Modo to EIAS: help

Hi guys

I am learning Modo 202. Initially my goal was to use it only as an [b]organic[/b] modeler. Actually I think that Modo has a good and beautiful tools to use as [b]hard-surface[/b] modeler.

But I have lot of problems to translate geometry from Modo to EIAS, specially when I [b]don't use[/b] subdivision techniques.

— Create a cube block
— Boolean with an inner tall block
— Then perform some round bevels at edges

We have a nice block with a hole in the middle and rounding edges (important: without aplying subdivision).

— Then make copies from this object to diferent layers.

OK. Now export as .OBJ

— If I use [b]Object2Fact[/b] there is no way to conserve the holes (and yes: I check “Join Vertices” in O2F)
— If I use [b]Transporter[/b] every layers are flatened to only one. And problems appears with shading (when I get good smooth then complex polygons are facetted on lot of triangles; if I get nice flat complex polygons then I don't get good smooth at round bevels...).

I have made some tests with [b]subdivided[/b] and freezed groups translated with O2F and these seems to work properly. The problems appears with non-subdivided geometry...

Some help here? Tips and tricks to pass hard surfaces from Modo to EIAS?
Some power Modo/EIAS user around there?

Thanks for your help.

Did you try the FBX export from Modo?

Cj

Hi,

I don’t use Modo but its the same deal with Silo, unsubdivided meshes almost always have shading problems when imported to EI.

I’m afraid that freezing or subdividing is the only way to go until these translation problems are sorted out IMHO

Reuben

Hi Reuben,

i had those shading problems also with Silo, with simple unsubdivided objects (cubes, logos etc.) but they dissapeared in EIAS when saving as .3ds instead of .fac, or when you break faces in Silo (usefull only of course on object with a few faces and unsubdiv. …)

Regards
Stefan

Hi Cristobal

Ah I’m glad to see that I am not the only person where this issue is causing headaches.

Like you I have started to use a subdiv programme to do hard edge modelling. I’m using Hexagon, but still get exactly the same problems. I spent ages trying to solve them with the whole import process but got no where. I posted the problem on the EI forum
http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6472&highlight=robert
without much luck.

In the end I came to the conclusion that where I was going wrong was in the building process. What I was doing was applying EI Modeler principles in a SubDiv programmes. And the first new rule is never use booleans!! It a real pain but you have to make the holes manually with the correct triangulation. I am still very much at the beginning of this learning process and so I’m still not to sure what is the best process to give any more advice.

I would love to find some really good hard edge tutorials and advice for subdiv programmes but they seem very thin on the ground. Everything is geared around organic modelling.

Having said all that I still think that there are also general issues (problems and bugs) with both the exporting and importing process. The only conclusion that I have come up with is to use obj2fac, I find that transporter completely messes up my models!
http://www.bradfilms.co.uk/TRIANGUALTION.jpg

Sorry I cann’t be of any more help

Robert

Hi Christobal,

I have also Modo around because I thought I could make UV layouts of imported geometry. But that does at least for tesselated spline geometry (like from Rhino or EIM) not work. Modo does not preserve the original normals of the model, so you loose the shading when you work on such a model in Modo. Also, the OBJ output of Modo is definately not clean, which makes it hard for O2F to do something about it. The only way I found that works somehow is to save Maya out of Modo, and save then OBJ from Maya, than O2F. The “easy pipeline integration” is definately a marketing myth of luxology.

Jens

Hi guys, thanks for your input.

I think that I have found the path: FBX (thanks cjberg

I must admit that I was skeptic about FBX but now I believe that this is the best approach.

As Robert mention it is very important to think about modeling procces in a very diferent way than FormZ, EiModeler or Rhino. You can use booleans, but it is very important to clean the resultant surfaces (adding aditional edges). Modo can work with n-gons, yes, but this is the best way to find problems when you export.

I import FBX in Animator and all appears with correct named layers. You can use locators in Modo and FBX passes this as nulls to Electric. Perfect to get a good organization

With some meshes (specially non-subdivided ones) it’s a good idea to re-export as FACT from Animator, pass this FACT through Transporter (Generated Vertex Normals, Process Vertex Normals and Fix Smooth Shading: 40 enabled).

Anyway I must make more tests with different types of meshes, but now I am more optimist.

I have not tested UV translation yet, this is another (big) problem. But at this moment I don’t need this

Thanks for your help.

Some useful tutorial links for folks wanting to Polygon model hard surface objects:

http://www.onnovanbraam.com/index.php?m=tutorials

Mouse over the Tutorials box on screen left and select some hard body type tutorials.

Also:

http://www.geocities.com/paulthepuzzles/aardvarks.html

Wings3D specific, but handy.

http://www.meshweaver.com/

Click on the Tutorial link on upper screen right. The tutorial on Smoothing Angle was very informative.

http://www.andykinsella.co.uk/tutorials.html

Lots of ideas here.

Hope these help ease the transition.

Exactly, i was just about to post saying this… you might find that in a lot of cases its quicker just to use some other tools and different approach rather than spending time with the “cleanup” that’s always required after a boolean opp, and also risking a crash in the case of Silo.

Reuben

Hmm, don’t know whether i tried that or not, i seem to have the impression its a internal Silo issue, not related to export formats, might be wrong though, thanks !

Reuben

Thanks Kurt

That was actually what I have been looking for - tutorials concerning basic techniques and principles instead of the usual full blown construction of a Porsche - btw why is there never a tutorial on making an Austin Allegro!!!

Cheers

Robert

Hey Kurt, thanks for these tuts links. They rocks

Gentlemen,

you are very welcome. All this lurking should be good for something.

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