AutoCAD Architecture model to Maya

[shanimator12]

Hi

I've recently made a house in AutoCAD Architecture from some plans I was given as a dwg file. I now want to move onto texturing and rendering. I am trying to get the file into Maya so I can unwrap it but the mesh is incredibly messy, where the normals seem to be all over the place. The way I've taken it into Maya is by bringing it into 3DS Max first and exporting out as an FBX or OBJ. 

Is there a better way of getting the files into Maya? Or does anyone have any advice as to how to clean-up the mesh quickly rather than just using the quad draw tool?

Thanks!

[keith112]

Ah the pain of messy normals from software like SketchUp, Revit and Autocad. Unfortunately these software allow messy normals and don't 'really' show you that your normals are flipped until it's brought into an application like maya or 3ds max.

The best advice I can give is to try and fix the normals in the original software you are using but I say its too late as it would take just as long to just start all over again.

In maya you might get away with it but I'm going to guess it's going to be a lot of manual work.

De-dock the Mesh Display menu in maya and try a few things.

The best commands to use would be

• Reverse
• Set to Face

Try to select the entire model and click Set to Face.

Also you can select the faces of your model and try and this: Hold down shift + right click>Face normals>Reverse propagate.

Good luck