On the left is a simple OBJ box (with bevelled edges) made in a 3D program. On the right is the box prop included in Poser4. (non-rendered view on the bottom) Can someone please explain the weird render facets on the modelled box, and what might be done at the modelling stage to avoid them? The box renders fine in Bryce. I tried making a box with more polys, but just got the dark facets at a higher frequency.

The simplest way to avoid those artifacts is to split the vertices on your mesh. Then the surfaces will render perfectly flat in Poser.

Attached Link: http://uvmapper.com/

Yes. You need to run your box through uv mapper (see link if you don't already have it) and use the 'split vertices' option. This will cure all your problems. What's happening is that Poser is trying to smooth the box and making a dog's breakfast of it. Splitting will fix this. mac

Oops. Xposted with LD. mac

Thanks for the quick response, guys. I'll follow through on your suggestions.

OK, splitting the vertices certainly got rid of the horrid artefacts. But it also got rid of the smoothing. How do people make models that use smoothing (most Poser figures, etc) but avoid the dark smudges all over the surface?

You split some vertices, but not others. Or you make your bevels very, very tiny.

Thanks. I looked closer at some of the established lower res models (such as the original Poser4 figures) and noticed similar dark smudges on some surfaces. It seems to be a universal aspect of Poser smoothing under unfavourable circumstances (lighting/model/camera angle, shadow map size, etc). High res models (keeping individual poly faces small) and big shadow map sizes seems to minimise the problem. That's a relief. I thought I was finally getting somewhere with 3D modelling but had a horrible feeling it was all for nothing. Back to fiddling. Thanks again.

Question. That stuff that looks like shading on the top left cube? Is this the same thing: sometimes I'll bring a model into Bryce and it shades like that..even flat surfaces. I've found that if I smooth it in Bryce (at the defaults) that weird shading goes away. (I rarely if ever import to Poser that's why I mentioned Bryce). Is what I describe the same as above? BTW..not important, just something i've been wondering about for a while and never thought to inquire about.

PFO, you can't use this bevel in Poser. Your bevel creates a 45 angle between the surface and the bevelled face (the edge of the box). This angle causes ugly artefacts in the Poser renderer. As a rule of thumb, every flat surface in Poser should be surrounded by a seam of coplanar faces. "Coplanar" means there is no angle between two faces (they are flat). So, the edge between two flat surfaces is made of two seam-faces. Your bevel has only one face, that's why it doesn't work in Poser. To make a proper edge for a Poser-box, you need two seam-faces between the two adjacent surfaces. The seam-faces are usually very small. To render a round edge, you can add one or more bevelled faces between the seam-faces. But a seam-face and its surface should always be coplanar. If you split the surfaces, you remove the contours of the model. The two boxes above are rendered with identical materials and lights. The split surfaces on the right appears to be "flat" because of the missing edges. The smooth surface on the left looks much better, because the contours of the edges are rendered.

Seams.... hmm. I tried it just now, made a "seamy" box in Amapi and rendered in Poser 4. Sure enough, the corners are sharp enough to draw blood, but the seams themselves show up fairly clearly. Is there a minimum proportion of seam width / face width that works best?

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VK, the 45 degree bevel is apparently widely used in Poser. They're clearly visible in this pic of Victoria's pants. As the rendered bit shows, the smudgy marks aren't something I was building into my model (phew).

Here's the same setup with the shadow map on the lights set at 2048. The problem is virtually gone. The stuff you wrote on coplanar seam faces is a bit over my head at this point, but I'll jot it down for future reference. At the moment, I'm just pleased I'm able to construct simple stuff. ;-)

PFO, the 45 bevel isn't wrong, it just looks different. Bevels (angles between faces) are not useful for flat surfaces like the box. The example belt above has a 45 bevel. The belt surface renders somehow rounded. If you want a flat belt surface, you can add coplanar seam-faces.

ockham, the seams are usually "small" in relation to the model surfaces. The size depends on the resolution of the rendered model (how many pixels are rendered for the seam-faces). In the above example, the seams are 0.2% to 3% of a box edge. The bottom right example has 5% seam width, a subdivided coplanar seam, and additional seams for the corners. Basically, Poser renders a highlight on the bright side of the normal, and a shadow on the dark side of the normal. Smaller seams create smaller highlight/shadow zones, and the edge renders "sharp" like a blade. Wider seams blur the edge contour, and the edge appears to be slightly rounded. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the clarification, VK. I'll have another go with seams later. By the way, the name's PJF not PFO. Not that I mind particularly but since PFO is a well known Poser acronym for "Poser Forum Online" (original name of this website and now a separate entity) it might be confusing for some. :-)

Oops, very sorry for the name, PJF. Kindly excuse the silly typos. My thoughts were somewhere else...

Thanks for the precision, VK. My Amapi model was about 10%, which is obviously too large. I'm experimenting now with a Python script to place seams on chosen faces "in place". Having a numerical target helps......

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Very interesting. Can Python move vertices? Just curious, I don't have Python, but I read the scripts sometimes.