i have an issue which really drives me nuts...: I am trying to import objects which i created in Cinema4D into Poser. I have two options for compatibility reasons, 3dsmax and obj lightwave. 3dsmax doesnt ex and import polygon groups (as far as i see it) so that option doesnt work. so i go with lightwave obj's. So far so good. However, most of my objects rearrange the normals, so, that when imported in poser, i see breaks on the polygons and when set with materials. the polys spin crazy and render broken. I tried options during import with "make polygon normals identical" also the "Weld identicals" or "flip normals" ... no chance.

One thing i thought could be: Cinema uses NGONS, so if i export, it triangulates the NGON to triangles. however, it doesnt make a difference if i triangulate before export or not.

Even when turning on the "Smooth polygon" option, i see very odd fractals when applying a material. (see screenshot)

Is there any tip or tutorial for imoprt and export of cinema to poser or any other dumb tick box i forgot? I am realy going mad with this!

Cherio

If you export as .3ds then its all triangles anyway.  lwo has issues in poser misinterpreting n-gons. 

The best format in my opinion is obj which c4d should have as an option. 

You could look at transposer and see if thats a good option for you .

Those sort of triangles on the flat wall may be a smoothing issue in Poser. You can try unchecking smoothing in object properties, try changing the crease angle or unweld / split vertices in the modelling program .

http://www.sharecg.com/v/22750/Text-Entry-Tutorial/modelling-for-Poser

the link is a document I did on modelling for Poser , showing some of the problems and solutions . Its not perfect and was written for Poser 5 but you might find it worthwhile .

Poser does not like thin, long triangles. But you get some of those if you let Cinema triangulate your model. It's fine to use N-gons for modeling, but you have to cut them to tris and quads youself - and prevent long, thin triangles in the progress.

thanks! I guess i tried nearly everything with smoothing and not are turning the crease angle high and low... however, something that doesnt go away is the thing as in the screenshot below. I am using OBJ already , no difference. I will read through your document now. THanks a lot for your help!!

And you should use OBJ for export and import. Don't use the standard exporter, from all what I've heard you should use Spanki's free Riptide module for that.

http://skinprops.com/

Hi

tried that Riptide module, and indeed it looks all much better now. However, i see the polygon groups now not been exported, so i cannot assign materials to the various objects anymore...well i guess i will try a bit around more witht his tool

thx

You can group for surfaces in Poser with the grouping tool but obj should retain surface groups .
Maybe ask in the c4d forum for advice on exporting ?

Unfortunately, even this Riptide didnt help. I was thinking that it got better, but as soon as i apply a material to the walls, i have the strange triangle in those. i tried to cut the polys first into more smaller ones, that made it even worse!
Could this be a scaling issue? I am so confused...?! I dont believe its throught to the normals direction or so, the normals look fine-- could this may be due to the case that the polys are not "Closed"?

If you are willing to send me the obj file of the model I will have a look at it for you.   

marks542004@yahoo.com

attached is an example where i tried to subdivide the polys.... no luck... i am getting mad!!

You can always import into UVMapper and first Weld your verticies and then split them, save file and that will help.  Sharen

Not to be rude or anything, but that object is a mess. I'm assuming you created the window with a boolean operation, rather than slicing the mesh up and then bevelling the relevant section. Boolean operations should be avoided wherever possible when modelling for Poser. You've got triangles going in all directions and there are way too many polys for a simple wall. I'd start again quite frankly. It would probably be quicker that trying to fix what you have there.

I cleaned up some of the subdivision of the mesh , and corrected a few really odd polygons. 

I unwelded / split vertices and did a quick render in poser 5 , all looked ok to me .

I was tempted just to start over using the floor as the template but  thats not what I said I would do.

I dont know the tools in c4d enough to make suggestions on modelling this again .

are you sure you have the right model, cause its not split like shown in the pic :( 
You need to turn off smoothing or split vertices.

also to mention: the fractals and triangles seam to appear more, the better detailed the render is done... a quick render is always ok, also when i turn of shadows (having the object cast no shadows) its completly gone....

this image is what I get in poser with very simple lighting.

I dont understand why you appear to be getting it retriangulated . 
I would load it into uvmapper and split vertices , then save model from uvmapper .

hi Marc,

when i do simple lightning and no material i see this as well. However, i would like to put some material on the walls, as you can imagine :)
i will try again today evening and see what i find out. the more i work on it, the less i believe its about modelling ... as i see the same issues with a simle plane layer when it has triangles. Its not a model issue i guess.

What kind of material do you put on the walls? How does the UV-map look?
Would you be able to send me the obj as well, so I can have a look?
Just send it at bantha@renderosity.com and I will have a look too. Normaly, Poser does not have problems with triangles, in my experience.

Hi Bantha,

i have no access to OBJ right now, but will send it tonight. I have tried a simple material, no UVW mapped texture. Funny thing: If i use an UV mapped texture, it looks much better, so i guess it had to do with the bump applied.
I will play a little bit around. Will send you the oBJ tonight.

thanks all for your help. I am sorry for those stupid questions, but i wanted to start modelling and put the in here for free but suffering on this stupid issue :)

When I started modeling, the first think I tried was Spatch. I had massive problems getting the stuff I generated into Poser in a way that looked good after rendering. I had holes in the mesh, and visible breaks in the model too. Believe me, your questions aren't stupid, it's more that the whole thing is quite complex.

Just a couple of comments:

1) Poser doesn't need normals.  In fact, don't include them. Scrub them from your object.  It's a waste of space and can cause problems.

2) Booleans are evil.  Poser usually craps up when encountering meshes that have had certain boolean operations performed on them.  The resulting mesh, frequently lots of thin triangles and bajillions of edges, is just "Bad" for Poser.  If you can avoid using Booleans when creating objects for Poser then do so.  If you can't, then prepared to go in there by hand in order to fix them before you polish off the model.

1. Single edged edges are something Poser has trouble with and frequently craps up on when trying to render.  Bevel your edges, even just a hair, and Poser is much happier with them.

4) IMO, big unbroken flat planes are something Poser doesn't like either.  That seems counterintuitive and may be completely wrong, I dunno.  But, on something like a long wall, I just break it up into a few polys anyway and seem to usually avoid weird shading problems.

thats raises the question: Is  there anything that POSER LIKES !!???   :)  (Balls may be)
I will take your points serious Morkonan, especially pojnt 3) makes sense to me!!

Poser smoothing tends to screw things up. tiny bevels , unwelding polys , crease angle are all ways of convincing Poser to smooth the object in a contolled way . It takes a while to learn what your model needs to look like for Poser use.

Your questions are not stupid , and at least you are asking them and trying different things to see what works for you.

One point I didnt make before , I would really redo your uv map , the wall areas seem really small on the map I see in Lightwave. That will affect your texturing. 

here's the same thing modeled in Quads only, no smoothing changes in Poser, modeled with Boolean subracts. as you can see, it comes into Poser cleanly and renders cleanly.

so i think everyone here was right a little bit. in the end it might had to do with bended borders or whatever. I exported an Object from a libary and took a look, so it seams that all borders where cut. So i did the same and my model looked better. In the end now i have to admit that the way i did the modelling was crap. I have now redone the walls with simple planes and cut the windows, extruded them and cut the edges of.

The result is excellent now, even with the material i applied.

thanks for all your help! Very much appriciated!!!