Pep To 3Ds Max Help

[Yogi Ben]

ok so i dont know if this is in the right section. but im wanting to morph a load of pep files together to make a new object. im just curious as to how i go about putting the obj file from the pep into 3ds max, whenever i do it they always seem really smooth. any help on this matter?

 

[Hugh Holder]

Can you post a screen shot? It sounds like it could either be that the normals are smoothed or you're in a sub-div preview mode. (I'm not sure if 3ds max has that though)

 

[Yogi Ben]

thats what it looks like when i import it into 3ds max, i dont want it to be smooth and on some models theyre inverted. like that black is supposed to be inside so if i apply a material itll be on the inside and not the outside...

 

[Hugh Holder]

Ok, what you're seeing is 3ds max trying to "soften normals" on the objects. In Maya you can simply select the object and switch between hard normals and soft normals. Surf your menus and I'm sure you'll find it.



The black looks like it's caused by the object carrying texture or material information (More likely material) When you brought it into 3ds max it didn't know where the material was so it's showing a display error.



I would duplicate the black objects and assign a default material to them.



I don't use 3ds max, but this is what I would do in maya. I get issues like this sometimes.

 

[Yogi Ben]

thanks man. ill have a look and see if i made a mistake back in pep when i was exporting

 

[Hugh Holder]

thanks man. ill have a look and see if i made a mistake back in pep when i was exporting

No problem



Pepakura doesn't give you much to work with as far as export options goes. The issue most likely goes back to the program the file was exported out of before Pepakura. It's fixable in 3ds max I'm certain.



There isn't anything wrong with the models, just the way they're being displayed.

 

[Yogi Ben]

nope... ive had a look, ive searched for it. it isnt there... =[ its really quite confusing and ever so complicated...

 

[Hugh Holder]

Ah, the joys of jumping applications. All of the tools are the same they're just named differently :/



Someone that uses 3ds max will see this and know what's going on I'm sure. Sorry I couldn't help you out.

 

[Yogi Ben]

thank you anyway though my friend. at least i know what 3ds max is trying to do. i just wish it wouldnt do it hahaha

 

[Hugh Holder]

Soft normals aren't bad, just not very useful with hard surface objects



With Maya it's awesome for creatures, people, and "fleshy" things haha. If your geometry is clean enough you can render with soft normals without having to raise your poly count to smooth out your facets. Which is one of the key parts of streamlining render time.

 

[Yogi Ben]

i fixed the black problem... the normals were flipped. lol. so i just applied a normal modifier and hey presto.. now to fix the smoothing problem



EDIT!! IVE FIXED THE PROBLEM!!!! believe it or not but to make it sharp i had to apply a smooth modifier! crazy lol.

 

[Robbymrodriguez]

You might not need the modifier, do you have them as editable polys? You probably need to convert them to those and then unselect smooth. Also you could turn on edged faces in the viewport to see what the geometry actually looks like.

 

[Hugh Holder]

It's interesting how 3ds max automatically displays inverted normals, honestly I wish Maya did that. If you don't turn on display normals or backface culling then you wouldn't know until you rendered or got to another application.