Questions about converting LW -> .obj -> Maya

#1

Hi, after getting many, many good answers off of this forum (via Google), this is my first time posting, as I haven’t been able to find this information anywhere on the Web. I’m hoping this is the right forum for these questions; if there’s a more appropriate place to ask, would someone please point me in the right direction?

I have to convert several large sets modeled in Lightwave (10) to Maya. In order to best preserve the original texturing I’m exporting to .obj as an intermediary format.

Two issues, my current practice, and requests for feedback/clarification:

  1. At first I couldn’t get the .objs to open up in Maya at all. Eventually, I tracked it down to what I call “holes” (is there a more correct term?): single polygons with a cutout inside (and a single cut between the cutout and the outside edge). By experiment, I found that making a second cut (making it two polys with no holes) made it openable in Maya.

Query: Am I right in my understanding that Maya doesn’t handle polys with holes in them? Am I handling it the best way, tracking down all such geometry (I’m searching for n-gons and visually inspecting them, and not worrying about things like 24-sided disks) and adding extra cuts as needed? It’s very time-consuming, and I wanted to see if there wasn’t a shortcut I hadn’t thought of.

  1. Having already done this a couple of times, I noticed that the surface textures weren’t coming in correctly. In particular (working from memory, so not a complete list):

a. RGB values are lower.
b. Diffuse comes in at 80%, regardless of the original setting.
c. Reflectivity comes in at 50%, regardless of the original setting.

I do note that texture maps (images) and UV maps do seem to come through just fine; it’s just these number-based textures that Lightwave and Maya don’t seem to be able to agree on.

Even taking care to consolidate any textures that are actually identical (such as multiple faces on multiple filing cabinets, etc.), I’m still looking at having to manually tweak 299 different surface textures in the imported Maya file, just for one object.

Query: Is this to be expected? Is there a better way to get these specs to translate accurately?

Any perspective on this would be greatly appreciated.

#2

Maya’s obj importer is terrible. Do you have mudbox…? I’ve developed a habit of bringing the OBJs from Mudbox into Maya because it seems to do a much better job of properly reading the file format.

Also… yeah, don’t expect the materials to come in very well… again, the OBJ importer in Maya is utterly terrible.

#3

No, I don’t. But if it can get that “hole” geometry into Maya without requiring manual cleanup, it may be worth it!

At the very least, now I have some confirmation that it’s not something I’m doing wrong! Thanks!

#4

Lightwaves OBJ exporter is also a bit on the old side.
Not sure when it was last updated.
Which version of Lightwave are you using?
It’s never going to be a 100% easy process.
If you have Lightwave 10 or 11 you can try exporting the model as a Collada file or FBX.
Also the light wave model may need a bit of clean up. Especially if it’s an old model.

If you can get a hold of Modo you can load the Models and use Modo’s FBX exporter.

One other thing to keep in mind Maya really like the objects to have a UV map. Even if it’s not used. Old versions of Lightwave models may not have a UV map. Usually textures were just planar mapped. And any procedural textures in Lightwave will not Translate over to Maya.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

#5

Have you tried using fbx as intermediary file format instead of obj?

#6

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