[Cloudman]

I'm having real problems trying to align the mesh of a speaker grille. It seems no matter how I apply the texture (cubic, cylindrical, planar etc) I can't get it aligned properly......if it's correct in one part then it's stretched in another or else there is a seam. I've tried scaling in all planes, rotating, moving etc, etc.

Everthing is fine with relatively planar surfaces (as you would expect), it's when trying to apply to a more organic surface that the problems begin.

What I need is some kind of "wrap" function that maps the texture intelligently to the surface. Here are a couple of screen grabs that illustrate the problem and also the underlying surface that I'm working with. The part was imported as a STEP into Rhino and then exported using the Maxwell plugin. I'm trying to apply the map to a single surface (as opposed to several stitched or filleted surfaces).

Please help....it's driving me insane!

[Maximus3D]

You will most likely never be able to align it properly when you cubicmap a mesh, what would be good to do is to rebuild a new topology ontop of your messy mesh and the unwrap that and then texture it again.

/ Max

[polynurb]

cloudman, as maximus said remodelling is the best way.

nurbs would be a good way for this - using surface uv mapping (if your application supports that)

[Bubbaloo]

In Max 2009 it would be easy using the new spline-mapping feature.

[Cloudman]

I thought it may be something like this. My parts always take a rather tourtous route into Maxwell: the initial surfaces are modelled in Alias as a NURB surface. I then export to I-Deas (a highend MCAD Nurbs modeller, sister software to Unigraphics) for detailing. Once I've completed the design I then export a STEP assembly to Rhino so that I can use the direct Maxwell plugin to export to Maxwell Studio!

Obviously not ideal, but seems to be the only route out of I-Deas. I have in the past exported back to Alias and exported OBJ to Maxwell, but this doesn't seem to work as seemlesly as exporting via Rhino. The only other route is via an STL file, but these tend to be really faceted on anything other than planar geometry.

Can anyone suggest a better method that will maintain clean surface geometry? Is there any other software that I can export STEP (universal NURBs export) into that will give me a good mesh in Maxwell?

[Maximus3D]

Ouch that's some serious workaround and meshtrashing you're doing there. it's far from optimal.. i'm gonna suggest something but it's up to you if you wanna spend the few dollars it will cost you, it's not much but it's still well spent money and it would smoothen out your horrible workflow some more.

First of all get Moi3D http://moi3d.com/ it has one of the best meshexporters from nurbsdata you can find today. You can import 3dm files from Rhino and IGES into it and then export it from there.

My second suggestion will be 3D-Coat http://3dcoat.com/ this nice little application has just about everything you need to work with polygonal models both highpoly and lowpoly. With this you can unwrap the models to get proper UV's for texturing, you can paint textures with multiple maps at the same time, you can reuild a new meshtoplogy ontop of your old mesh and then unwrap that new mesh, texture it and then export it all out back to your main 3d app like Maxwell Studio or whatever it might be and then render it there. And it has also got sculptingtools if you would need those.

Both of these applications are still in developement and they're relatively fresh, but they are both awesome and they come at a fair price considering what they're capable of. Give them both a spin and see how well they would work for you.

/ Max

[Cloudman]

Many thanks Maximus. I will give these a try.

It would be great if Maxwell supported direct STEP import and sorted out these issues for me (like Hypershot does....it automatically creates an OBJ file optimised for the software and reads this in all in one move) ......here's hoping! Seems like all this should be happening at the modeling stage and maintained in the STEP or IGES geometry direct into Maxwell.

[Maximus3D]

No problem we have threads about both these apps in the Offtopic section so if you have any questions you wanna ask us about them feel free to post there and we will try to answer if we can.

It sure is a nice dream to hope that Maxwell would support those fileformats directly, but since they're nurbs/solids data they would have to be converted when they're imported and i doubt Studio would be very good at that. It's probably better to rely in a thirdparty application which is specialised at such things to get a better conversion.

Btw, here's a short tutorial i put together a while ago to show how you can move meshdata from Moi3D to 3D-Coat where you texture it and then you export it all out to Cinema4D for rendering. This gives you a hint how a workflow could look like when transferring nurbsdata to polygonal data and preserving both UV coords and textures all the way.
http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2166

/ Max

[Cloudman]

Looks like a useful tutorial. What is the Riptide OBJ export software that's shown?

So to recap how I can "streamline" my process: Export solid model as STEP or IGES from I-Deas into Moi3D (could I use Alias for this stage as it supports OBJ export?). Export from Moi-3D (or Alias?) as OBJ and import into 3D-Coat.....export from 3D-coat into Riptide-pro and export OBJ ready to import to Maxwell. PHEW!!

If I don't want to paint on my textures in an external app can I cut out any of these stages? Seems like riptide pro is an app I've been looking for for a while.....import for STEP and export good OBJ files that maxwell will read cleanly....unless i'm mistaken.

Thanks for taking the time to help me out here

[oz42]

Cloudman - not sure if this is going to help you but there is a superb UV unwrapper here - http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm. It's very easy to use, is interactive and gives great results first time. It has plugins for MAX, Maya and XSI. It will unwrap this shape very easily.

[Maximus3D]

The problem with that tutorial is that it requires RipTide Pro which is a plugin for Cinema4D. So you need Cinema4D to use it, it's not standalone and it doesn't exist for any other application out there.

What you could do is export your model(s) as STEP, import your STEP into Moi3D, export a .obj mesh from Moi3D, import that .obj mesh into 3D-Coat or the standalone UV-mapper Ozzy suggested, do your UV stuff and texturing in either of these apps, export out the mesh again with UV's preserved, import it into Maxwell Studio for rendering. Phew! that is one hell of a long process ..not very smooth i admit that now.

/ Max

[polynurb]

if you work a lot with high detail nurbs models you might enjoy rendering them using maxwell directly from rhino.

the maxwell for rhino plugin is excellent and rhino has support for step&iges files. it also woks very well together with MOI

[Mihai]

As another UV unwrapper I can really recommend Unfold 3D, no manual work needed, except to specify where the cuts should be, but it's really fast to do that. If you like send me that part as an obj and I can unwrap the uvs for you.

[Cloudman]

Sorry to sound dim here.....but could you just explain the concept of UV unwrapping or point me to a "UV unwrapping for Dummies" tutorial? This is new to me. I'm used to just modelling the geometry. Thanks

[Cloudman]

As another UV unwrapper I can really recommend Unfold 3D, no manual work needed, except to specify where the cuts should be, but it's really fast to do that. If you like send me that part as an obj and I can unwrap the uvs for you.

Thanks for the offer...I'll send you the geometry tomorow