Exporting to Max for Morphs Issues.

asymptote

This is slowly driving me insane,

When I export GF3 obj using the default 3ds Max preset, it comes in Max back to front, the "Y" axis is reversed, instead of seeing the front of the model I'm seeing her behind.
Not only does the model come in the wrong way round but the normals are also flipped, when I check "Flip Normals" in Max's obj import options it still comes in with flipped normals and what looks like broken smoothing.

So then I export from DS again, this time with "Invert Positive Direction" on the "Y" axis, now when I import to Max all is as it should be, the model is facing the right direction and the normals are fine.

I export back out of Max and go to load in the morph with Morph Loader Pro, but when I apply the morph the model is warped and reversed on the Y axis.

In Morph Loader Pro checking invert positive direction on ANY axis has no efffect at all, the morph still warps and flips.

So I go back to DS, export again with the default 3ds max preset, I edit the mesh in Max, re-export, load up the morph in DS and this time the morph is mirrored, completely the opposite of what I just did in Max.

I try again, this time I flip the normals in Max before editing, but the same thing happens all morphs are mirrored.

Even when I import and export a morph making no edits at all, the mesh still moves on the base of the hands and the lower back when I scrub the morph.

I've tried in Max 2014, 2016, and 2017 all with the same result, I also tried with GF2, same thing.

I tried this a few years ago and never had these issues, has something drastically changed in the process?

Is the required process documented anywhere ?

Why do zBrush users have it so easy ?

Richard Haseltine

Normals are a polygon property and have no bearing, other than visibility, on morph creation since morph creation cares only about vertices. What exactly are your import/export settings in DS and in Max? How are your scene axes and units set in Max (I'm not sure if axes can be configured, but make sure of that)?

asymptote

Here are my I/O settings, for Max, I have tried all conbinations of settings thses are my current ones, but as you say it's vertex info only so ne real need for most of them.

axes in Max can't be changed, only for editing local, world transforms etc.

I have no issues with scale either, scene units are set to meters for display and system.

Why is it coming in flipped on the Y axis ? This never happened a few versions back in DS.

Why no Goz style plugin/workflow for 3ds max ? Who develops that side of things ?

 

 

 

DS:

 

 

Richard Haseltine

I'm not sure that Max supports a GoZ style exchnage, but even if it does it would be fairly rare for people to use it in this community (ZBrush is pricey, but nowhere near 3DS pricey).

I'm not seeing any screaming issues with the settings, given that you have tried the invert axis option already.

asymptote

So DS don't develop workflow plugins for "Pricey" software, wouldn't it be easier to just say Max isn't supported for morph workflow ? It does supprt GoZ style exchange but Pixelogic stopped officialy supporting it a few years back.

I may look into this again when I get time, but from what I've discovered DS is at fault in how it loads the obj from max, it wouldn't be so bad if this software had up to date documentation I could refer to and a support system that actually responds.

What staggers me is this software isn't capable of detecting the correct axis on the incoming obj, or at the very least giving you a "Preview" option so you could see what the incoming result would be, instead it provides a confusing, convoluted and undocumented morph import option.

Anyway my client has agreed to go with AXYZ models for this project, what a relief, I simply can't waste any more time with this at the moment, I've spent about 6 hours trying all configurations and non of them work.

 

asymptote

If it's any help, through all my trial and erroring,  "Invert Positive Direction" when importing obj doesn't work, which is why my morphs are warping to the axis they were brought in on.

Richard Haseltine

Having a Max GoZ plugin and a DS GoZ plug-in doesn't mean that you can use a similar bridge from DS to Max - GoZ is a specific way of communicating between ZBrush and another application, communicating with Max would require a whole new system and a whole new plug-in for DS - which I suspect, but can't say for certain, would be deemed not am effectgive use of limited resources.

There's nothing in the OBJ to say what axis (or scale) was sued - hence the need for different presets on the importer and exporter. It may well be that there is a bug here, and I would crtainly encourage you to open a support ticket (even if there is no bug, support may be able to help you resolve the issue). As far as I am aware Blender uses the same axis set-up as Max and people certainly use that for morph creation, so while I don't know of anyone who is creating morphs in Max I have no reason to think it can't be done.

asymptote

Yeah sorry for my impatience, it's not really constructive, I'll fire in another ticket.

Importing obj using the standard import has exactly the same results, "Invert Positive Direction" has no effect.

ForceX

I find if I have to do anything in 3D SMax, i will still export to Zbrush via GoZ, then export from Zbrush as an Obj. Import into max flip Y (I think). Set the object scale to 1000 after importing, do your work, set the object scale back to 100 & export as an obj, then import into daz as a morph, or load into Zbrush and send it back to daz as a morph.

jestmart

Don't use the app specific export setting, they are wrong for Blender so they may be wrong for others.  Use Custom 100% scale for both export and import in Studio and know how your 3D program handles import and export.  Never expect a machine or program to be smart.