Topic: 3D Studio question.... or, if in doubt, ask!!!!

[Darth Chandley]

Ok, this is a quick question regarding edge turning in 3D Studio 5....  Does anyone out there know if I can turn more than one edge at a time, like say a whole group of them...??  Turning them individually is a pain in the *neck* (self censoring myself there  ) and I need a quicker way.  If you're wondering why I need to turn a load of edges it's because it'll make my model symmetrical and will help with boolean cutting.  I know you can do it in Milkshape but exporting from 3DS tends to create errors which, when you import it back in (once it's been through Milkshape) prevents you from using boolean functions without a whole lot of mesh tidying...

Anyway, if anyone knows how then I will be most happy.... 

Cheers again...

DC

[Sandman3D]

What is this edge turning? I use max5 and have no clue...unless that's your term...

[markyd]

I was thinking the same thing... I'd like to help but I have no Idea what you mean...

[111wallace111]

You might see if there are plugins for it available at 3d cafe or elsewhere but i have to do it one at a time as well.

Edge turning basically changes the direction of one of the edges of a poly. this allows you to make each side an exact mirror of the other, for instance, without seperating the object and having to weld it back together after mirroring (which effects boolian operations).

I also wish there was an easier way but since the order of the task could effect the final outcome i doubt anyone has come up with a good answer to that one. I try to optimize prior to these kinds of operations so there are less edges and faces to deal with.

[Lord Schtupp]

Hey Destiny - I know what you mean but Im afraid that you'll have to do them one at a time. If you have a symetrical object that need to have all of its edges turned on one side (like a newly created cylinder) what I do is delete the bad half then mirror the good half, then welding the two halves together.

What is this edge turning? I use max5 and have no clue...unless that's your term...

Edge turning is found in the edit mesh>edge modifier. Lets say you created a simple box. You know that on one face of the box is 2 triangular polys which together make a square. lets say that the long edge of where those two polys meet run from top left to bottom right. if you apply Edge turn to this edge, then it will turn 90° to top right - bottom left. The usefullness of this is that if you have a complex object with compound curves and so forth, turning the edges will often help the smoothing and appearance of the poly in that area. You turn the edge so that the division of any two polies is perpendicular to the bend in the curve, instead of against it. Very usefull in certain smoothing situations.

[Sandman3D]

Thx LS!! Might have to give that a try...wondered how to fix those dang triangles after smoothing, lol.

[Lord Schtupp]

Thx LS!! Might have to give that a try...wondered how to fix those dang triangles after smoothing, lol.

It's the cure for what ailes ya bro... lol

Wallace, who is always at least three minutes faster than I, had a good idea regarding a plugin modifier which would be very useful. I checked at www.maxplugins.de (The best site for max plugins IMO) and came up with nothing, but I only did a cusory search. Try there...

[Lord Schtupp]

One more piece of advice: Its often a great help to adjust your snap settings to pick out the edge you want to turn. Naturally you might want to enable Snap Settings>Edge to pick an edge between adjacent FACES, or to enable Snap Settings> Center Face to select an edge inside a FACE.

[Darth Chandley]

Fantastic stuff, great answers all.... It does look like I'll have to turn them one at a time.  I'm sure there's a plug-in somewhere but finding isn't so easy.. Besides, it'll save all of about 5 minutes of my life... 

You see, THIS is the problem with Federation vessels, curves all over the place....    Maybe I should go do Borg vessels instead... 

Thanks all....

DC

PS... To the Lord Schtupp, what's your average poly count and what's the best method of reducing it...?  My counts are running out of hand

[Sandman3D]

I know how you feel...when I try to get really detailed, the poly count is outrageous. I'd say, do the details by texture. Atheorhaven said one time that he makes a detailed mesh and a less detailed one, or removes the details after mapping, so he can texture in the details...haven't tried it yet, but his stuff looks awesome so...

[Lord Schtupp]

PS... To the Lord Schtupp, what's your average poly count and what's the best method of reducing it...? My counts are running out of hand

I know what you mean. Well my Connie is 4700 polys exactly, and my DN is approx 5500 (includes lods). My method of poly reduction involes creating a high detail object, the vertex welding inside of the edges to keep a high detial edge but ruced polys inside. SET YOUR HOTKEYS SO THAT W=WELD. For example, when I create a saucer I lathe the cross section setting the lathe to 56-60 sides. that give me a high detail edge but also about 1600 - 2000 poly saucer. Second step is to start at the second circle of vertexs from the outside edge and weld vertexes together next to each other. Lik on the connie saucer, this row Ill weld 5 vertexes together. then Ill start on the next row inside, working outside in. Hard to explain but I'll try to post some step by step pics tonight.

[Darth Chandley]

Now why didn't I think of that... I looked at your connie and I can see what you mean... Just one thing though, how does "welding" differ from "collapsing" because I can never get them to weld.. Which of these two is the same as "snapping together" a la Milkshape...????

[Lord Schtupp]

First - SET YOUR HOTKEYS SO THAT W=WELD. Your welding will go much quicker!

Ok the welding distace, found in edit mesh>vertex>weld, is usually set very low, try increasing this distance. The very cool thing about doing the weld vertex thing is that it averages the position of the to-be-welded- vertices. Say I have two vertexes one at 0,0,0 and another at 10,10,10 (X,Y,Z). I set my welding distance to 10 or greater, select the two and hit weld. the formaly two verexes are now one at 5,5,5. See, when you are simplfying a mesh using weld, its maintaining the same shape (if your careful). Collapsing faces is good only for large areas of mesh. you dont want to collapse faces on edges, it craps on your whole day. and it will distort the edge as it pulls the edge vertices, but you'll see as you work on that awesome chandley of yours.

Don't forget to SET YOUR HOTKEYS SO THAT W=WELD.

I dont know anything about milkshape, sorry

[Darth Chandley]

Nice one Lord....  Just a quick point about collapsing though... I have tried (through experimentation) using it and it does pretty much same thing, so if I have 2 vertices and collapse them it creates a single one placed "averagely" between the two... The weld advice is greatly appreciated and now I know why I couldn't get it to work, vertices too far apart....

Once again, I'm grateful...

DC

[Sandman3D]

Me too!! Thanx for the explaining...hopefully I'll remember that next time. Memory ain't so good no more, lol. Hell, I haven't even used lathing for months...I usually make a cylinder with 24-32 slices, and then as many inside segments as I feel necessary...then just select each inner ring of vertices and move into place.

Epiphany...I've gotten lazy. If I want my stuff to get to the next level, I need to stop taking shortcuts. Especially my texturing...that definitely needs attention...always in too much of a hurry. (Sigh)...back to tutorial hunting.

[Lord Schtupp]

Geez louise - earlier (5:00 pm Pacific time) I had typed out this long ol' explanation with a couple examples of the differences between vertex welding and face collapsing, I mean like four paragraphs worth. I hit the post button and i get the damn server not found page like the forum was down. I lost what I had typed, it was right up there with the meaning of life. I was torked needless to say! Anyway, DC try it out on your chandley and if anybody has any more issues like this I'll try to help kick its butt.

[Darth Chandley]

Geez louise - earlier (5:00 pm Pacific time) I had typed out this long ol' explanation with a couple examples of the differences between vertex welding and face collapsing, I mean like four paragraphs worth. I hit the post button and i get the damn server not found page like the forum was down. I lost what I had typed, it was right up there with the meaning of life. I was torked needless to say! Anyway, DC try it out on your chandley and if anybody has any more issues like this I'll try to help kick its butt.

Yeah, I think Dyna wigged out for a bit... Anyway, luckily I got what you meant... now all I need to do is figure out how to set hotkeys...    they never seem to "stick" whenever I attempt to assign them.....

DC

[wulf111]

now this is the kind of thread i was thinking of doing myself for us newbie modeleers to ask questions about how to do things with max as example the shapemerge tut the sandman sent me i would never have been able to figure out how to use that function if i wouldnt have asked. now i am having a bit of trouble with the boolean function tho sometimes instead of carving out the shape i need it to it just leaves a hole in the mesh other times it doesnt remove anything it just makes vertacies where the two pieces join together. also P81 mentioned that if you make the mesh one solid surface it reduces clipping when the model is rendered does anyone have an idea how this is done in max i have tried a little but the end result wasnt very pretty

[Lord Schtupp]

Yeah, I think Dyna wigged out for a bit... Anyway, luckily I got what you meant... now all I need to do is figure out how to set hotkeys... they never seem to "stick" whenever I attempt to assign them.....

3d MAX has the most complex hotkey setup of any program that I have run across. There are 5 or six "weld vertex" commands, I now recall having to experiment a bit to set the right one. Here it is:

Customize>Customize User Interface>Keyboard : Under the "group" pulldown select the "Edit/Editable mesh" scroll down and highlight "Weld Selected"; type w into the hotkeys area

[Darth Chandley]

Yeah, I think Dyna wigged out for a bit... Anyway, luckily I got what you meant... now all I need to do is figure out how to set hotkeys... they never seem to "stick" whenever I attempt to assign them.....

3d MAX has the most complex hotkey setup of any program that I have run across. There are 5 or six "weld vertex" commands, I now recall having to experiment a bit to set the right one. Here it is:

Customize>Customize User Interface>Keyboard : Under the "group" pulldown select the "Edit/Editable mesh" scroll down and highlight "Weld Selected"; type w into the hotkeys area

Good stuff LS... Right, now that I know where to look it should be a doddle..... Thanks again... 

now this is the kind of thread i was thinking of doing myself for us newbie modeleers to ask questions about how to do things with max as example the shapemerge tut the sandman sent me i would never have been able to figure out how to use that function if i wouldnt have asked. now i am having a bit of trouble with the boolean function tho sometimes instead of carving out the shape i need it to it just leaves a hole in the mesh other times it doesnt remove anything it just makes vertacies where the two pieces join together. also P81 mentioned that if you make the mesh one solid surface it reduces clipping when the model is rendered does anyone have an idea how this is done in max i have tried a little but the end result wasnt very pretty

Booleans tend to need a bit of getting used to... I've found from experience that if you import a model into 3DS as a .mod file it will generally have a load of open edges which unless you patch up will result in errors when you boolean stuff... Best thing I've found is either make it from scratch (that way you'll know if it's solid or not) or run an STL check prior to the boolean attempt.. That should find any errors you have.... Plus whenever you export anything, that sometimes creates open edges so leave it as part of your "scene" until you're happy with it, then export it.... If you export it then import it again it'll magically grow errors which you'll spend ages trying to fix....

Hope that helps.... Though I'll be honest, my 3DS knowledge is a little limited..

DC