importing lightwave objects...

[iso]

From my experience dxf files have worked without any problems.

one thing that i am wondering is whether there is any any real benefit to modeling in maya rather than some external program such as lightwave or some other program such as nendo. If anyone has any experience with this please share.

[CIM]

Export as .obj--it'll work fine.

[Elliotjnewman]

Well I have just tried both methods and still nothing, have tried flattening the layers in LW and then converting to triangles and still nothing:thumbsdow

I have tried to export as dxf but maya doesnt seem to have this format in its import as options.

is this becuase I am running complete in OSX?

[lostpencil]

Hmmm... seems like something funky is going on. You should be able to import a dxf or obj from Lightwave. I've done it on the windows version a bunch of times.

Couple of things to try:

1. Make sure you have no single point polys in LW.
2. If OBJ or DXF still fails, try the filmbox plugins.
3. If all else fails, email me and I'll try the conversion using Beaver

[bakkaboy]

Maya on OSX does not support dxf at this time. I went thru the import thing a while back.

cheers

[CIM]

Don't forget, if you're exporting as .obj, you MUST do a Surface to Parts first. If not, you'll get invalid nodes in Maya.

[seasterling]

Ya gotta convert the obj file to unix format. Open a Terminal window and type:

tounix

Leave a space after the command. Drag the .obj file into the Terminal window, hit enter. Now you can bring the obj file into Maya.

This one probably needs to be in the faq thread if it is not already.

[skello]

Consolidate all objects into layer one before you export as obj ( you may want to assign objects in each layer unique names to be able to recover them easily in maya). LW cannot export stuff in layers other than the default if you choose to export as obj.
Its not realy important but always export a poly cage versus a metanurb object if you can.

note that you may have to scale up the imported obj to see it in maya.
maybe you may have imported it ok but the scale is way too small for the object to be visible.

BTW what error message do you get when you try to import it?

[Elliotjnewman]

Well in lightwave I have flattened all the layers - the obj is a poly model, I have tried 'surface to parts' and I have tried using the terminal window to convert to unix and still no joy.

Its not a case of scaling up in Maya - there simply isnt anything there to scale up.

I have also sent lostpencil the file and he has converted it to a .ma file and I still cant open it!!!

[lostpencil]

Hey Elliot, what version of Maya do you have? I sent it to you as a Maya 4.5 file. What error are you getting when you try to open it?

[Elliotjnewman]

Well I have 4.5 aswell. I have noticed that on the file you sent it says 'ASC' but on the scene files I have it says 'BIN' - maybe thats the problem?

[skello]

what message do you get in the command feedback window when you try to open the file?

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