FastestDogInTheDistrict Posted November 29, 2013 Posted November 29, 2013 I am currently making armours for SeveNBase, and in order to try & make the upper-body meshes better-fitting I have been detaching them and m-smoothing as an editable poly. The problem is that, while it's mostly a good workaround & is producing some half-decent armours (it's great for a lot of the "skirted" armours - works a treat), it's not a very "clean" process, and some armours react VERY badly to it (Dark Brotherhood was hell), so I recently began to try & work out how to do it better, and I am encountering a nasty problem - regardless of the way in which I attempt it, the meshes seem to be tearing apart at the seams. See the pic: Now, this has happened before, but it's usually been somewhere like an armpit where it won't be seen or where I can just pull neighbouring vertices over the problem to hide it from view. But I really want to stop it from happening at ALL, and I can't work out how. - it happens if I don't select all the vertices & Weld - it happens WORSE if I select all the vertices and Weld, and this deforms the mesh in any case, giving it a nasty "boxy" jagged look - Smooth does nothing to fix it - Tessellate only makes it worse (witness my recent Dark Brotherhood meshes - playable, but rough as guts), and also produces a very rough, "pixellated" mesh - M-smooth can help to hide it by adding so many more vertices that it seems to visually "drown it out" (if that makes sense) - Meshsmooth makes it a LOT worse I know there's definitely something I'm missing - some step that I do not know - but I have no clue what it could be, or even where to start looking for the cause of the problem. Google is not currently helping because I don't know the right questions to ask. Continually asking the wrong ones is not getting me the information I need.
Vioxsis Posted November 29, 2013 Posted November 29, 2013 What's M-smooth? i can't find it in the modifier list. Found it in the graphite modeling tools. Have you been using the sub-d modifiers on tris? 'cus they don't smooth/divide very well.
Cyndi Posted November 29, 2013 Posted November 29, 2013 If you're refering to the MSmooth under an editable poly, or the edit poly modifier.... It's actually a mesh smooth. It's just directly dependent on what you have selected, and seems to work a little differently. Like MSmooth a box by smoothing group, gives completely diff. results from MSmoothing a box with smoothing groups unticked, and is only 1 iteration from what I can tell (I don't think I've really used it much myself other than once or twice). Anyway, what is the weld threshold you are using when selecting everything then welding 0.1? Try setting it to 0.01, welding, then moving stuff around. You might just be overdoing your welds or something.
FastestDogInTheDistrict Posted November 29, 2013 Author Posted November 29, 2013 What's M-smooth? i can't find it in the modifier list. Found it in the graphite modeling tools. Have you been using the sub-d modifiers on tris? 'cus they don't smooth/divide very well. Yeh - it's in one of the sidebars. I have been using it on editable polys to add vertices - the Vanilla meshes (not all, but most) routinely have sharp, jagged edges and too few polygons/vertices over areas which should be curved, especially on female armours. I add more to try and make those areas easier to shape & less visually jarring. I haven't actually played with tris as far as I know - I don't think it's come up yet. I'm only re-working the Vanilla meshes at this stage, so it's just baby steps for now. I *did* take a brief look at the .tri files for heads a while back in a facegen program in the hope of re-shaping some of the more useless noses (this REALLY needs to be done), but I think it's beyond my current ability - I don't yet know enough to even be able to make sense of the limited "How-To" guides on the subject, which assume a high level of technical familiarity. If you're refering to the MSmooth under an editable poly, or the edit poly modifier.... It's actually a mesh smooth. It's just directly dependent on what you have selected, and seems to work a little differently. Like MSmooth a box by smoothing group, gives completely diff. results from MSmoothing a box with smoothing groups unticked, and is only 1 iteration from what I can tell (I don't think I've really used it much myself other than once or twice). Anyway, what is the weld threshold you are using when selecting everything then welding 0.1? Try setting it to 0.01, welding, then moving stuff around. You might just be overdoing your welds or something. The weld threshold seems to be the problem. Dialling it back from the default of 0.1 to 0.01 seems to do the trick - I can put the mesh under a LOT more stress before it becomes apparent, and even where it does it is much, much LESS apparent. Bingo! Many thanks indeed Cyndi!!! *And yes - MSmooth in the sidebar, Meshsmooth modifier in the drop-down Modifier List. Sorry guys, I definitely should have made that clearer.
Vioxsis Posted November 29, 2013 Posted November 29, 2013 I meant tris as in triangles not .tri. I'll show you since i've nothing to do today... Take 2 cubes both identical. I then make 1 in to triangles (tris) and leave the other as squares (quads) note, they both have the same poly count, as a poly is a triangle even if it is not shown that way in the view port. I then add a tubosmooth modifier at 1 iteration. (equivalent to using m-smooth once) The quads have kept even space and size, but the tris have not, it also now uses more polys then the quad cube. Here it is with out edged faces on. And with 3 iterations. Note, by this time the tri mesh is at about 18,000 and the quad mesh is about 12,000 polys. The tri mesh also has a lot of 8+ connected vertices which are not very efficient for render/game engines. And to top it of you can't loop/ring the tri mesh, it also won't relax/smooth the way you would want or expect it to. Unwrapping it would be a nightmare bordering on impossible. But if you do end up quadifing the mesh to subdivide remember to re-triangulate it before exporting it or fitting it to the _0 body (or _1 body, depending on which one you did first) so that max doesn't end up recalculating how the quad is split, and in the process breaking poly order. I hope that cleared up what i meant by " Have you been using the sub-d modifiers on tris? 'cus they don't smooth/divide very well.".
FastestDogInTheDistrict Posted December 1, 2013 Author Posted December 1, 2013 I meant tris as in triangles not .tri. I'll show you since i've nothing to do today... Take 2 cubes both identical. I then make 1 in to triangles (tris) and leave the other as squares (quads) note, they both have the same poly count, as a poly is a triangle even if it is not shown that way in the view port. I then add a tubosmooth modifier at 1 iteration. (equivalent to using m-smooth once) The quads have kept even space and size, but the tris have not, it also now uses more polys then the quad cube. Here it is with out edged faces on. And with 3 iterations. Note, by this time the tri mesh is at about 18,000 and the quad mesh is about 12,000 polys. The tri mesh also has a lot of 8+ connected vertices which are not very efficient for render/game engines. And to top it of you can't loop/ring the tri mesh, it also won't relax/smooth the way you would want or expect it to. Unwrapping it would be a nightmare bordering on impossible. But if you do end up quadifing the mesh to subdivide remember to re-triangulate it before exporting it or fitting it to the _0 body (or _1 body, depending on which one you did first) so that max doesn't end up recalculating how the quad is split, and in the process breaking poly order. I hope that cleared up what i meant by " Have you been using the sub-d modifiers on tris? 'cus they don't smooth/divide very well.". Hey Vioxsis! Yes it does - that is an EXCELLENT explanation! Not only does it clarify, but those pics demonstrate something which I've been doing wrong, and it now makes sense as I know the WHY. That example on the LEFT in the second pic down, with the ugly deformation around the edges of the cube, is a problem I have been encountering around the edges of clothing items & it has had me stumped! See here, on a Vanilla Underwear re-shape: It seems the most I can do is minimise the problem (in this case, by M-smoothing everything except around the edges of the tan-coloured fabric. There's still *some* deformation, but a lot less than if I include the edges). I don't seem to be able to successfully Quadify vanilla meshes - they mostly ARE triangles, and the results are awful. This is really helpful - thank-you very much for taking the time to do this, it is very much appreciated!
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