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Wow, surface settings!


Gerry

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Trying to help a coworker struggling with getting transparency in 3DS. He saved out a model as an .obj, I brought it into v.16 and when I dropped it into a chor, I had live surface settings to mess with. this is pretty huge, don't know if this has been in there for awhile but it's great.

 

Oddly, they're available only on the chor shortcut, not on the model itself.

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  • 1 month later...
SO GERRY- Typically, you could only set 1 surface setting to the entire imported OBJ, right? Now you are saying that all the groups made in Max are individually controllable in the Chor of A:M?

Hey, I'm just seeing this now so sorry for the delay. I'll check this at some point today or tomorrow and let you know.

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I just did a *very* quick-and-dirty test with a simple model with two groups. If you create groups in 3DS with different material settings, they come into A:M with the groups called "Surface 1" and "Surface 2". I didn't get fancy, I only applied ambient colors, but they came in more-or-less intact, e.g., one group came in completely transparent, but I just reset the transparency in surface settings from zero back to 100.

 

In messing around in 3DS I also applied a "weld" modifier and that's had some unexpected results in A:M but I'm not 100% sure what the "weld" modifier is so I can't offer any more info.

 

Also as I mentioned above, these settings appear to only be in the instance placed in the chor, not in the model itself; kind of strange actually.

 

Bears more testing, but this is all very promising I think.

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So 123DCatch: I took some pictures of this R2D2 toy on my desk.

 

Very interesting... yes- I will be interested to see R2D2 in A:M. How many photos did you take of the model. Looks like there was confusion down amidst his legs. How long did it take until 123D sent you back the model? Will there be problems in A:M due to the triangular polys?

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Also as I mentioned above, these settings appear to only be in the instance placed in the chor, not in the model itself; kind of strange actually.

 

If the OBJ was imported as a "Prop" I suspect the reason is that you can not resave a Prop from A:M to preserve such edits, so having the settings appear in the Chor, which can be saved, allows some saving.

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So 123DCatch: I took some pictures of this R2D2 toy on my desk.

 

Very interesting... yes- I will be interested to see R2D2 in A:M. How many photos did you take of the model. Looks like there was confusion down amidst his legs. How long did it take until 123D sent you back the model? Will there be problems in A:M due to the triangular polys?

 

The model computes on the cloud, and you can just wait for it to load. It took a couple of minutes. I had about 30 photos--be sure to follow the tutorial, you have to pick points in some photos to help 123D recognize the features. It did have a few trouble areas, where I didn't get a lot of pictures. Export as OBJ and load into A:M as Prop.

 

I downloaded for work to simplify making models of some of the products that go on our displays (lots of grocery and snackfood packages)... But I'm interested in possibly photographing locations, or miniatures, and using that in A:M!

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I downloaded for work to simplify making models of some of the products that go on our displays (lots of grocery and snackfood packages)... But I'm interested in possibly photographing locations, or miniatures, and using that in A:M!

 

This 123D, combined with the new retopo-tool, could be a great way to do people(heads) as well- IF they are able to hold ABSOLUTELY still while being photographed. The steps would(could) entail:

 

-photographing from 50 various angles your subject while holding still.

-Uploading photos to 123D and getting back an obj

-Using the obj file as a 'base' for using the retopo tool, to remodel.

-REassign the UV maps from the obj to the .mdl

-You could then use the distortion-mode feature to 'lampoon' the model into a cartoon-ified variation.

 

I see possibilities. Note to self... quit doing corporate marathon sessions and free-up some time to experiment! I also see this as a possible 'real-estate' tool... imagine as you browse for houses when you house-shop... if some houses had a spinning 3D view of the home so you could grasp it's configuration.

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This 123D, combined with the new retopo-tool, could be a great way to do people(heads) as well- IF they are able to hold ABSOLUTELY still while being photographed.
Or if you had a bank of however many cameras arranged in a circle around the person that would all take a photo at the same time.
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  • 2 months later...

Here is a test in V17, using an .obj from Sculptris as a landscape, the .obj of R2D2 from 123DCatch, the Knight .mdl from the hash Library.

Ambient occlusion is ON--I was happy to see that it worked with the different objects and the model!

the landscape material was Bitmap Plus, applied to the imported PROP.

 

Looks like I could have a lot of flexibility in building sets for TAR of Zandoria! --including building miniatures and capturing them with 123DCatch to use in A:M :)

V17_test01.jpg

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Here is a test in V17, using an .obj from Sculptris as a landscape, the .obj of R2D2 from 123DCatch, the Knight .mdl from the hash Library.

Ambient occlusion is ON--I was happy to see that it worked with the different objects and the model!

the landscape material was Bitmap Plus, applied to the imported PROP.

 

Looks like I could have a lot of flexibility in building sets for TAR of Zandoria! --including building miniatures and capturing them with 123DCatch to use in A:M :)

 

Fantastic, Will!

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