Is it possible to ransform a poly w/ tris in poly w/ quads

#1

Hi there,

I’d like to know if it is possible with modo to transform a poly made of Tris into a poly made of Quads.

i.e.
I got the following mesh : cayennew/tris (made of tris)
and would like to transform it into a mesh that looks like this : brabus (made of quads)

The reason I want to do this is because the model made of tris renders ugly. All look very “pinched”.

I’m not sure that modo can do a such thing, because I tried several options that did not worked.

If modo can not do that, maybe you guys know about some tools that could do It.
If modo can do that, maybe you guys can explain me how to do it !

I already tried to open the model (LWO format) with blender and tried several python scripts thats does transform tris in quads, but the rendering is still not really satisfactory.
The result once back in modo is as follows : cayennew/quads (there is only the cover of the car on purpose).

So, the second question will be : can I smooth that second mesh with modo so it looks “cleaner”.
(And I hope render better).

Thanks for your help!

#2

Hey, K.

The problem you’re describing is a difficult one. I’m on my laptop right now (modo-less), so sorry but I can’t give exact instructions. Anyway, I’m sure that modo has some kind of “Quadralate” feature, but I don’t know how well it works. If it’s not a native script, you can look for it on www.vertexmonkey.com. (I think Dion might have written it, so if he happens upon this thread, he may be a lot more helpful to you…)

I’ve had mixed results in my limited experience with Quadralating stuff, and I’m not sure the developer(s) really intended for it to be used exactly as you’re hoping (on such a complicated shape.) But you should at least give it a try, I suppose…

My bigger concern is that if you’ve tried similar scripts in other packages, you may find that Quadralate in modo yields similar results. Then again, many things work better in modo than they do in other apps!

Like I said, kind of a difficult trick.

As for smoothing out the mesh, modo does indeed have a “smoothe” operator. I think I’d try applying it several times at a low threshold value in order to minimize the loss of shape in your car. But, again, I’m not sure how well this technique will work. It’s all trial and error, and the kind of thing I’d personally have to toy with a little bit to get the best results.

Hope this was of some small help.

#3

Hi debfrey,

Thanks for your answer and help,

I’m going to have a look at that site but I will only be able to test later (it’s my turn to be on my modo-less laptop :)).

I tried to use the smooth tool but I couldn’t achieve satisfactory results. It does not really modify the mesh “structure” or “organization”. I’ll give it another try later on.

I know this is a very hard trick, that’s why I asked to specialists here. I just hope I won’t need to restart all from scratch ;)… but that would be a good way to see modo’s power in modeling cars :D.

#4

I doubt you’d ever get anything as clean looking as your second image with any script or automated function. If you’ve got the time (and will power :slight_smile: ) your best results will come from going in there by hand and selecting polygon pairs that you can merge nicely into quads. Will be time consuming though, but the results will be worth it.

I would stay away from smooth operators as you’ll more than likely loose the forms.

#5

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