#Backface 3D Studio
11 messages in this thread
Firstly I'm new in this forum. Who do I ask for help? My question is
when importing DXF files into 3D Studio back face's get turned off.
In Autocad 12 there is a setting that can be changed. Iam a little
lost on how to do this in 3D studio.
Welcome to the forum! Just address your questions to ALL, someone
will answer it!
>> My question is when importing DXF files into 3D Studio back face's get
>> turned off.
Do you mena when rendering or in wireframe working on the model? If
it is when rendering, just force 2-sided ON, or use a 2-sided
material; the other option is to do a surface/normals/face flip or
surface/normals/object flip. Or do you mean the hidden lines?
Display/geometry/all lines might work.
My problem is related to rendering, but I think your advice will sort
it out. If Iam still having problems I be back here quick as a shot.
Kevin: My experience with importing dxf from ACAD is that you frequently have
to walk the faces in the 3D editor and flip them over. ACAD doesn't have the
really clean ways of controlling face normals that 3D Studio has and as a
consequence when you import an ACAD model you get objects with inconsistent
face normals. The Surface/Normals/Object Unify command doesn't work either.
At best it just reverses the face normals leaving you with the same problem. Be
sure to keep as much as you can on different layers in ACAD that way when it
gets to 3D Studio you can isolate the object and fix it. For a company with so
many smart people AutoDESK is shooting itself in the marketing foot by not
making the interface between these two programs more seamless. Mike
Thanks for the advice. I have another problem at the moment and thats getting
DOS6 to work with QEMM. Until then I cant use 3D-Studio and a couple of other
progs!!. Things are slowly winding up to one great big mess. I hope microsoft
get their act togeather for NT or blood will have to be spilt.
Kev.
Ah yes the bleeding edge. For once I decided to wait until someother Mikey
tried it. From the sound of things here on the forum DOS 6.0 is a pain. Well,
I hope you got a recent backup to fall back on. The frustrations of an unstable
system can make ya want to … be uncool. Good luck sorting it out.
Mike
Michael:
Well, check out Visual Link…
That's by Autodesk and allows you to build 3D models in AutoCAD ready for 3D
Studio.
You can force 2 sided on and you'll never notice whether the model was built in
AutoCAD or in 3DS…
Or, you can learn the proper techniques to build the model in AutoCAD so that
you eliminate, or nearly eliminate, face normal problems.
That's three solutions that I know of… there may be more.
C#
Hi Craig: >>check out Visual Link…<< I have been getting some second hand
info on Vl and hear that there are some problems with it handling blocks and
such. Tell me more about the force 2 sided. How is this initiated? As for the
proper ACAD techniques; … Well, if you build a solid model in AME and it gets
trashed coming into 3D Studio the "technique" is not the problem. Then when you
design something in 3D Studio and want to bring it into ACAD and want some
faces or maybe a solid then there is not much support. Everybody talks about
bringing models into 3DS from ACAD but what about the other way. I actually
think of ACAD as more of a utility for 3DS.
Mike
Force two sided is an option in rendering in 3D Studio… essentially,
you don't have to worry about which way the normal is facing.
I have never had any problems to speak of in using DXF conversions
from AutoCAD to 3DS and vice-versa… except where normals are
concerned. 3DS 2.0 solved that problem with force two sided. It does
take longer to render but if you're doing single images, then it
isn't worth it to take the steps to construct the model in a way that
the normals are controllable. If you are animating, then that's
another story.
AME has resulted in the best results for me… except AME is so slow
it is nearly worthless for what I do. As long as you understand what
AME blocks are representing, you can get the right results and have
closed volumes. As long as you have closed volumes 3DS can easily
weld the vertices and unify the normals and then you can use flip
normals if they come in facing the wrong way. If you don't have
properly closed volumes, it is impossible for anyone other than a
human being to determine which way the normals should face.
Craig: I thought maybe Visual Link allowed you to set something in
ACAD to force two sided. I find that when modeling it essential to
control the face normals because it often provides an important
visual clue to orientation in the 3D Modeler. Of course there are
times when it isn't important whether you render force two sided as
you mention, just a factor of processing overhead. As for AME, I
agree that it is sloooow. Especially doing booleans as compared to
3DS boolean operations. Open solids are a fact of life and need to
be modeled and I expect to be able to create models in a solid
modeling program and have the surfaces oriented the right way. Simple
solids are about as good as the translation to 3DS gets, however even
simple, simple things get screwed up faces. But we shouldn't be
too critical because it was designed with a different motive in
mind. I also understand that AME will no longer be supported in
future versions of ACAD. Correct me, but it my understanding that
AutoDesk is retiring AME in favor of NURBS.
Mike
Michael:
Autodesk just answered the AME situation over on the AutoCAD forum.
They stated that they 'will continue to support the product'. This is
the same thing that they said about AEC. What is really amounts to,
in between the lines, is that there will be a reasonably priced
upgrade path from AME to the new modeler and that the new modeler
will be able to read AME files (via conversion, or whatever…). Now,
I, for one, will not mourn the disappearance of AME. I didn't
consider the 'reasonable path' upgrade from AEC to ASG's version
reasonable, however. At least in the case of AME Autodesk controls
both the source and the solution.
You can build closed volumes in AutoCAD and then detach the faces
after they have been imported into 3DS to provide access to
independent mapping. There is also, I think, box.ixp which will map
the different faces independantly. These issues really are the least
of your worries, IMHO. Try mapping a scaled, modular material onto a
curved surface… now there's a challenge… especially if you want
the map to align with the map on an intersecting flat surface.
C#