Is it bad for me to ask a question about smoothing in  Poser?

What is the question?

Is it okay to ask?

Can't imagine why it wouldn't be. Smoothing isn't a trade secret nor illegal in 36 of 50 states :-).

Is there a way for Poser to deal with 90 degree corners with out me modeling every single square corner as two individual surfaces?
Example:
1 create a cube in 3D Studio Max that is any size or scale
2 export it as an .obj file at what ever scale
3 import it into Poser and turn smoothing down to zero on the cube itself
4 there are issues with the corners because evidently Poser was not taking into account rigid models when it was designed I.E. smoothing default of 80* for human figures
5 Go back into Max and detach each of the 6 sides of the cube
6 select all six different models that are individual planes to comprise a cube
7 export them as an .obj file
8 import into Poser and set smoothing for that file to zero
9 render and viola no smoothing issues.
10 imagine having to do that with Fishers Warehousing.
So is there a work around with out all the extra work to make Poser see things differently?
By the way I just tried the example and there are not issues,
I modified the cube and did an inset on all six sides and then extruded inside a few units and then there is an issue on the main corners.
Regards, Tom

There's no way to get around the problem of Poser's smoothing other than splitting the model that I've seen unless you want to create a new edge on each face and slide it up tight and close the to corner edges. That works too, but that adds to the size of the mesh. Hopefully someone else knows another way.

FWIW, I hate it too ;o).

Laurie

Wait - what problem are you talking about? With a crease angle of 80, all joints are above that and no smoothing happens. A crease angle of 0 means all joints are considered hard edges, and that's exactly what I get with any geometry - no smoothing at all when crease angle = 0.

What is the problem you're referring to with the cube when you said "there are issues with the corners".  I don't see any issues.

Could please you post an image of what's going on?

Here are three welded cubes as you described.

The crease angles are 0, 80, and 91. Only the last shows smoothing, as expected since the joints are below 91 degrees, and are therefore not treated as creases.

Quote - this

That's not a cube with 6 sides, last time I looked up the words you used.

Okay, that looks like a model problem and not a poser problem.

Hey Bag. go back and read my first post and you will see that I already said there was not an issue with a simple cube so i modified it a little I am talking about a simple modification and then you will see the issue.
If I was going to model and texture cubes for a living I would be golden. :-)
I find that people want a little more than that, and that is where I run into problems.
Now what do you have as a constructive advice on how to deal with 90 degree corners.
Thanks all the replies guys!
regards, tom

Quote - Okay, that looks like a model problem and not a poser problem.

Hi Wark,
Go back into Hex and inset all six sides and then extrude them inward and then export.
That is what I did in Max.
Please post an image and see if you have an issue then?
Maybe it is Max.
Regards, Tom

This is with smooth polygons unchecked.

I have a semi-related question: can smoothing be set aggressively enough to turn a cube into a sphere? This is how I model / display / render low-poly humanoids in my preferred modeling program. I will eventually want to Poser rig them without subdividing which would increase poly weight. 

I know exactly what he's talking about BB and Winterclaw. I get it all the time with things exported from Wings and I have a friend who uses Hex and other programs and gets it as well. Poser makes the long edges and flat faces bow. Technically, they shouldn't because they are at 90 degrees, but they do ;o). And sometimes, even if you uncheck smoothing it still does it until you split all the vertices. WHY it does it I don't know. Poser just doesn't like sharp corners ;o).

Laurie

Laurie, now that you mention it, I remember you talking about that.

I think it might be a good idea to try another export option out of Max. Or maybe a dirrent set up for the .obj e3xtension.
Be right back with another try.
Thanks Wark!
Tom

If it helps any, I always turn off smoothing for anything architectural that I make for Poser. If your cylindrical and spherical parts have enough sections, it doesn't really show.

Laurie

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Quote - Hey Bag. go back and read my first post and you will see that I already said there was not an issue with a simple cube

We're going to keep having a problem if you keep making up new meanings for words. grin

I have much to explain to you, but first you're going to have to learn not to say "first" when you mean "third", and also not to say "90 degrees" when you actually mean less than 90 degrees.

LaurieA - pay attention. You, too, are about to be enlightened. You, also, are mistaken about this geometry. You said "Technically, they shouldn't because they are at 90 degrees"

Ready for some shouting? Everybody needs to understand this.

THOSE ANGLES THAT YOU THINK ARE 90 DEGREES ARE IN FACT MUCH LESS THAN 90 DEGREES.

I will explain shortly. I have to make some diagrams. Remain calm. I know you won't take my word for it, so I have to show you.

Once you understand what the angles actually are, you will stop making incorrect assumptions, and then smoothing will always do what you expect.

I'm waiting with great constipation!
:-)
really have an open mind about this as I am to the point of stopping the Poser versions of my products.

Hey Wark,
Is Hex a free program?

Quote - I'm waiting with great constipation!
:-)
really have an open mind about this as I am to the point of stopping the Poser versions of my products.

If you stop makin' 'em*, I'll stop buyin' 'em*, kabish? :biggrin:

*(the Poser ones, that is)

Don't ever do that, that's a silly setting.  What difference does it make if you get dumb results with a dumb setting?

Poser uses Reyes polygon smoothing.  It is different from Catmull-Clark subdivision.  They sound kinda similar but they work differently.  Catmull-Clark always moves all points inward a bit and makes points on the mesh behave like points on b-splines.  Reyes polygon smoothing never moves points inward, and makes points on the mesh behave like Akima splines.  The proper way to deal with this is to bevel sharp areas, and you tend to need to use more polygons on highly detailed models than you might with Catmull-Clark.  There is usually not any reason to set phong angle away from default of 80 degrees, and never to zero.

Plus you have the option of turning off polygon smoothing by prop/figure anyway.  If you have a 6 poly object like a cube and you want its edges to be razor sharp, just disable it, why bother smoothing it?

Winterclaw I don't think your test objects are properly welded, they seem to have split faces.

above are some boots rendered with phong angle at the default of 80.

Hi Dr.
I have spent the last six weeks working on a new product and it is not worth the effort to me to make it work for Poser, when I can get the same thing done in about 2 weeks for a Vue version as I have never run into smoothing issue in Vue, and when I say never I mean never.
textureing in Vue is much simpler for me as well.
But if I can get this thing worked out in a relatively easy way I will continue.

Learn to model for Poser in the first place if you want it to render well using Poser's polygon smoothing mechanic (or Pixar's, because they use the same mechanic for smoothing, read the Reyes article).

Depending on how complicated your model is, and keeping in mind that I work in Lightwave rather than any of the other products, can you select groups or materials for the areas that need to retain sharp corners, and simply unweld or split those vertices only? You might even be able to get what you need by opening the model in UVMapper and splitting the vertices there. It adds to the vertex count, not the poly count.

Dreamland, hex is not free.  It's okay but daz isn't updating it anymore to my knowledge.

Or just disable smoothing for the prop (uncheck it on Parameter Dials -> Properties before saving it to the Poser library).

Quote - Depending on how complicated your model is, and keeping in mind that I work in Lightwave rather than any of the other products, can you select groups or materials for the areas that need to retain sharp corners, and simply unweld or split those vertices only? You might even be able to get what you need by opening the model in UVMapper and splitting the vertices there. It adds to the vertex count, not the poly count.

Hi **ptrope,
I tried the method you suggested but Poser will not like it unless I actually make separate objects out of the separated polygons.
I.E. back to my original or excuse me my third post. :-)
At this point I am trying to avoid blowing up a model with 80 or 90 thousand ponlygons in it as it really make texturing a drag.
Oh if only I had the guts to pull the trigger, my troubles would be over.....
:-)
**

The image is rendered in Poser 8. Smoothing is still on. The edges are razor sharp. The inset is what I did to the cube in Wings. This DOES work for making sharp edges in Poser - however - the downside is that it adds many faces to the model. What should be a 6 face object is now 54. If it were just one or two objects, you might be able to get away with the higher density, but in one of Tom's enormous models, then it begins to add up real quick ;o).

Laurie

Quote - I suggested adding extra edges earlier in the thread.

exactly

The problem I see with turning smoothing to zero is that in a model that has many different types of shapes, such as moldings which have some curved surfaces as well as sharp corners, the curved surfaces will show and will look faceted. That's not really ideal ;o).

Laurie

Hi Pjz99 would you mind posting a render of the same model with the smoothing turned off as you suggest? I have done that and still see what I see in your image.
regards, Tom
By the way what is your name?

 I'm just here waiting for BB's reply (and to make sure I get an ebot from it ;) )

Here is the wireframe of my cube with a bevel in the front face.

I will show you this with various angles on the bevel.

The arrows depict the surface normal on the angled faces.

maybe dream was bothered by the shading artifacts caused by long narrow triangles
produced by boolean operation.  that's a poser smoothing problem, but as pj said,
it requires modelling the thing for poser, as opposed to something other than FFRender.

Are those corners 90 degrees? Not at all. Are they 10 degrees? Nope. Something in between.

The angle between the normals (the arrows) here is about 14.1 degrees, with a 10 degree bevel.

The angle between the adjacent bevel faces is 60 degrees.

Here I set the crease angle to 50 degrees. So I'd expect that the vertical/horizontal edges, which are at 45 degrees, would be smooth shaded. And I'd expect that the diagonal edges that are at 60 degrees would be hard shaded. And so they are.

There is no surprise here.

What may be surprising is the shape of some of the shading artifacts. Why is the top/bottom different from the left/right? Because of the way I made the frame. Go back and look at the wireframe. You'll see that some points cannot be welded to adjacent polygons because of how I made it. As a result, there are strange compromises being made by the shader.

If I turn on smoothing, then I get bowed things as well.

Quote - So here is the front with a cutout. All the angles are indeed 90 degrees. The angle between the "bevel" faces is indicated by the angle between the arrows - 90 degrees.

My point exactly.
So what is the resolve?
Your render does not seem to have an issue with the smoothing.

I was never talking about anything other than a 90 degree corner.
So how is it that when you say it is 90 degrees it is okay but if I say it is 90 degrees you say I am wrong.
Would you please clearify?
regards, Tom

So what are the solutions?

Adding thin edging polygons works, but that's not always the best choice.

Splitting the vertices works every time and costs very little if you do it only where you need a crease. Extra vertices are not expensive - polygons are. And, in fact, welded polygons are more expensive to render than unwelded polygons. So the net result of splitting vertices is a performance increase in all cases.

The third option, though more complicated, is the most sophisticated and optimal. Set up different smoothing groups. Poser will treat adjacent polygons in different groups as if they were not welded. This solution produces the smallest memory footprint, and the highest performance.

But this technique is only for sophisticated modelers and not required for your typical models, like a chair or a low-poly gun.

Quote - > Quote - So here is the front with a cutout. All the angles are indeed 90 degrees. The angle between the "bevel" faces is indicated by the angle between the arrows - 90 degrees.

My point exactly.
So what is the resolve?
Your render does not seem to have an issue with the smoothing.

I'm afraid you're not reading. Read again. The angles YOU THINK are 90 are not 90. I shouted this. Was it not clear?

There is no issue with 90 degrees. There are issues when you think the angle is 90 but it is 60.