Another OBJ-format problem, plz help!

[system]

Hi all Zbrushers!

I had a problem with OBJ-format the other day and a big thanks goes out to Impending for the BIG help!

Now I’m back with another problem (I hope I’m not to painful ).

When I try to export for example a 3d ball with the OBJ-format (the QUD button is pressed) everything seems to work fine. But when I open the model in another 3d program (Lightwave and Truespace) I get a picture that looks like this:

Does anyone know how to make that “line” disappear?

Thank you so much for the help
Sincerely
Pat

[system]

Anyone??

Please???

Sincerely
Pat

[Digits]

Hi Pat

While I haven’t the faintest idea concerning your problem, I expect that once all the hoopla is done in launching a new release that ZuZu or Pixolator will be able to answer your question.

[impending]

Hello Pat,

I don’t have an answer for this one.

What you are seeing is the seam that defines where a texture map begins and ends on a sphere in ZBrush. I don’t see this seam in trueSpace nor in DeepPaint - is this image from Lightwave?

If you want to see the seam in ZBrush - go to the preferences panel and activate “Dots” - now when you click on the sphere it switches to wireframe and the seam is clearly visible. Why Pixologic created this visible seam (via wireframe) I don’t understand, I’m sure it was intentional - perhaps they felt it was important to know where the wrapping of a texture map would begin, which is important actually but I doubt they intended this seam to be visible when in solid render mode. My original interest in ZBrush was to create models for use in other applications. I would model in ZBrush, texture in DeepPaint then render in a 3rd program. When doing this, I always made sure to put the seam in the back of the model and the poles at the top and bottom. The easy way to do this: create the sphere and set the sphere resolution as desired then under Modifiers>Deformation>RotX set it to 90.

I’m guessing but . . . each 3D app may read .obj files differently. I can’t see the seam in trueSpace nor in DeepPaint although the paintbrush will reveal it’s location. Simply putting the seam in the back will work fine for stills but if you’re animating I’m not sure what to suggest.

Good Luck,

jd

[upham]

Yeah, I don’t have this problem with Studio Max. Do you use an 3rd party 3d-file transfer program? Or can Lightwave/truepace import .obj files??
Upham

[system]

Thank you all for your replies!!!

It’s very strange because the image that you can see above is actually rendered in Truespace 5.1 and exactly the same thing happens in Lightwave 6.5.

I also wanted to use Zbrush to modelled and then use Truespace to animate, as you Impending.

Do you guys think that I do something wrong. The only thing that I do is that I go into Zbrush and modell some organic shape from a 3d ball. Then I export it with the QUD button pressed (OBJ) and immediately import it to Truespace or Lightwave, there is no program between?

Should I use the DXF-format instead? Is that format better or worse than OBJ. I tried the DXF-format but when I imported it to Truespace, it took maybe a minute for it to load, and I have a PIII with a 700 mhz processor, 128 Meg ram???

A big thanks to all of you…I really appreciate it alot!

Excuse my english…I’m from Sweden…

Take care now
Pat

[Digits]

Pat

I don’t have lightwave or anything but I was thinking that it does look like a texture joint. You might try exporting your object with the “TEX” selector OFF and you might also try it with the MRG ? (merge uv coordinates) off. and you might try a combination of both and see if that affects the problem that you are having.

By the way, Your English seems to be better than mine

[system]

Hi Digits!

Thanks for the that tip. I have tried as many possible settings as possible, it’s very strange???

Maybe there is one more settings left that I have missed Gotta go and try…haha!

Take care pal, thanks

Pat

[impending]

Hello Pat,

After reading your posts in Southern’s wonderful paint & export tutorial I decided to look again at the trueSpace import. After a second scrutiny, I indeed saw the line you have in both tS4.3 & 5.1 - however - I have no solution for you, you are doing the export/import correctly.

One thing I did try was adding a texture to see the true impact. If I add any texture other than a solid color I had to look very very hard to see the seam and if I added any bump at all - the seam became invisible. Perhaps this won’t actually be an issue??? As far as DXF - this is a file format of last resort. The file size is bloated and no material, texture or UV coordinate information is carried in the file format - but you should still try it if it’s the only solution.

Be aware that trueSpace does not import the UV coordinate info in the obj file format. In Southern’s tutorial he shows the teeth imported into Poser - this cannot be done in trueSpace directly - you will have to use a file format conversion utility first to turn .obj into .cob I use an old copy of Polytrans from Okino Graphics and it works wonders. A popular conversion tool is Keith Rule’s Crossroads - I’ve never tried it but it is well regarded. You may find it here

Best of luck to you

jd

[system]

You are too nice Impending, thanks for the tips! It is really great to have experts like you out there, who knows what’s up!!!

I think you are right, if I add a texture the line will probably go away…I have tried that and sometimes it looks good and sometimes it don’t look so good…ahhh, I want it to look good everytime… I just have to be patient!

I tried to push the “dots” button in Zbrush as you said and everything became clear for me, now I can even see the “hole” that you help me with before.

Take care and thanks!

Sincerely
Pat

[Pixolator]

Hi Pat,
That is a good question and luckily it has a good answer and even better, it comes with an easy solution…

Why is this edge visible?

All of ZBrush default objects can be created by mathematically ‘folding’ a flat surface in order to get the desired shape. The line that you are seeing is where one side of this surface meets the other side (it is clearly visible when using DOTS mode and especially with a Ring3D object). There are 2 common methods that are used when exporting such mesh, one method allow the mesh to be exported as-is in which case I have found that some applications will not handle the edge-line properly and you’ll get undesirable texture distortions near the edge line. The other method requires that the vertices of the edge-line will be exported as double points, one point with UV coordinates on one side of the texture map and one more point with UV coordinates on the other end of the texture map. This method does not suffer from the texture-distortion problem but it may, in some applications, produce a sharp edge.

What to do?

ZBrush can handle both methods and by default, the ‘double edge’ method is used when exporting a 3D mesh. If you want to have the double edge removed, you need to do the following…

1. Select the PolyMesh3D tool (Star shaped tool) and set the TOOL INVENTORY IMPORT Weld value to be larger then zero (0.001 would do just fine)
2. Import the OBJ file.
3. Export the OBJ file

That’s all; the above procedure will remove any double vertices that are sharing the same position in 3D space (you can use the procedure on any 3D mesh, including those that have not been originated in ZBrush). When importing an OBJ mesh into ZBrush, the mesh is automatically analyzed in order to find these ‘special interest’ vertices and when in DOTS mode, ZBrush will draw these vertices in green. When importing a mesh with Weld value set to 0.001, you can turn the DOTS mode on and you’ll see that the object no longer has the double-edge and green line has vanished.

I hope this helps
-Pixolator

P.S. I am currently unable to reply to questions as promptly as I would have liked but this will no longer be the case after 1.23 is released :)(we are currently finalizing the release version and hope to have it downloadable by Monday or Tuesday night.)

When 1.23 is available, you can use the script below to automate this process… (or simply record it inside ZBrush once, and save it. )

  :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:  ZSCRIPT BELOW       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:

[IButton,”Remove Edge”,"This function removes the visible edge from an imported 3D object”,
[IPress,TOOL:PolyMesh3D]
[ISet,TOOL:INVENTORY:WELD,0.001]
[IPress,TOOL:INVENTORY:IMPORT]
[IPress,TOOL:INVENTORY:EXPORT]]

  :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond: ZSCRIPT ABOVE       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:       :large_orange_diamond:

[Nikko]

Thank you Pixolator!

[system]

Ahhh…THANK YOU soooo much Pix!

You have no idea how much this means to me, I know that you are very busy these days so again, THANKZ

I really feel bad asking questions like this, when the solution is so easy I’m glad that I asked though because I had trouble with this for some time, but not anymore, thanks to you and the people here at this wonderful forum!

Take care and thankz, good luck with Zbrush 1.23…I know for sure that it will BEST!

Sincerely
Patrick