The new and improved 3D model topic!

[Buu]

this one zsno?

[Ad Bot]

[ZSNO]

this one zsno?

No
But I did find the tutorial:
http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/creating-a-damaged-concrete-column-in-blender/

[Masterlegodude]

I'm using Blender to make Left 4 Dead 2's Spas-12 view model into a world model, and after two and a half hours of doing stuff with it, i realize that the UV mesh has been crushed into a single pixel thanks to the LWO file type

After Googling things, i found out that if i select the LWO Spas-12, then the SMD Spas-12 with the correct UV mesh, i can transport the UV mesh, HOWEVER, for unknown reasons, the UV mesh just becomes distorted and a mess, despite the two models having the same exact and just completely unaltered 3D mesh

I can make the UV mesh normal by linking the object data between the two models, but because the Spas-12 with the correct UV mesh is an SMD, it lacks smoothing groups because the Blender SMD Tools currently do not support those, so by linking the SMD Spas-12 with the LWO Spas-12 via object data, the LWO Spas-12 loses it's proper smoothing groups

Is there no way to properly transfer the UV mesh from one model to the other without breaking smoothing groups?

[Punchbuggy]

I know you can in Maya, can't speak for Blender though, sorry.

[takato14]

I'm using Blender to make Left 4 Dead 2's Spas-12 view model into a world model, and after two and a half hours of doing stuff with it, i realize that the UV mesh has been crushed into a single pixel thanks to the LWO file type

After Googling things, i found out that if i select the LWO Spas-12, then the SMD Spas-12 with the correct UV mesh, i can transport the UV mesh, HOWEVER, for unknown reasons, the UV mesh just becomes distorted and a mess, despite the two models having the same exact and just completely unaltered 3D mesh

I can make the UV mesh normal by linking the object data between the two models, but because the Spas-12 with the correct UV mesh is an SMD, it lacks smoothing groups because the Blender SMD Tools currently do not support those, so by linking the SMD Spas-12 with the LWO Spas-12 via object data, the LWO Spas-12 loses it's proper smoothing groups

Is there no way to properly transfer the UV mesh from one model to the other without breaking smoothing groups?

probably not, but the smoothing groups shouldn't be too much of a hassle to add back in. It's a forget of a lot better than redoing the UV map that's for sure.

[Punchbuggy]

You will probably find that the hard edges of the smoothing groups are also the UV seams (They should be for baking anyway). So just harden all the UV seams and you should be good to go.

[Masterlegodude]

probably not, but the smoothing groups shouldn't be too much of a hassle to add back in. It's a forget of a lot better than redoing the UV map that's for sure.

As i previously said, i spent two and a half hours working on it up to this point, but i don't think i'd have the attention span and sanity to edge split a 11,871 polygon model from scratch 


Top: What it would look like after linking object data with SMD Spas-12 to correct UV mesh
Bottom: What the smoothing should look like

I'll see how well Punchbuggy's idea works out

[takato14]

As i previously said, i spent two and a half hours working on it up to this point, but i don't think i'd have the attention span and sanity to edge split a 11,871 polygon model from scratch 

what

you do realize blender has an algorithm to automatically apply smoothing to a model based on a reference angle don't you

[Masterlegodude]

what

you do realize blender has an algorithm to automatically apply smoothing to a model based on a reference angle don't you

I don't really know much advanced stuff about Blender

[takato14]

I don't really know much advanced stuff about Blender

select the object, go into edit mode, and look at the bottom of the screen for the mesh tab

click the auto smooth button and adjust the degree slider until it looks right

if you're using 2.5 or later just search "auto smooth" in the spacebar menu

EDIT: ok apparently this isn't how it works, at least not in 2.49b

I mean, that's the function I'm looking for but it isn't doing anything for some reason

sorry for being useless but I'm not sure what to do

[Masterlegodude]

Well, i guess my only option is to work on the Spas-12 in Milkshape 3D then, even though i've been trying to avoid that because Milkshape 3D's viewports are hard to work with and Milkshape 3D tends to be a pain in general, but anyway, you can't select parts of the model in the 3D view like you can in Blender, so i have to find specific parts i want to fix up in the 2D views, which is never a fun or easy experience unless you're working with a low poly model where it's not just a mess of vertexes and lines


By the way, something weird about Milkshape 3D is that SMDs keep their smoothing, until you do anything, then it welds all the vertexes together, this is because the SMD is imported into a single smoothing group, a way around this is to disable auto smoothing, but that could also mess up the lighting for any mesh you rotate to a different angle, so a better but stranger work around is to assign the mesh to the highest smoothing group, which for some reason makes it so the model's current smoothing is not affected by anything you do, even though all of the other groups will

Milkshape 3D's never really made much sense to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Punchbuggy]

If you send me the two models in .obj format I can fix them up for you.

[Masterlegodude]

If you send me the two models in .obj format I can fix them up for you.

Just wanna say, i hate OBJ and have no idea why people use that, depending on how it was exported, they might be flat shaded, or have what appears to be it's normal smoothing, but have this ridonkulous seam going through the model because of the UV mesh or whatever and OBJs don't support bones as far as i've seen, and i think the model also gets rescaled for whatever reason

Would you accept .blends of the SMD and LWO Spas-12s?

[Punchbuggy]

I use Maya, and as far as I know, the SMD importer isn't any better than Blenders. I can't import .blend files either. The idea of an .obj is it should be a universal format between all programs for geometry. Check your export settings, make sure anything about normals/tangents/smoothing groups is enabled and all should be fine.

[takato14]

Just wanna say, i hate OBJ and have no idea why people use that, depending on how it was exported, they might be flat shaded, or have what appears to be it's normal smoothing, but have this ridonkulous seam going through the model because of the UV mesh or whatever and OBJs don't support bones as far as i've seen, and i think the model also gets rescaled for whatever reason

Would you accept .blends of the SMD and LWO Spas-12s?

OBJ is the universal format. If you can't use anything else, you use OBJ, period.

I've never had any problems with it but that's just me, and while it definitely doesn't get rescaled, like you said it doesn't support bones.

Unfortunately I have used Maya and all it supports import-wise is OBJ. You'll need a 3rd party importer for anything else.

Maybe try .3DS?