VrayEdgesTex not working for me

[Streetwise]

I'm working on a piece of furniture where I'm trying to get a nice soft edge to the various edges. I'm trying to use EdgesTex in the bump map but nothing is happening. I've tried everything from .01cm to 100cm and nothing, including ticking the hidden lines check box.

The original geometry was provided as a STEP file and each part came in as a BodyObject. From there, I converted everything to Poly and added UVW. Someone mentioned something about baking materials, but I'm not familiar with that. I've attached a sample of what I have so far, plus a reference photo that shows nice rounded edges. Does anyone know if EdgesTex might work on BodyObjects?

Thanks!

[vlado]

It may be that the edges of the geometry are disconnected; try welding the vertices with some very small threshold and see if it helps.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Streetwise]

Is that a modifier? Not sure how to do that. Sorry...

It may be that the edges of the geometry are disconnected; try welding the vertices with some very small threshold and see if it helps.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Morne]

Select your poly object and go into vertex mode (while the object is selected, press 1 on the keyboard, this will go into vertex mode) Press ctrl A to select all vertices or just select them with the mouse
then on the right scroll down a bit (depending on the resolution of your screen) and look for something that says "weld"
If your object is a mesh, it will have a value next to weld, make that value very small and click weld
If your object is a poly, when you click on weld it will bring up a little window where you can type the value

Basically what Vlado was saying is that perhaps the faces of the desk are not attached to each other. You can test by CLICKING a vertex on a corner and moving it. If the whole corner moves, then its welded. If only 1 vertex move but other stay behind on that corner, it means its NOT welded.

[Streetwise]

Thanks Morne, Would that be to say to weld each individual panel that makes up the desk, separately (side panel, modesty panel, bow top, etc), or do you mean to select all vertices for the entire desk and weld those?

[Pixelcon]

You should be able to do it all at once. Just make sure you put in a small enough weld threshold/distance to make sure you're not inadvertently welding any small details or chamfering you may have done.

Thanks Morne, Would that be to say to weld each individual panel that makes up the desk, separately (side panel, modesty panel, bow top, etc), or do you mean to select all vertices for the entire desk and weld those?

[Streetwise]

Okay, so if I select several objects, the ability to select all of the vertices goes away in the modifier stack. But if I select just one object (left front panel in this case), then I can select the vertices with no problem. So I guess I need to convert one object at a time then? Having said that, I chose just the left front panel, selected the vertices and hit "Selected" under "Weld". I set the threshold down to .001 and 1 pixel. But when I render it out, there's a very odd reflection going on. I've also tried this with the "Vertex Weld" modifier with essentially the same results. I have not tried the "Welder" modifier.

On the original geometry, the panel faces are not welded together. I can grab a vertex on the corner and move it and the other side stays put. So I guess I'm confused as to what I'm supposed to be selecting and what constitutes a "very small value" for the threshold.

Thanks for the help. I've attached the geometry for the desk.


Desk.max.zip

[Streetwise]

I think I figured it out... I started with a fresh new model and if I select vertices and click "weld", it seems to give the result that I would expect. I have no idea why "weld" is in a different location in the modifier panel though.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

I think I figured it out... I started with a fresh new model and if I select vertices and click "weld", it seems to give the result that I would expect. I have no idea why "weld" is in a different location in the modifier panel though.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20570[/ATTACH]

You are using different type of geometry - Mesh vs Poly, they look very similar but they offer different type of functionality.

[kosso_olli]

There you go. You can take a look at the attached max file to see how it was done. By default, the VrayEdgeTex doesn't work on imported geometry from software like Autocad, Solidworks, Catia etc. The reason for this are the open edges. To check if there are any open edges in your geometry, go into the Edge mode of your Editable Mesh and click "select open edges". Everything that becomes red now is an open edge. To fix it, you can apply the ProOptimizer modifier. Take a look at it's settings from the max file. Now the VrayEdgeTex should work.

Desk.zip

[dlparisi]

There you go. You can take a look at the attached max file to see how it was done. By default, the VrayEdgeTex doesn't work on imported geometry from software like Autocad, Solidworks, Catia etc.

Just an FYI, I use it daily on imported AutoCAD solids. Works just fine even without "Weld adjacent faces" checked.

[Morne]

Just an FYI, I use it daily on imported AutoCAD solids. Works just fine even without "Weld adjacent faces" checked.

Jip
+1 on this one. Never had any issues with this. Also never had issues with flipped faces from autocad imports. Guess it depends on how the stuff was modeled

[Streetwise]

Hey thanks Kosso! That's great information. Yes, the STEP files that my client has were created in AutoCAD as far as I know. So that's probably the issue. With your example, I have a question:

1) You applied a ProOptimizer modifier to the camera and disabling that, disables the rounded effect. Why does the camera need a modifier?
2) Using this approach means that I don't need to worry about "welding" stuff together as others have suggested?

Dave


Dave

[kosso_olli]

Oh, the ProOptimizer on the camera is a mistake made my me. I think I selected all objects in the scene and applied the ProOptimizer to all of them. And this also answers your second question: Because the modifier is instanced to all other objects in the scene, disabling it on the camera also disables it on all the geometry where it is needed. You need to just delete the ProOptimizer from the camera's modifier stack. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Also, with that modifier you do not need to weld any vertices. The other guys are right, though. There are cases where this procedure is not needed. But that depends on where and how that stuff was modeled, which exporter was used and so on. And because I get a lot of my data from all kinds of sources (Catia, Solidworks, ProEngineer etc., I never know...), I always use that method as it is kind of bulletproof and has worked on anything I throw at it so far.

[Streetwise]

I noticed that the stack order seems to affect ProOptimizer's behavior too? It looks like UVW Map needs to always be above it? Also, it took me awhile to realize that I needed to click on "calculate" in order to get it to work :0) Now that I know how it's done, things are looking a lot more believable. Thanks again!