What if I don't want to uncheck the smooth polygon box for Firefly?
What if I don't want to add a considerable amount of polys?
What makes Firefly puff some items, but smooth others?
I've searched the posts here but can only the "uncheck the box" solution.
I have a few theories, but have yet to test them all.
Any insight?

There are three options that I use, depending on the situation. 1) In Rendering options, uncheck smooth polys. 2) In the properties box for the ballooning object, uncheck smooth polys. 3) In a modelling application (or UVMapper) you can try splitting the vertices and reimporting to Poser. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn't.

I wonder why splitting vertices doesn't always do the trick. Untill a few days ago I was certain that that was all you needed, and then I made my DVD box, testrendered it, yup. Sure thing, it puffed up and ooked silly. Then I took it to UVMapper, split vertices and rendered again. Far less swelling yet still SOME. Unchecked Smooth Ploygons (at the render level as this was the only object in the scene) and: No ballooning.

So I'd love to hear your theories, iamonk. Coz just when I though I knew what causes it, MY theory was smashed :o)

Message edited on: 08/09/2004 01:21

In Max when you use a Smooth modifier, you can select Auto Smooth and you have an option to prevent indirect smoothing.
You can set a value to the threshold, which gives you control over how crisp your edges are going to be.
Smoothing in P5 has no setting, it's either on or off.
So what is the angle/threshold?

Ok if you ever used bezier splines you know how moving the little handle thingys change your arc, add a couple of points and the effect is much less.
Ok so it's a terrible way of trying to explain...

Basically if you want a crisp edge with smoothing on, the edge needs to be chamfered. Yeah it sounds strange, but you only need a tiny chamfer.
Once won't do it, twice is better, but I think 3X is the ticket.
You don't need to split the mesh.
I have only experimented with this mesh so far, the edge is supposed to be 90degrees.
With smoothing on I need 3 chamfers to get my 90, keep them tight.

Ok, I'll understand if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's 4am here and I'm working on being awake for 20hours.

In Wings I found that selecting "hard edges" for things I most certainly didn't want smooth did the trick.

The reason the puffiness occurs without a chamfer is because of the way Poser is designed to render. (Phong rendering) Poser was originally intended to render organic models, people, animals, and stuff like that. So it uses smoothing to create an organic look. Unfortunately, that means that any hard edge will end up with Poser trying to create an organic edge. If you're a Poser modeler, ALWAYS chamfer hard edges. In max you can chamfer with .001 radius and trick poser into believing the edge is organic. In softimage, you can simply tell the exporter to optimize the model for "Phong rendering" on export, and it will usually be fine. Note: you only need to do this if you're using hard edges. If you've got something organic, you won't have problems.

The sun is coming up, who needs sleep anyway?

Chamfering the edge seems to be doing the trick for most of my issues, but for things that absolutely NEED to be sharp, I have to split vertices.
I wanted to stay away from doing that for different reasons, but in closeups you see the chamfered edge.
Thinking about it now, I could scale up a little more in Max so I could get a smaller chamfer that is less noticable.
Oh well, one less thing to worry about!

@iamonk: I know exactly how you feel. Most of the issues I've found with Poser lie between it's affinity for small values (.000001), and the phong calculations performed in render. While neither one is a bug per se, they can still be frustrating. Reminds me of the time I used booleans to create a stylized cathedral and watched helplessly as Poser turned it into a mangled heap of gak... :)

Am i missing the obvious here LOL, ask CL to fix the thing, Steve

Steve
Fix it?

Umm, it took them 4 service releases to get it to function!
I think I'd be afraid to have them mess with it again.

Just kidding, I think P5 is great for the price.

I don't see what the big deal is turning off smooth polys...

Gareee.. Today there was yet another post by someone who was surprised that his props balloned. I thought those posts were so usual here that most P5 users were familiar with that problem by now, but apparently they're not. And apparently it's a big deal to click a checkbox. (Another thing is that you might want some things in a scene smoothed and then it CAN be a PITA to turn it off on a load of props) Personally I don't see it as a big deal either.

I just turn it off, and then resave the prop or whatever.. that way I don't have to go through the tedious, daunting task of locating and check one box.. ;)

Gareee, the simplest thing would be to uncheck the box, I agree. Since I'm creating the object, I would like to avoid the issue altogether. Now that I understand, I can take care of it at time of modeling. Otherwise, I might spend a long time rendering a scene for nothing.

When I'm loading "hard" props, the first thing I do, is uncheck the box. Sometimes you'll find, even with some bevelling, that you haven't done quite enough. Why spend and extra 1/2 hour or more modeling time, when there's a built in solution?

Oddly enough, the manual says to bevel the edges for sharp edges and to turn off smoothing in the properties panel for the object for best effect. It's not something that needs "fixing" -- this is how it is supposed to work. Note that you can actually edit a file in a text editor to add a single line to the prop or cr2 or hair file to eliminate smoothing without ever opening P5. This will set up the checkbox in P5.

My goal is to create models FOR Poser, some places I'll need smoothing, others I want a hard edge.
I don't have the option of unchecking the box because the items will have areas that need/don't need smoothing on the same object. I would have to choose one or the other.
This is the reason that unchecking the box is not an option here.
Thanks for the input though.

Actually, there's ANOTHER way to prevent balooning... Splitting vertexes. In Max, for example, select the faces for, in the example above, the front "ring" of the barrel (or whatever tube that is). Detach them as a separate object, then reattach them. You end up with the vertexes duplicated, but the surfaces don't share them - the outer and inner walls each refer to a different set of vertices, as does the thin "facing surface" on the front. The end result is that you get to keep your hard edge, use smoothing, AND not add a buttload of polygons. FWIW, whenever Rhino creates a mesh, it automatically adds vertexes to the surface edges, keeping those edges sharp.

Ok, that makes sense now. Maybe your model can have separate parts as a solution, and the parts can be smooth or not depending on the part?

Yeah, splitting the vertices gives a nice sharp edge. Problems with this are items that I made morphs for. I guess I should save the morphs for after it's in Poser. Now that I'm aware, I can plan ahead.