Modeling : Smoothing problem

[Rivendale]

Convert to Editable poly if you have an editable mesh. Show us a wireframe so we can see wich edges are visible and not...

[coffeepenguin]

You may be able to make them less noticable if you put a few lights in the scene.

[Teckniel]

here you go this is the wire and i use editable poly http://tecknieldesigns.solidweb.be/problem2.jpg
not i cant use lights cause its for a game ;)

[Peter Ryskin]

Before doing it though, Save, in a new file (unless you're using numbered saves), or Hold.

Since you want it apart from smoothing, first select all faces that are not supposed to be part of a smoothing group and clear all smoothing groups from the all faces in the mesh.

Try going into face subobject mode and select all faces in the red area.

Detach the selected faces as a new object. Make a clone. Select all vertices in one of the detached objects, and Make Planar. You may have to fiddle with rotation, or alignment against the clone to match it up. reattach the detached mesh to the pistol, and weld->target the vertices -to- the newly flattened part of the pistol.

You could do something akin to that to the lower edges of the blue and yellow area's ass well, but hard to say if its necessary.

If it doesn't work, it may be because your mesh is rather large, or rather small. 3D applications, due to how high precision is handled, introduce roundoff errors when you get close to nothing, and close to the maximum number. That can lead to flawed vertex positions (which is what you have there, imo.) If its 20 miles across, scale it down, and vice versa if its 0.02 inches long, scale it up.

Edit: You might also try and turn the edges inside the polygons that looks bad, so that they flow with any curves that they describe, instead of going against them.

Probably other ways to fix it as well.

Have fun!

[Rivendale]

I don't understand why you don't want to use smoothing. Doesn't the game support smoothed models?
I would suggest selecting a group of polygons that make up a "panel" and applying a Smooth-modifier to them, turn on auto, convert to poly...then selecting the next set of polygons apply smooth-modifier...and so on. This way you only have hard edges where you want them.

[CapnPanic]

you don't really even need the smooth modifier, just select a group of polys and make them part of the same smoothing group (that big group of little square buttons low down on the editable poly modifier panel). all thats happenning here is that the new polys you have created are not assigned to a smoothing group, so all you need to do is tell max which polys to smooth together and it will look smoothed, without having to use meshsmooth :)

[Teckniel]

thx all when i got back from work i will try it out

regards Teckniel

[Teckniel]

grrr nothing works here is the file

hope sam1 can help me out


i hope i get a good explenation :)
else i rebuild the whole mesh :)

regards Teckniel

File (http://tecknieldesigns.solidweb.be/Gun Prog 3.max)

[Rurouni]

have you do what capn_panic said? go to editable poly, select all polygon/face, go to smoothing groups, klik number 1 (so all polygon share the same smoothing group), or you can press auto smooth...
render again...
viola!
(btw, i have tried your file, and it worked)

[Teckniel]

eum how do i kill number 1?????
i have cleard smoothing but it still is the same

[klschuff]

Maybe a little explanation will help.
If you pick a polygon, and assign it to a certain smoothing group (choose a number) it will attempt to smooth any edges that it shares with another polygon in the same group.

For example:
Let's say we have 3 polygons.

Poly1 is assigned smoothing group 1.
Poly2 is assigned smoothing group 2.
Poly3 is assigned smoothing group 1 and 2.

If Poly1 and Poly2 share an edge, they will not be smoothed.
If Poly1 and Poly3 share an edge, they will be smoothed.
If Poly2 and Poly3 share an edge, they will also be smoothed.


I hope that isn't too confusing.
I made some example images, but apparently I can't upload from work. (Darn corporate restrictions anyway). I'll try to put 'em up when I get home.

<EDIT> nevermind, got it. The highlighted edges are smoothed, and the numbers indicate what smoothing groups the polygons belong to.

[klschuff]

Here's one without any lines, so the smoothing and hard edges show up better.

[Rurouni]

just assign the same smoothing group for the problematic polygon and the surrounding polygon.
or better yet... try the autosmooth...
just read the help file, try to search smoothing group. i hope it will give you a better understanding of how smoothing group works.

[TheWriter]

Doesn't the game support smoothed models?

Could you mention which game engines support this? If this is true, then I have seen a lot of great games use ugly flat polys for nothing.

[Rivendale]

Originally posted by TheWriter
Doesn't the game support smoothed models?

Could you mention which game engines support this? If this is true, then I have seen a lot of great games use ugly flat polys for nothing.
Most engines support smoothing nowadays, not sure what you mean but if you look at characters in most games the models are smoothed.

Capn_Panic- Yeah you can do it in the Epoly rollout, it's just my prefered way of working to use the modifier, cause I don't have to worry about the smoothing-group numbers. I only use the rollout if I have to fine tune some edge.

[TheWriter]

I imagine that smoothing much add extra work to the engine and result in a few dropped frames?

Otherwise, there should be no excuse to see edged polys on those tire wheels in racing games should there?

[Rurouni]

i think when you see "edged polys" in games is because either the polycount too low or maybe the camera were too close to the object or.. well.. bad modelling?
if you make a sphere in max, and use smoothing, the surface will look smooth. but if you render it very close at the edge of the object, it still look edged (unless you use a very high segment).

i think if today game engines doesn't support polygon smoothing, all the game would look like virtua figter (i think it's the first polygon game in 3d or at least the first fighting game in 3d).:buttrock:

[Teckniel]

so with my model if its from a distance you will not see it?

[krl]

I dont think that it is usual that games use smoothed objects, just see how meshsmooth with 2 iterations drags your performance down when applying onto a complex model ... well, maybe id studios are integrating smoothed objects into their doom3-engine; starts making sense when you look at the polycounts theyre using ... ohwell, i dont want to be a modeller there when they arent allowed to use any smooth ... =)

[krl]

damn you are fast posting ... it actually surprises me that games support smoothed models, even in Unreal 2 they look like "the texture makes it all", though they look stunning :)

[Teckniel]

i have heard every engine use's smoothing or im i wrong??

[Rivendale]

krl- There's a difference between smoothing and meshsmooth, the type we're talking about here is the one the has to do with the shading of models, not actual geometry.
Doom3 hasn't got very highpoly models, they use normal-maps that are extracted from highpoly models and applied to low-rez versions, so that they catch the light like they are high-rez.
:beer:

[krl]

uhm, well, sorry for that stupid comment then, i'm not into gamedev so much ...

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