequet]

Thanks, that helps! It also seems that its best to always model in quads. There are many times when it is tempting to create a tri to close off an area instead of creating a bunch of extra polys that would come with a quad. But with respect to smoothing groups, it seems quads is the most cooperative. Do you agree with this?

Not necessarily. A good example would be a cylindrical surface having columns of polys squeezed together. Even if these bunched-up columns are in quads, you will have smoothing issues. If the smoothing problem is minor, then in some cases applying texture maps can camouflage the smoothing artifacts.

I know I'm contradicting myself here because I'm always preaching everyone to model in quads. It depends on the situation. If you have an area where it really makes no difference in the final appearance, then it's not absolutely necessary to make it a quad unless you're building the model to someone's specification.

Having said that, I still think it's a good habit to model in quads if you're modeling for further subdivision down the road. Besides, it's just so much easier to make selections on quad models than with models made up of visible triangles.

[Anonymous]

Excellent. Thanks for the advice!

[Anonymous]

It doesn't hurt to play with a simple primitive converted to mesh. Try out
things on a throwaway object rather than modeling yourself into a corner.

Something else that should be avoided are quads with 5 verts (they aren't
really quads) because they will have bruising, like your picture.

There are a number of box modeling tutorials around the net that will give
you sense of good edge flow and how it can help modeling in any resolution.

One last thing...sometimes we get caught up in a problem that shouldn't even
exist. Except for the windows, your wall with the bruising could be one quad with
the molding placed overtop. Shortcuts like that give you more time to sweat the
tricky parts.

[ekahennequet]

It doesn't hurt to play with a simple primitive converted to mesh. Try out
things on a throwaway object rather than modeling yourself into a corner.

Something else that should be avoided are quads with 5 verts (they aren't
really quads) because they will have bruising, like your picture.

There are a number of box modeling tutorials around the net that will give
you sense of good edge flow and how it can help modeling in any resolution.

One last thing...sometimes we get caught up in a problem that shouldn't even
exist. Except for the windows, your wall with the bruising could be one quad with
the molding placed overtop. Shortcuts like that give you more time to sweat the
tricky parts.

I learned a new term today. "Bruising". :cheese:

[Anonymous]

Hehe...yeah, poly's are like fruit i guess.

[Anonymous]

One last thing...sometimes we get caught up in a problem that shouldn’t even
exist. Except for the windows, your wall with the bruising could be one quad with
the molding placed overtop. Shortcuts like that give you more time to sweat the
tricky parts.

I think I understand what you're saying, but if I want the objects to smooth together, don't they need to be attached to each other (part of the same mesh) instead of being separate objects or elements?

[ekahennequet]

One last thing...sometimes we get caught up in a problem that shouldn’t even
exist. Except for the windows, your wall with the bruising could be one quad with
the molding placed overtop. Shortcuts like that give you more time to sweat the
tricky parts.

I think I understand what you're saying, but if I want the objects to smooth together, don't they need to be attached to each other (part of the same mesh) instead of being separate objects or elements?

Not necessarily. You can apply Edit Normals modifier to both objects and edit normals of your selection. Below is an awesome tip posted by Dave King (aka. "kingofdaveness") few years ago when a user posted a problem trying to smooth two separate objects to appear as one object.

Select both halves.
Apply edit normals modifier.
Check 'use threshhold'
Select all the verts around the split.
Click average.

Above example only works if you have open edges where the split occurs. In your case, you may need to select the polys that you want to smooth together rather than vertices.

[Anonymous]

Very interesting! I haven't done much with Edit Normals so I'll read into that.

[Anonymous]

I just found this in the 3dsmax help files. Kind of the same concept. Very cool...

A game artist is working on an object that will explode in the game. To do this, the game engine requires the object to be split into multiple objects: the broken pieces that will result from the explosion. When the object is broken apart in 3ds Max (using Slice), the normals are pointing in different directions; this makes it easy to see the seams between the broken pieces. To fix this, the artist selects all the pieces of the breaking object and applies the Edit Normal modifier to all of them at once. She then selects the normals across the seam and unifies them so they are pointing in the same direction. The artist then exports to the game engine.

[ekahennequet]

That's good to hear Valen. 🙂