Seam weirdness .3ds format

[jujubee]

I got a lemon- modeled from a sphere primitive. But I want to export it to .3ds format so many different applications can use it. The only thing is that when I go to reimport the model, I get strange seams on one side of it. I tried adding a meshsmooth to the 3ds model but it doesnt get any better. Any ideas on how to fix it?

Also, does anyone know of a better format to export a model to so that just about anyone running any application can use it 'off the shelf?' I thought 3ds was probably the most versatile.

-juju

[Psy]

dxf?

[trixian]

Weld the vertices along the seam?

[3dform]

A good format for many application is fbx, anyhow like obj it has some problems with Smoothing groups.
For non animation application i would take dwg or vrml.

regards,

robert

[J_Bug]

Did you use a NURBS sphere to start the model?

--Jon

[jujubee]

no nurbs- was just a simple sphere (32 segments) with ffd and some minor extrusions/beveling converted to a mesh. I exported to .3ds and was getting triangulation on one side (the seam). I tried meshsmoothing and then reexporting- helped a little but you could still see the triangulation. But I really didn't want to add to the polycount.

psy- dxf- does this preserve materials? I do see that it is a widely accepted format. I got my free "Bold Look of Kohler" models CD from their website- all the formats were DXF/DWG but I end up having to tweak (flip polys) on 99.9% of all their models. I was kind of put off by this but I guess it beats remodeling. What are the pros and cons of these two formats?

trixian- I thought they were already welded.

3dform- fbx- never even heard of it. same question, does it preserve materials and will other graphics apps import this format? I want to make it as simple as possible for the end user without having to rewrap or flip polys around...


-jujubee

[J_Bug]

FBX is very good:

http://www.kaydara.com/products/fbx/index.php

Well since you started with a mesh primitive and not patches or NURBS then the seam must have come from your editing. You say that you did extrusions. In that case it may be that some of your polys are actually cutting through others. You should post a screen shot to clarify what you are seeing as a seam. Unwelded verts can create a technical seam but it sounds like your just describing seam from what you are seeing

--Jon

[jujubee]

Do you suppose at least 80% of all modelers/3d users) are aware of the fbx format? I never even knew it existed until you pointed it out. I just wonder if other people are on my wavelength here.

If so, I've got include some extra documentation for people so that they know where they can download the plugins from.

A second question is that I'm wondering if it is completely free...

[J_Bug]

It's a newer format than any of the others but I'm sure it's well accepted. It has so much more power than any of the others. I didn't hear of it until about six months ago but you could probably do a pole on this and other forums to see what the usage is.

--Jon

[jujubee]

I called turbosquid today- they said praises about .fbx although they had mentioned .3ds is still the most popular format they have. They went on to mention that .fbx really works well with animation. They said that they're getting more and more people every day using it though it's still pretty low in numbers- but they expect an increase over time. I'll have to give it a test run as it is free.

Here's a couple of images that I'm getting seam weirdness from when exported to .3ds format. This one has no extrusion/beveling applied- just FFD cylinder with control points shifted around. It's not the texture which is doing it as that's seamless- you can see some minor triangulation on the image on the right if you look closely enough:




-juju

[trixian]

I only mentioned welding since you said the meshsmooth modifier didn't fix the seam. The only things I know of that create seams like these are non-continious (in lack of a better word) edges, a.k.a broken vertices. One other, though highly unlikely cause, would be that the vertex normals have been skewed along the one side of the seam. Not sure if the normal adjustment modifier can fix that though.
I'm curious to see what you find out (if you do).

[Psy]

i knew about fbx, working with lots of other people on a international animation skit and we use it to transfer the formats from max to xsi to maya.

works really nicely.

about dxf, get deep exploration, it can flip the polies on any mesh thus fixing any mesh normal probs that you are having with just 2 clicks of the mouse.

[jujubee]

Trixian & psy- you were absolutely correct and I feel like an ass now. The seams were'nt welded. I thought primitives were automatically welded but come to find out they're not. I went into the 3ds file, welded and now the seams have disappeared.

-juju