Loading Xfrog OBJ's into T3

Started by Erwin0265, November 03, 2014, 07:35:41 PM

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Erwin0265

OK, I'll check it out (I'm on PC)..........
Funny thing is when I went to convert another of the 9 Xfrog models I wanted to possibly use; the model imported at a tiny scale, on its side and minus all textures!
Now I have to work out what I did before because this was one of the reasons I went to the C4D Riptide route in the first place.
Perhaps I converted one of the already converted (ie. via the C4D-Riptide route) and so all I ended up doing in PoseRay was flip the normals (which is all that was needed to solve the black preview issue)...............
Oh well; at least I'm learning new stuff with all these issues............. ;)

BTW; how can you make the measuring tool work reliably?
I know; strange question, but in trying to determine the difference in scale for the 2 different PoseRay outputs, I thought to just use the measuring tool, lock the Y axis and measure away - but then I end up having trees that are 3 km tall because of the Z axis (ruler is behind the plant or starts off in front - ends up behind, yada, yada).
As you can't lock 2 axes at the same time; how do you prevent the parallax error?
OK, who farted?

Erwin0265

Here's just a few screencaps to illustrate my issue.
I can see why my measurements are wrong; I just can't work out how to fix it............
OK, who farted?

j meyer

You could try with an object with known size like TG's sphere.
Put it right next to your tree and scale away.You can even scale the sphere to
the desired height first and then your tree according to that.

Erwin0265

True; thanks for the suggestion, but surely there is a way to get the measuring tool to measure accurately?
I played with it a bit more and found that even though I locked it to Y (which means it SHOULD only be able to measure up/down), it could still move sideways (X) and in/out (Z); isn't doesn't that mean it's not working properly?
I know I had it working properly before but now it's a totally useless feature.....................
I think I have a tgd somewhere that allows for accurate measuring using props made in another app (downloaded from file sharing).
I'll use that for now.
Anyone use the measuring tool successfully and can give me some pointers, plmk.............
OK, who farted?

Erwin0265

Oshyan,
I have completed the Xfrog to C4D/Riptide to Terragen tutorial (and converted to pdf via doPDF - saving to PDF in Word made the images virtually useless - none of the text in the images was readable).
I also wrote a simple Xfrog obj format to PoseRay to Terragen workflow (no screencaps but it's pretty simple - even I managed to work it out).
But I need a bit of guidance as to how to add it to the wiki as I can't find any location for this.
I'm happy to upload to you (with an intro included), so you can proofread it also and upload to the wiki if it's worthy and useful to others.
PLMK.
OK, who farted?

Oshyan

Sorry for the delay, I'll be in touch with you soon about how to post it.

Thanks,

Oshyan

Erwin0265

That's OK.
My graphics PC is currently in the shop as I was unable to solve a BSOD issue when rendering a scene in Terragen (I imagine it'd be the same with any other software also when using the CPU to 100%).
The tutes are on that PC so there's no hurry; it could be a week (or more if it ends up being a hardware issue related to any of the new components I got 5 months back) or so (Wahhh; I miss my 'puter.....).......... :(
OK, who farted?

Oshyan

Ouch, sorry to hear that! I hope it comes back in good shape ASAP. :)

- Oshyan

j meyer

#38
Recently ran into something similar - the preview showing black or in my case dark gray in
smooth shaded mode -,but didn't pay too much attention at first.Two days ago I had that
again and remembered this thread and started to investigate,because in my case it could
not be inverted normals.My object had no normals at all.And that's what's causing the effect
apparently.Inverted normals don't.(see image)
I already knew ZBrush doesn't export normals (that's where my object was from),now it seems
that Cinema4d doesn't export normals,too,at least without that plugin.
Would be interesting to know what app Ulco had those problems with as he was the one
who mentioned the 'flipped' normals first in this thread.
You can see,if your object has normals or not by rendering it.Without normals it should
render as facetted,because the normal smoothing won't work.Another way would be to
look at the obj file in a text editor.
Sorry for being late.

Edit:The image shows how it is displayed in the preview window.

jaf

I know with Lightwave (at least version 9.6) it's easy to build geometry that are non-planar or have poly's "flipped."

The three images below ........  the first (lw.jpg) is two 1m cubes built in Lightwave.  The cube on the right has one face "flipped".  The second (tg_135.jpg) shows the two cubes from Lightwave on the left and those same cubes processed and saved from Poseray (only "Recalculated Normals" and the save) rendered with sunlight from 135 degrees.  The third (tg_235.jpg) just has the sunlight from 235.  And the fourth has the Lightwave cubes swapped with the Poseray versions -- Poseray on the left.
(04Dec20) Ryzen 1800x, 970 EVO 1TB M.2 SSD, Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4 3200 Mem,  EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Graphics 457.51 (04Dec20), Win 10 Pro x64, Terragen Pro 4.5.43 Frontier, BenchMark 0:10:02

Dune

Indeed, it was LW in my case also. But TG can now deal with flipped normals, as before the objects turned dark and light effects were kind of inverted. But, indeed again, you need normals for smoothing.

j meyer

jaf - It was about the shading in the preview not in renders.Just in case you missed it.

Dune - I know about the flipped (inverted) normal effects and that TG renders it now.
          It's missing normals and how that is displayed in the preview.
          If I'm not mistaken,that is.

j meyer

To illustrate the difference between flipped faces and flipped normals.
The first pic shows flipped faces.Although the selectable side (and the normals)
points inwards you can still see the outer side.
[attach=1]
This next pic shows inverted normals.The flipped normals point inwards,but
you can't see the outer side anymore.This leads to the effect that can be seen
when you rotate such an object.Similar to looking inside a hollow negative mould.
[attach=2]
I know it's confusing. ;)

Dune

Thanks Jochen. I always thought (though I never really thought about it) that the normals pointed up from the positive face side, but now that you mention it, I've encountered the difference when working in Poseray.

j meyer

Recently downloaded a free model that turned out to have no normals.
To my surprise it's texture was visible in TG's preview.
So I started testing again and here are the results.
[attach=1]
Seems to be there always,just a bit darker (no normals) and/or with wrong lighting (flipped).
For the above tests the diffuse color was set to 1 and the sun to 240° instead of the default
300°.
Maybe the effect Erwin and Ulco saw could be caused by too low a diffuse color (and a dark bark
texture) and light from behind?
Would be nice if someone could check that out with one of the problematic models.