Hairdryer just for fun - but with problems

[zeromancer1972]

I folks!

Last night I started a hairdryer, nothing special, just to refine my rhino modeling skills.



But I got problems unwrapping the UVW, because this model is build of NURBS surfaces. As I attached the UVW unwrap modifier to put labels on the corpus, the reflections got dizzy.
Can you tell me one more of your "secrets" unwrapping a NURBS based model?

Thanks in advance!

[Gijs]

Why do you want to add a Unwrap modifier? Can't you simply add a planar UVW Map to it?

As for the reflections: I think your mesh is too coarse.

Gijs

[zeromancer1972]

No I can't, the light blue object is one NURBS consisting of several surfaces. For that I have to select only some surface "polys" in the editor.
Too coarse? Hmmm thats native NURBS, no mesh. I tried mesh, too, but this is very hard to control as you need a several 1000's of polys to keep it looking smooth.

[J_Bug]

Try adding nothing and controlling it within the bitmap params. Strange that the Unwrap UVW didn't work, it should have just converted NURBS to mesh and worked as usual.

It depends on how you constructed it but in most cases the UV is created with the surface due to the nature of NURBS.

It may just be that you didn't export/import properly. Did you use IGES? I would guess so because you say you had a NURBS surface in MAX.

I don't quite understand "the reflections got dizzy". What did you mean by this?

Looks cool otherwise Maybe too much bump in the nose

--Jon

[zeromancer1972]

I meant as a put the UVW unwrap on it, the reflections were correct, but the mapping I created caused the reflections to be unregular like a disco ball - u know what i mean?
And yes, I used the IGES format.
Hmm and maybe I could try a huge map with as you say the small label within a huge "nothing"...

Hehe there is no bump at all, the "structure" results from a very low subdiv in the reflection slot of a vray mat.

[flipside]

I still don't see why can't put some planar uvw maps on it to place the labels.

Even if you import iges or whatever nurbs format, max also needs to mesh it before rendering, so meybe these settings are too low and cause these dizzy reflections?

I usually use 3ds to export from rhino, but you need to experiment with the mesh settings in rhino. For example set the first two parameters (angle and treshold I think) to zero and adjust mainly with the max distedsgetosurf parameter. You'll get a much better distributed mesh that way. Maybe also use the max edge length parameter to make the mesh even more equal in evey place.
Or use powertranslator to import your rhino model directly into max, this works great!

[zeromancer1972]

flipside, your tips are very useful - I'll test it in the next days...
But in the meantime I placed a map with the planar mapping. This works fine until you have to place more than one map on the surface. You have to know that all the light blue is one surface - my job is now to split those in rhino into independant surfaces to aply different maps onto it.
Thanks for reading & posting

BTW: some colour variantions can be found here:
http://www.3d-inferno.de/latest/hairdryer.html

[flipside]

You can apply two uvw maps to one mashsurface in max! Just use the appropriate map channel in the uvwmap and you material.

[niksoftarg]

I allways mesh from rhino to MAX, I don´t like Nurbs surfaces in max, you can also mesh your model with really high poly count and use PolyCruncher or Polygon cruncher something like that, also save the settings for every rhino object just like Suurland does.

[flipside]

I allways mesh from rhino to MAX, I don´t like Nurbs surfaces in max, you can also mesh your model with really high poly count and use PolyCruncher or Polygon cruncher something like that, also save the settings for every rhino object just like Suurland does.

Or use powertranslator, just like suurland does

For models with many parts it's really time consuming to give everyhting different mesh setting from within rhino. Powertranslator meshes very good, objects that are small in the render get meshed worse than objects close to the camera, and this is exactly what you need to keep polycount low.

[niksoftarg]

I havent tried powertranslator, maybe I´ll give it a try, let´s see what happens, great tip.

[freak]

i tried power translator.....demo......and i really dont no how to use it........i ask them in the forum.......but no luck.......can u guys list steps u do to import nurbs from rhino using PT.......

ps: i just dont no how to transform a "BrepObject" into meshes.....

please help( i no it's off topic)

[flipside]

Install it, import a rhinofile and hit render. The meshes will be generated before the render starts. You don't see the mesh itsself, it's like in rhino.

[freak]

right.............but i saw ppl say stuff like makin it into a brepobject then sub-d or something........

btw...if u go www.ribin.net .......he uses PT....and u can see the meshes.....

r u sure that's what u do???.........cuz i tried it......and i dont think that's the right way to do it.........the purpose of PT is to break down nurbs into meshes (Editable poly/E mesh) so one can edit it/apply a meshsmooth modifier to smoothen it more............

[flipside]

The main purpose of PT is to import nurbs files in max without the hassle of meshing every part seperately. Do you use rhino? When you model something in rhino, it's in nurbs format. When you press render, you can read in the command line 'creating render meshes'. This is because rhino (and almost any renderer) can't render nurbs geometry directly without converting it into a mesh). This mesh is also not visible in rhino but it is there only for rendering purposes!!!





I save the file, go to max and choose import and then from the list brep object and i select the rhino file. I left every setting to default.
In the image below you can clearly see that the surfaces are still nurbs. Because max also needs to mesh the nurbs to be able to render or preview them, there are some settings in the brep object which control the mesh quality (cfr rhino!)(there are also options for viewport mesh quality and render mesh quality seperately). Some parameters are dependant on the resolution of the rendered image because they are expressed in pixel size (see highlighted number).



When you hit render (after giving the breps a material) you can see this:

Just like in rhino the nurbs (breps) are being meshed prior to rendering. When this finishes you get a clean render like this, without having to mesh any object manually!:





Probabely there will be options in the PT to convert the brep in max to an editable mesh, but this is not the main purpose of PT. I don't have any experience on this but you certainly don't need to put a smooth modifier on a brep because it looks already smooth enough and you can adjsut the mesh settings in the brep objects parameters.

Hope this helps you!

flipside

(ps don't forget to give the breps a material because usually the default mat is pure black, so if you render with a black bg it will look as if there's nothing there...)
(ps2: there are helpfiles that come even with the demo which are quite helpull imo)