Is it possible to make correct smoothing in Poser without rebuilding the geometry?

Simple example. Common situation, 2 segments bevel:

Tried anything, but cant import it in Poser with correct normals

It can be fixed with adding more loops around flat surfaces, but too many models in internet have same 2 segments bevel, and many of them are too complex even to add some loop cuts, so would be better to have other ways

No idea if it will help, and dependant upon material you can try checking the "normals foward" of the PoserSurface in material room and see if that works.

Also you could try turn off smoothing in the objects properties.

Superfly rendering doesn't utilize phong smoothing, if the goal is to add more edge loops, adding more edges might do the trick. Try adding a level or 2 of subdivision in Poser.

After testing, probably adding Subdivision from within Poser won't solve the problem. Depending on how high poly your original objects are to begin with. Going by the images you provided, they're pretty low poly so subdivision in Poser will too radically change the object shapes. You could always mark relevant edges as sharp or hard in your modeling software and add a level of subdivision there,  maintaining the shape, before bringing into Poser. 

I would say that bwldrd's solution of turning off smoothing would be useful for Firefly but has no bearing on Superfly rendering. Same with crease angle. Render smoothing is strictly a Firefly thing. With organic models it's easier to get around this with adding a subdivision level. Low poly hard edge models need a different approach.

If you can't or don't want to manually add loops to smooth out your bevels, you'll need to utilize subdivision externally and manually set what edges you want to retain sharp so that it propagates to your export; apply modifier/smooth group in Blender obj export or baking in hard edges/subdivision in Wings for instance...

I see. So nobody asked devs to fix normals for idk how many years? Thats not ok when you download for example any daz model pack, and have to spend months to rework all the props. Even some props from poser libraries sometimes have broken shading

Hi, I remember I had this problem once when experimenting with a hard surface model. Try setting the "crease angle" to zero. See images below: model in Houdini, model in Poser (crease default), model in Poser (crease 0).

Zombie_Source posted at 5:24 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484817

I see. So nobody asked devs to fix normals for idk how many years? Thats not ok when you download for example any daz model pack, and have to spend months to rework all the props. Even some props from poser libraries sometimes have broken shading

It's not any fault of a particular software. It's how these render engines work.

Back in the day, people who created hard edge models for Poser either split edges, added control loops, or utilized smoothing groups to offset the smoothing artifacts that would appear when smoothing was utilized with Firefly. For instance, Stonemason utilized control edges and smoothing groups.

Now, there's Superfly, which doesn't utilize smoothing. Generally any modeler worth his or her salt will model something for Poser with sufficient geometry as to not present faceting at bevel edges.

Did you try adding Poser Subdivision?

Here I created a beveled cube similar to what you show... the loops are perhaps a bit tighter than what you have in your post.

Added 2 levels of subdivision (object properties tab)...

Superfly render result...

Looks like a beveled cube to me.

?

EVargas posted at 7:17 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484819

Hi, I remember I had this problem once when experimenting with a hard surface model. Try setting the "crease angle" to zero. See images below: model in Houdini, model in Poser (crease default), model in Poser (crease 0).

That would make the problem worse. Yea, flat surfaces would be flat, but round details would be flat too

primorge posted at 8:38 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484825

Did you try adding Poser Subdivision?

Subdivision is not solution. Poser works very bad with alot of polygons on the scene, so everything must be as much lowpoly as possible. Plus Poser doesnt have instancing for props, so more geometry eats more memory, and sometimes you wont be able to render the scene just because of too much geometry. Also not many models have topology optimized for subdivision, so again, you'll have to rework the geometry manually

That's  no way to bevel a cube in the 21st century, EVargas... lol.

😁 Primorje has already described the details of the available options well, I think you just need to evaluate and choose the path. Each case is different.

I agree with you that properties impact the ENTIRE object, it is not selective, in the case I mentioned it was what I wanted at that time. But you can always separate into different objects if that makes your result better. It's a matter of experimenting, each software has qualities and defects, just like people, none are perfect.

Also, I recently needed to use "control edges" in some products, well, it's a common practice, people have been doing this for decades.

Zombie_Source posted at 8:42 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484826

EVargas posted at 7:17 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484819

Hi, I remember I had this problem once when experimenting with a hard surface model. Try setting the "crease angle" to zero. See images below: model in Houdini, model in Poser (crease default), model in Poser (crease 0).

That would make the problem worse. Yea, flat surfaces would be flat, but round details would be flat too

primorge posted at 8:38 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484825

Did you try adding Poser Subdivision?

Subdivision is not solution. Poser works very bad with alot of polygons on the scene, so everything must be as much lowpoly as possible. Plus Poser doesnt have instancing for props, so more geometry eats more memory, and sometimes you wont be able to render the scene just because of too much geometry. Also not many models have topology optimized for subdivision, so again, you'll have to rework the geometry manually

Hmmm. I guess none of the presented solutions suit your particular needs. Can't say we didn't try. You'd be surprised how many polys Poser can handle, but then again that's subjective to individual needs I guess. As far as I know there's no way to manipulate the normals other than what's been discussed already. I'm interested to see if someone is aware of another solution.

Take care.

primorge posted at 8:59 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484830

You'd be surprised how many polys Poser can handle

i7, RTX2070. With more than ~3-5 millions poly its already hard to move the camera around the scene. With 10-12 million polys - framerate is somewhere around 0,05 frames per second when you try to move the camera or pose a figure. You can easily reach such numbers while building a forest or city etc.

I see. Yes I've encountered similar when building a forest of gigantic grass (not one sided geometry) fronds for wee folk style renders. Only solution I know of there is a combination of remove back facing, no hardware shadows, trans% (openGL preview render options) and fast/box tracking display...

Finally, it needs to be remembered that Poser was and still remains primarily a figure studio rendering software. Naturally there's going to be limitations to rendering expansive high poly environments.

To be honest, I keep looking at the original images and I don't see much difference. What do you mean by correct normals? Are you saying they're reversed?

RedPhantom posted at 10:31 AM Thu, 16 May 2024 - #4484839

To be honest, I keep looking at the original images and I don't see much difference. What do you mean by correct normals? Are you saying they're reversed?

Nothing so rudimentary as flipped normals. OP wants to smooth the transition between the curve of the bevel into the flat plane of the face, without additional geometry. There are shading artifacts in his render, which are obvious if you know what they look like, similar to those kind of smoothing artifacts you see in Poser's Firefly smooth shading when there isn't sufficient geometry to reign in the smoothing. OP is looking for a way to manipulate the normals to smooth the transitions.