I am still getting used to using Poser 8, but one of the things that is driving me crazy is that Firefly keeps destroying my props. I used to use Poser 6 with the Poser 4 renderer and I never had this problem. I don't even always have this problem in Poser 8, but almost all of my props that I make in Wings3d get ruined by polygon smoothing. The objects are literally splitting at the seams, and it isn't just slight, it is huge, sometimes as wide as the entire object. Any screen shots I have ever seen of this problem are nothing in comparision to the distortions I am getting.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Turning off polygon smoothing is not an option for me, and the splitting continues even when I reduce the smoothing angle to as low as 20 degrees. I am almost ready to quit Poser. I have tried tricks like adding a slight displacement or unwelding/welding vertices. Nothing works and everything I have made looks terrible. If anyone can help I would be thankful.

Also, as far as sharp corners are concerned, you can add a row of edges and snug them up tight to the corner edges. If there is a second row, close to the corner on each side, the corner stays sharp. Some call it a microbevel and some call them easing polys. I've attached an image to show you what I mean.

Laurie

I don't quite see why smoothing is not an option.  Do you need the smoothing for the rounded parts of the prop, but it wrecks some of the seams?

A screenshot would help to get a better answer; pictures will generally recall a problem or a solution that someone has seen before.

The most serious problem usually happens with a long cylinder or long rectangular tube.  For shapes like that, unwelding the "caps" on the ends will generally solve it.

Quote - The most serious problem usually happens with a long cylinder or long rectangular tube.  For shapes like that, unwelding the "caps" on the ends will generally solve it.

Yes, you could always assign hard edges in Wings and Poser will respect them since making an edge hard essentially splits it ;o). I do it in Wings all the time.

Laurie

I have a document on sharecg that shows some of the modelling issues for Poser

http://www.sharecg.com/v/22750/view/Text-Entry-Tutorial/modelling-for-Poser

I would be happy to have a look at one of your models and see if I can spot any problems. I have Poser 7.

A note here: if you are using Displacement rather than bump you need to be vey careful with the map or things break.

I've noticed different results at different resolutions (going back to P5). At regular rendering, I've seen hard edges respected, but if rendering in firefly, I've seen models 'plump up' like a ballpark hot dog. Unsmoothing usually gets checked.

I think there's a way in Poser to 'hardwire' the no-smoothing by typing something into the object code (y'all sing out, I'm as interested as anyone...;). It's just a text file, usually.

Pakled: the hard-wiring is simple, but probably not useful for a prop.

The line smoothPolys 1  is created by default in each figure or prop you save, and you just change it to smoothPolys 0 if you want this body part to be unsmoothed. 

Actually you don't even need to edit this.  Set the polygon smoothing Off in the body part's Properties before saving, and Poser will make it 0 when it creates the file.   But I find that the change usually needs to be made after creating the file, because the bulges and breaks aren't always obvious until I use the figure in a render or two.

This probably won't be useful for the OP here, since a prop has only one part, and it seems that the prop needs smoothing in some areas but not others.  We still don't have a picture, so that's a guess.

split the vertices of the prop obj using uvmappro  uvmapper.com

Yeah, but splitting the verts in UVM splits ALL the verts. That might not be ideal. If he's a Wings user, he should set up his hard edges in Wings and split just the edges he wants ;)

Laurie

uvmapper can only split verts of selected groups by using split by group.

I've always used UVM to weld more than split ;). But UVM Pro is also a 50 dollar purchase and I don't think the OP mentioned that he had it. Besides, why do something in UVM that he can do in Wings for free? And in a much more detailed and deliberate way? ;)

Laurie

ok, well I was just trying to help. 

Quote - ok, well I was just trying to help. 

:o)

Laurie

splitting vertices is a bit extreme if you have a modeller. Cutting and pasting a polygon in place will leave it unwelded to the rest of the mesh so for cylinder ends is a good method.

Setting the crease angle may also work, some of these fixes were from Poser 5 before the crease angle was available.

The P4 render engine works differently to firefly and may give good results.

Thank you everyone. I have tried both splitting and welding the vertices in the free UV Mapper. And it is an issue with my more cylindrical objects. If I render any cylindrical object it bulges in the middle, which is also splitting the vertices apart as well, and at the ends, the edges are smoothing, but the caps are not, which also causes it to look split apart. And this problem is not just limited to long objects as well. Adding more polygons to the ends has not helped me. It is mainly the splitting that bothers me so much; I could deal with a minor amount of bulging. Unfortunately I don't have access to my Poser computer at this time to show pictures.

The reason I can't turn off polygon smoothing is because the object has round parts that need to be smoothed. As I mentioned in my original post this was never a problem until I switched to Firefly.

I have seen a number of you mention assigning hard edges in Wings. I haven't really got into the more advanced functions in Wings and I am unsure how to do this. How do I assign hard edges?

Thanks

In Wings, select an edge or an edge loop and right click. Choose "Hardness" and then choose "Hard" from the submenu. The edges will now turn bright yellow-orange.

Laurie

Quote - In Wings, select an edge or an edge loop and right click. Choose "Hardness" and then choose "Hard" from the submenu. The edges will now turn bright yellow-orange.

Laurie

I followed your instructions, but when I imported the object into Poser it still rendered the same as before. I think I did it correctly, but I could be wrong. Something else I have found though is that if I make a prop into a figure, it is less prone to distorting. Is there a reason for this?

I still can't believe how well the Poser 4 rendering engine handles polygon smoothing and how poorly the Poser 8 Firefly engine does.

Crease 80? there's ya problem

higher = more

turn off Smoothing to that mesh (you can turn it off per object) and try 22.5 crease angle.

Hotdog:

are you using displacement mapping or have it turned on in your render settings? if you do turn it off and see if that fixes the problem. I had some trouble with this in the past and it looks like that is what you have run into.

the hotdog picture above is the 'plumping' I'm talking about. Any cylinder tends to grow love handes...;)

What I've been doing is setting hard edges to what I want as a real 'crease', then letting Poser 'smooth' the areas that were supposed to be smooth.

Thanks for the trick for not smoothing and saving in Poser. That could be handy.

What I've been also doing is 'beveling' the 'hard edges, by infinitesimal amounts (like .005), because someone once told me that would work...;)