Smooth Join
11 messages in this thread
I am wondering if there is an easy method in which I can make two
solid objects merge or Boolean together seamlessly. For example, I
have two spheres merged together, but I want it to be smooth where
the two meet. I have worked with Wavefront and SoftImage, SoftImage
has Meta-clay that will fix this problem easily, and I understand 3-D
Studio is working on something similar to this, but for now is there
an easy way to do this? Thanks for any help.
A key to seamless unions in 3DS is getting your vertices welded, James. You can
either do it by one-by-one, or with the Selected command (or during Booleaning)
to weld coincident vertices, whose threshold can be easily adjusted. Of course,
your entities need to be part of the same object for this to work. Also, you
might apply mapping coordinates *after* these operations, as retaining them is
impossible with the Selected command, and very tricky when you weld one-by-one.
When completed, the mesh should map seamlessly. Because the result is one
object, movement within the object for an animation requires morphing the
object.
The Yost Group's upcoming Skin.AXP will address the problem of retaining
discreet objects (great for animation purposes) while attaining seamless
rendering by skinning a series of cross-sections (like in the Lofter) with
spline patches. This will allow linking of object-based cross-sections in the
Keyframer for hierarchical animation. This can be much more "face-economical"
and controlable that the actual object morphing and vertex-level manipulation
one often needs to do with the above solution.
Hope this answers your question,
-Alan Iglesias
thanks Alan, will give it a try.
>>This can be much more "face-economical" <<
Alan:
You probably already know this, but I thought I'd jump in to clear up some
confusion about what happens with AXPs like Tuber and Skin:
The rendering engine of 3D Studio only renders faces. If an object has a smooth
silhouette when fully rendered, it's because there are a lot of faces on
rounded edges. Tuber and skin create a pretty *large* amount of faces as
"animated stand-ins" for the skeletal object that the operator manipulates in
the Keyframer. So, at render time, there may be tons more faces actually being
rendered than there is listed in the dialog box. This can also be true of other
AXPs also. like fireworks, where a single box might ultimately represent
thousands of 6 sided 'particles' that move about as a firework.
Thanks,
Jim
In addition to what Alan said, if you boolean two objects together and want a
seamless union, just clear all the smoothing groups and reapply one group to
the union area. That'll make it smooth without a seam.
– G
I believe there's a BLOB modeler in GRAPHDEV that'll do what ya need. E.
thanks Eli
About that BLOB modeler..
I downloaded it, and messed with it a little, and outputted a file to DXF
format and then attempted to load the mesh into 3D Studio, and it gave me an
"invalid object" error. I thought maybe it was because it was a mesh of a
hand, and that maybe it was too complex..but then I made a single sphere with
BLOB, saved as a DXF, and then tried to export it to 3dS againt, and it
wouldn't work.
Has anyone tried BLOB with 3ds?
I know that Harley Huggins [71204,1266] has played with it and successfully
gotten DXF's into 3DS. I've a copy, but haven't had a chance to play with it.
Dave
Try saving to RAW format and then using the program RAW23DS to convert it to
ASCII 3DS format. RAW23DS should be around here somewhere (look for
RAW3DS.ZIP).
Thanks Steve,
I d/l'd raw3ds11.zip and tried what you suggested, and it worked. It's hard to
actually DO anything with a blob, in 3ds, though. But they look neat.