Can someone help me to understand what's going on here? It's been a long while since I used P4 but for some reason when I load this OBJ into a scene I get the dark lines when rendered (first image). I don't get the dark lines when I import the same OBJ into P5 or P6 (image following this posting). This item will eventually be apart of a product which is why I'm concerned about the P4 issue. Thanks, David

Both images where rendered with the P4 renderer. The second image was rendered in P5 with the P4 renderer. Why does P4 handle the OBJ so badly and what can I do to fix it? David

Looks like reversed normals to me. But usually P5 has a problem with them, even more than P4.

Still, try reversing the normals, and see what it looks like.

How bout I remove the normals altogether and let P4 rebuild them? Will that help or worsen the problem? David

I don't know. I have no idea how to remove normals from an OBJ, to tell you the truth.

Attached Link: http://www.pygott.demon.co.uk/mapper.htm

There is a program called supermapper at the link that might fix this problem. Load the object into it and click on Action fix face normals and then, when that is done, resave the object.

UV mapper will remove your normals also. Just uncheck "export normals" when saving.

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Poser doesn't use the normals in the OBJ file, so removing the normals (the 'vn' lines) won't help. Try using the group tool in Poser.... select only the offending facets then click the 'Reverse Group Normals' button. I agree with randym that 5 and 6 are usually fussier than 4 on this matter. In some cases like this, where Poser can get confused about what's inside and what's outside, I've had to rebuild the mesh as two "nicely closed" groups.

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More info than you needed or wanted.... This shows the P6 confusion I'm talking about. I made a shape sort of similar to yours; on the left in each picture is the version with separate groups for each donut. On the right in each is a welded mesh. You can see the confusion most clearly in the P6 preview. Poser doesn't know what's in or out. When P6 tried to render, it did the flat-black thing, indicating that it had no idea how to texture this critter. I reversed the whole thing, and it was OK. P4 didn't have any trouble at all, though. (This was actually loaded in P4, not the 'P4 renderer' within P6.)

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Well the first image was loaded in P4 and rendered in P4. The second image was loaded in P5 and rendered with the P4 renderer. I figured it best to compare apples with apples as far as renderers go. I have no clue why P4 is treating this obj differently than the 2 later versions of the program. If it helps any I created the obj in Carrara 4 as a spline for each strap and then exported as an OBJ. I've tried exporting as a 3ds and got the same results when I load/import into P4. David

If you have uvmapper pro in the Tools>facets menu you can check for degenerate, concave and colinear facets it is probably one of these causing the problem.

Well I tried all of the above remedies except for xantor's (11.) to no avail. I ended having to go and recreate it from scratch. I think I figured out what was the culprit. I think it was a combination of 2 different version of Compose. Thanks for all the help. David