Created a simple minotaur head in GMax (basic shape comprise of sphere, two cones and a cylinder). After running the convert to obj script in the listener and using the listener Grabber to make the obj file, I have been able to reload the obj back into GMax as well as Wings but Sculptris won't take it.

I've noticed Sculptris can be very picky about what obj files it will without crashing out and I'm thinking that it has something to do with the prepping of the model before hand. 

Any ideas of what I might be doing wrong with the obj files that aren't making it into Sculptris would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, I have actually managed to get a really simple 'Tiara' model into Sculptris from GMax but don't know what I did differently other than the Tiara model being a lot smaller and simpler than the minotaur head.

Try running it through UVMapper - just open the OBJ and save it out again. Most apps are happy with the files it outputs.

Sculptris is still a WIP so the export function is probably not top of their list. English Bob is the man with the info with regards to .objs (check his site).

Whats your view on poseray Bob?. It's all the rage with the terragen folks

Quote - Whats your view on poseray Bob?

Don't really have one. :) I hear it's very useful for converting stuff to other formats though, not just POV-Ray. I just haven't explored its possibilities in any real depth.

 Thanks guys. I actually took this over to the Sculptris forums. The current Sculptris release has difficulties if too many lines are intersecting at one vertice. The horns on my bull head were what was killing it.

Also, I had meshsmoothed the the model to death and I think the heavy polys didn't translate well. I found a really good tutorial for reducing polys at www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/226-Polygon-count-reduction-with-MeshLab.html

Using the freeware Meshlab (so powerful, so free!).

I'm going to bookmark your site, Bob and also try the UV unwrap tactic you mentioned. =)

Cool - and thanks for the Meshlab info in return. :-) 

MidnightCarnival, sculpting apps like ZBrush, Mudbox, 3DCoat and now Sculptris perform best on imported obj's that are low poly. The subdividing takes place inside the sculpting app as you sculpt.  That's not to say you can't or shouldn't load in a mesh that's been subdivided but for best results in those apps, it's usually low poly, quad based meshes people work with.

Good info Teyon

 Thanks Teyon. I've noticed that some models I haven't been able to get back into Sculptris once they have left it in obj export.

 Here's a link to what English Bob is mentioning www.uvmapper.com/
There's a free version and a pro version but I have managed to fix some stuff simply running it
through the free version. =)

UVMapper is a great tool! The Pro version is something we use on a day to day at Smith Micro.  It's saved my butt many a time. :) 

I have not tried exporting and then re-importing with Sculptris yet. I only started using it this afternoon (I did give it a brief look before 1.0).  When I first saw the app, I scoffed at it. However, after actually trying to make something in it today, I found it has a lot of power.  It took me a minute to realize that I should hit cancel when I import a UV mapped OBJ if I want to sculpt on it.  Sounds like UV data may get thrown out if you're just sculpting, though I don't know for sure. If so, that's a really odd way of handling importing and may have something to do with the problem on export. 

For a free app though, I'm not really complaining. I now have something to keep my nephew busy whenever he sees me using ZBrush and wants to do the same thing.

 I remember playing around with a demo of ZBrush a decade ago. Awesome program and pretty much my favorite, actually. But ten years ago the interface was a bit convoluted buggy and difficult to get around in. I'm sure a lot of changes have been made to it since.

It's like a five-hundred dollar program now, isn't it?

Quote - Whats your view on poseray Bob?

I had a little time to play with it yesterday, since I had a Lightwave mesh I wanted to convert. PoseRay is amazing! I had no idea it did so much stuff. I may have to rethink some of my modelling workflow. Here's just a few features that grabbed my interest - I'm sure there are plenty more that I have yet to discover.

• Import meshes in OBJ, 3DS, LWO, DXF and other formats, including Poser and DAZ|Studio scenes
• Merge meshes (presumably including meshes in different formats, though I haven't tried it yet)
• See a 3D preview, and pan, zoom and rotate it
• Examine materials and UV maps, with some ability to remap
• Examine groups; rename, transform and delete them
• Weld vertices with user defined tolerance
• Split faces by crease angle
• Flip normals and winding order
• Output to OBJ or POV-Ray scene

The POV-Ray part of PoseRay, although useful, is really only a small part of what it can do. I may be able to use it to substitute for most or all of what Compose does for me at the moment. 

Quote - UVMapper is a great tool!

Nods - and sorry for not linking to it earlier. I just assumed that everybody who had been in 3D for any length of time knew about it already. :)

 That's cool. I dropped the link in here for Google lurkers looking up this topic. =D

Bob
Whats your usual modelling app then?

 cough Anim8or cough

Yes, I know. I've tried to switch to something better, but I've got too set in my ways. :)

 I have Anim8or sitting on my desktop but haven't played around in it too heavily yet. From what I seen it's a pretty clean interface for such a small and free program. =D

cough Anim8or cough

Well if it does what you want it to........

Its coal powered though isn't it !!!

The interface has some clunky elements - you can't move the viewpoint without switching modes, for example - and it's lacking a lot of the bells and whistles of the bigger modellers. Yet, it does what I want it to, when surrounded by the right set of external utilities, and it's small and easy to learn. I've tried Hexagon, Pegasus, Cinema (several times) and now Blender, but inertia keeps me coming back to Anim8or. Fortunately, I only do modelling for fun and enjoy the process as much as the end result, so it doesn't matter if things aren't achieved with maximum efficiency. 

Fully agree with you Bob
I really dislike n-gons so that eliminates hexagon and wings. Blender is way over complicated. I'm a big fan of C4d but it means a big outlay.
Once I can get the better of TG2 I shall be a contented man.

To answer your question about sculptris it is unique it works with triangles so you need to triangulate your mesh before importing into sculptris.

 Thanks, Dann-O. I'll give that a try too. =)

Talking of triangles, now I've used it a bit more that's one of the niggles I have with PoseRay - it triangulates everything. I believe that POV-Ray requires mesh data with triangular facets, so that's understandable to some degree, and it makes it useful for other apps which require tris such as the Ivy Generator, and Sculptris. (The clue was right there in the name, wasn't it? :) )

Bevelling or subdivision on a triangular mesh is a pain, and it makes the files bigger too. I can work around it in a lot of cases, but it doesn't look as if I can ditch Compose just yet.

Anyway, I added PoseRay to my OBJ Fidelity Tests page.

I love Sculptris. It's a great compliment to 3DCoat....

English Bob...what is Compose? Never heard of it....

Yes, Sculpris likes tris.... I'm hoping Blender gets more user friendly when ver 2.5 nears completion.... I understand Blender is gonna have Sculptris like sculpting....

Attached Link: http://home.tir.com/~johnwind/Compose11.zip

 It's a little utility that was written way back when (you'll see how way back in a minute) by a guy named John Wind, who doesn't seem to be around any longer. Fortunately his download is still available. It's written in Java, so it will work under any platform that has Java available.

Way back when Poser couldn't export individual groups from a figure, it was hard to use an external modeller to make morphs. Compose can split up the groups in a model, and  it can also merge several together and then recreate them after morphing, if you want to work on multiple groups at once. It can split a mesh by material, too.

It imports and exports trueSpace COBs, Wavefront OBJ, and Poser files. With the latter you have the option of exporting a morphed version of a mesh.

It can do lots of things which are now more usually done with some other application, such as renaming groups and material zones.

There used to be several tutorials about, but I have a feeling that these have gradually been falling by the wayside.

I still use it with Anim8or because that doesn't preserve group or material information on OBJ files.

Thanks kindly.....