How to clean up messy TinkerCAD mesh for use in Daz Studio.
lukon100
Posts: 818
I made an .obj model in TnkerCAD.
I imported it to Daz Studio.
The mesh has noticeable imperfections. What should be a single continuous face got broken up into many triangle faces that aren’t really co-planar, and show up in imaging.
How can this be fixed?
Here’s what I tried so far:
1. Add a level of sub-surface resolution to the model. I googled how to add a sub-surface to a model, and attempted to do it. But that option was grayed out for my model. Apparently, TinkerCAD models cannot get a sub-surface attribute in DAZ.
2. Clean up the mesh in Blender. Blender has mesh clean-up tools, but I don’t know which to use. And, more importantly, I don’t know which settings to use in Blender to both import and export my model so the results can be used in DAZ. There are so many check-boxes and so on in Blender’s import/export dialog windows, and I’m a nubie who doesn’t know what all those settings mean.
Perhaps also, Blender might be able to modify the model to give it whatever properties it needs to allow DAZ Studio to give it a sub-surface. But again, I don’t know how to do that.
Can anyone point me to a nice step-by-step tutorial on this issue?
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Comments
Just throwing a few random thoughts out:
You should be able to add sub-d to any object in DS once imported. I'm not at my computer right now so I can't check for sure where it is, but I believe it is under Edit > Object > Geometry > Convert to SubD or something like that. If that's greyed out for you though, I have no idea why - I've never run into that. Did you double check that you have your model selected in the scene tab?
The triangulation sounds like something in the export settings from your modeling program; I've never had DS triangulate faces on import before and I've been importing a lot of things modeled in Blender lately.
Looking at your screenshots I think it is a problem with the geometry around the round objects and holes. Can you maybe post a wireframe of the model in your modeler?
Boolean = garbage meshes with long and skinny tri poly everywhere.
That was kind of my thought too - that's why I asked to see what the mesh looks like in the source modeler. I suddenly can't see the original screenshots but it might not be too bad to clean up if that's the case. I know you can use booleans without too many issues with some planning, but it's not an art I've mastered myself - it's very hit or miss.
CAD programs also tend to create a lot of n-gons, polygons with more than four vertices. Triangulating the mesh will fix the n-gons but you will probably still have a messy mesh.
Yes. The model I made has long and skinny tri poly everywhere. TinkerCAD is a boolean modeler. And TinkerCAD is also so over-simplistic that it has no option to view just the wireframe/mesh. So I can't show you the wireframe. But I did manage to import it into Blender, which does have a wireframe view option. And yes, "garbage mesh".
Given this, I am requesting advice on how to fix it, or compensate for it, as per my original post.
It's impossible to answer "how to fix it" without seeing it. Since you have it in Blender, can you take a screenshot or two of the problem areas in edit mode and post them? You probably have to basically retopo parts (maybe all) of it but it's hard to give more specific advice blind.
Thanks for your continued help, MDO2010. I'll post those blender screen shots when I get time to do it and the computer isn't tied up with some other resource-heavy task.
Ok. Got images now.
I ran into problems. I deleted the .obj file that I orginally had no problem imorting into Blender. So I had to export an .obj file from TinkerCAD again. But this new replacement .obj export from TinkerCAD could not be properly imported into Blender. Something changed. I don't know what.
So I had to go back to TinkerCAD again and this time export the model as an .stl. This worked. Blender successfully imported that. So the images I have here are from that .stl version.
The first image shows the mesh as TinkerCAD made it. Lots if skinny trinagles. Yuck.
The second image shows that same mesh after I performed the limited dessolve mesh clean up function on it. Mmmmm. Nice.
But here's my problem: How do I export this nice cleaned-up mesh to DAZ Studio without losing my ability to color the piston head differently than the piston rod? They are separate meshes in the original TinkerCAD model. But I don't know if my export/import process merged them or not. I'm an ignorant nubie who does not know the proper settings to use when importing and exporting things from Blender. There are all these settings options that I don't understand. So I don't know what I'm gonna get when I transfer this to DAZ Studio.
Ya. I definately need help with the transfer from Blender to DAZ Studio.
I tried it and got messed up results, as shown in the images I include here.
The first image shows the wireframe view in DAZ Studio after I transfered it from Blender to DAZ Stusio. Looks good.
The second image shows the texture shaded view. It's all messed up. It fills in holes. DAZ Studio seems confused about where the faces really go among the verteces and edges.
Hi Lukon
It looks like you've gone a bit overboard with the 'cleaning' and you've turned the problematic but controlable triangles, into large complex shapes with unknown number of sides, these are called n-gons (where n stands for a big number!).
While an n-gon may work in the program that created it, there is no way to predict how another program will cope with that n-gon which is why modellers go to great lengths to avoid creating them. They stick to 3 and 4 sided polygons wherever possible. It's why TinkerCAD created the triangles in the first place, to avoid creating n-gons.
In studio you could try subdividing the object but it doesn't look like it was modelled with subdivision in mind so...
You think, you already clean up mesh, but if you render it with blender cycles, you may see some strange shadow effect in blender too.
it is common problem with boolean , without you clean up and keep clean poligon, about each boolean process.
And you may better not use B-mehses. (not triangle or quad poligons)
DS can not manage B-mesh at all. then if you import b-mesh, ds try to change as triangle. if you hope to use B-mesh, not render in daz studio.
That limited dessolve mesh on the right won't work in DS... The problem area around the holes and nubs isn't triangulated or turned into quads... So as pointed out before, it's face is just a giant N-gon...
3D Coat has the ability to sometimes turn a slightly wonky triangulated model into a quad mesh... But I can say from experience that mesh would blow it's mind.
The only thing I can think of is to remodel that surface where the problem is occurring.
The biggest problem I can see is the number of sides to each circle in the nubs and holes, you would either have to plan out the mesh there better or perhaps make those separate parts.
Thats easy with the nubs, not so much with the holes.
I could show an example if you are interested, but I'm not with my modeling computer at the moment.
I'm no expert, but I think I would try temporarily dissolving the big part of the face surrounding all those circular holes and domes, to see what remains. Your screenshot makes it look like either (a) DS is trying to stretch that one face everywhere, like taffy in a pulling machine, because it has too many vertices around its edges, or (b) there's more than one face there trying to share the same space, made up of various oddly shaped polys. If you remove that one face and everything else looks good, you know you need to cut up that face into smaller polys to fix the problem. If you remove that one face and find others laying under it with crosslinked vertices, you know you have to get rid of them first.
If cutting up the one face is an answer, you might surround each round part with an octogon and then make little quads that connect the inner "circle" faces to the octogons. Then your problem figuring out how to cut up the rest of the face becomes easier because you have way fewer vertices to worry about.