Zbrush and Lightwave problem?

[Pat]

Hey there all zbrushers!

I'm a Lightwave user since way back and I must be honest, this is the forum that I most visit, even though I don't post that often. Keep up the great work everybody!

I have been having this problem for quite some time now but I haven't posted until now! I would appreciate it so very much if someone could help me!

I do a modell in Zbrush and then export it with the OBJ format. Then I immediately bring it to Lightwave and render it. Everytime, with every object I get the same result. I get this strange dots and lines all over my modell? The same thing actually happened to a demo that I had with the program Truespace?

Here is a test pic (I took the modell from the Zbrush tutorial, hope that is okay?).

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1012008052ekq.jpg


It feels that I have tested everything that I can. I have flipped the normals, I have weld the points (that was a problem that I had before that Pixolator help me with, thanks). You can see that the dots have the same color as the background, it feels like there is some holes in the modell?

I sent my file to a friend that had Poser and he said that it really looked good there, no dots or lines. So, some programs seems to work fine.....

I think I saw Ken B (really like your work buddy) here recently and he talked about different programs that worked with Zbrush, maybe you could help me?

I would really appreciate it if someone here could help me. This is really a problem for me....:-(

Thank you

Sincerely
Patrick

[banez]

im not a Lightwave user pat
but it looks like were your pointing out are in crease area's.
Mask them area only and apply smooth and see what happen im not for sure.
if you don't know how to mask let me know

[Pixolator]

Hi Pat :)
Some applications are optimized to work with triangulated-mesh and will not properly display quad-mesh with non-coplanar polygons (coplanar polygon is a polygon in which all of its points lie on the same plane, ZBrush is optimized for quad polygons and will properly display coplanar and non- coplanar polygons).

What to do?
By default, ZBrush will export the mesh in quadrangle form. You may want to try exporting the same mesh from ZBrush in triangular form (selected in the export sub palette), by doing so, ZBrush will ‘break’ each quad-polygon to two triangles (Triangle is composed of three points and therefore will always be coplanar).

I did a quick search on the net and have found this Lightwave-related tip regarding coplanar polygons (http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9315/lw/tip9.htm)(it may not be related to the problem that you are experiencing but may be useful nonetheless)

I hope this helps, if it doesn’t, please let me know and I will further investigate this problem.

-Pixolator

P.S. Good point EZ :)

[Pat]

Haha...Thank you so much Pixolator!!!!!!

This is too good to be true!

I really thought that I had tested the 3 sided-polygon solution but I must have missed that one. Your solution worked so good that I don't think that I can go to sleep tonight.

ZBrush and the Pixologic team is really the last word, I mean I have never seen this kind of support before. I bought Lightwave about 5 years ago for alot of money (student price but that was still alot for me) and when I need support it really takes some time and too often I end up where I started.

My insperation stopped a couple of years ago and I actually considered that I should quit with 3d. Then my friend gave me a tip about a new "totally awsome" program named Zbrush. I downloaded the demo (think it was v0.954) and the rest is history...:)

Again, thank you so much for this program Pixolator (and the whole Pixologic team), for this forum....and thank you all users here who really keeps me inspired!

Thanks for you post ÈZ, really appreciate that too.

Sincerely
Patrick