[RichG]

Has anyone else got a successful formula for using Moi3d and Maxwell together. I just can't get it to render cleanly. You can see my problem here:

http://www.loopcorp.com/Miscellany/Moi_Maxwell.jpg

It renders OK in Cinema 4D's native renderer but not Maxwell. I've tried all kinds of settings for the exported mesh - nGons, quads & tri's, tri's only (although it's always meshed to triangles by the time it hits Maxwell anyway) but nothing seems to work.

It's a shame because certain forms really lend themselves to Moi 3d rather than a SubD modeller but as long as I'm rendering in Maxwell it seems I can't use it. I may well take this to the Moi forum also as Michael Gibson is always very helpful but it seems to me like the problem has more to do with Maxwell.

[Maximus3D]

It's your smoothingangle that's messed up from the exported Moi model, i had this problem before but after playing around with the smoothing angle values you can get it working.
Otherwise try detriangulating or or retopo the mesh if you have the tools for that, that should give you a cleaner mesh with better topology and smoother normals that renders better.
3D-Coat can for example run this process automatically now.

/ Magnus

[RichG]

It's your smoothingangle that's messed up from the exported Moi model, i had this problem before but after playing around with the smoothing angle values you can get it working.

Hey Magnus. I thought so too but I tried adjusting the smoothing angle until it was getting below the angle I used to output the mesh, which means it goes to the facetting problem again.

3D-Coat can for example run this process automatically now.

I've seen that used well for organics but how successful is it for hard forms like this? I could just build it as SubD but for something like this you have to jump through more hoops than in a Nurbs app

[Maximus3D]

Hiya Rich, btw long time no speak. I hope you are doing well

I see, usually the smoothingangle is wrong and most people miss that one. If you checked that already then there has to be something else. If you want you can email me the model and i'll take a look at it and email you back my results to give you a better reply than here.

3D-Coat's autoretopology works quite well on hardsurface models like yours. I have tested it on various types of models, actually if you decide to email me then feel free to include the .obj model and i give it a run through 3DC and then send it back to you along with the rest.

/ Magnus

[RichG]

Hi Magnus

Michael Gibson just nailed the problem for me - it was missing vertex normal data. I reimported one of my obj's using Riptide Pro where I could get it to import vertex normal data and the model is now smooth and sweet. Excellent, I've come up against this frequently and this seems to be the solution.

http://www.loopcorp.com/Miscellany/obj_test.jpg

Thanks for the offer to look at it. I have 3D Coat, I'm going to try that auto-retopo tool too.

[Maximus3D]

Hi again Rich

Great to hear that Michael were able to fix the problem so quickly and easily, he's a good guy.
The rendered mesh looks much better now but it needs more polys as i see some edges here and there, especially on curves surfaces.
3DC's autoretopo should help and give you a cleaner mesh to work with, grab the latest release and try it out.

/ Magnus

[RichG]

The rendered mesh looks much better now but it needs more polys as i see some edges here and there, especially on curves surfaces.

No, that badge is going to be tiny in frame, I was just using it to make my point.

[macray]

my usual workaround for this: get rid of the normal tags and afterwards adjust the phong-tags of ALL objects. Then there is no more problem to render it fine in Maxwell.

The normal tags MoI uses are not translated to Maxwell. Cinema displays it correctly, but Maxwell doesn't.

it works