If you're using Wings to model, this means you have a poly(s) somewhere that hasn't been assigned to a material. I'm sure this may apply to other modelers as well.

Laurie

yup, laurie is right. Open the obj file in a text editor and do a find for Default. If you find a line that says usemtl default then there is a polygon that has not been allocated.

You can sometimes find it by setting it to a hot pink (or other obvious color)  and examine the model for it.

Yes, if you find those unassigned polys and assign them then the default material goes away ;).

Laurie

Humm, I'm using Cheetah 3D but I have materials assigned to all the objects. I have asked on their forum how to check this. I'm not sure how to check it.

Here is what I find in the .obj file after using find:   usemtl default

What I do is, after loading the original OBJ and assigning new materials in the group editor is export it and then reload it. The unused material zones will be gone.

But it's not an unused material zone. It's used. There are polygons using the material called "default". Assigning them to some other material will make the "default" be unused, that's true. But the real question is - where are the polygons? The OP thought he assigned them all to other materials already.

Yes you are right bagginsbill.

Its possible I suppose that the mtl file got a material written to it that has 0 polys assigned. Lightwave will assign a material with no polys, but it doesnt write it out to the file.

I have attached a script that will list all the usemtl lines in an obj but you need to edit the filename to point to your file.Rename from txt to py.

"ok, another way to find it is to load the obj to uvmapper , and use color by material or select by material , specify default and have a look at what pops up."

I can see it in UV mapper but I'll be danged if I can find it in the model.in Cheetah3D.

 Ok, heres a thought, in Poser go into the materials room , and set all materials to transparency 1 except for default.  The polys should then be visible and you can use the grouping tool (I think) to allocate them to another material , or you can find them in your modelling program .

The worst situation is to have a polygon inside another part. If it has no effect you can just leave it hidden.

In the modeling program, can you select the default material, and (in polygon mode) select by material?

On a few occasions I have at this point duplicated the still-unseen default material polygons (it creates a new separate object) and then slid the new object away so that I got an idea of what/where the hidden polys were.

Bevelling and extrusion create new polys, and sometimes they are assigned to the default material if the modeling program can't figure out what they're supposed to be.