3D Short, Hiring an Artist, Industry Stnd: Edgeloops

[werdj]

I am working on a short and require the help of an experienced 3D artist.

I want to use Blender to further advance its popularity, if possible, as a result of my short and work.

The 3D artist I am interviewing is recommending 3D Studio Max and his explanation is below.

Can the Blender community validate this or tell me if this true BUT here’s how to convert from max to blender in order to maintain what he is referring to… OR is this true and there currently is no way to convert all his work over to blender seamlessly?

Explanation:

“I did my work in 3ds Max so i can send you max file if needed. If i convert to .obj or .3ds file format for blender, you wont be able to see edgeloops as industry standards demands for proper char development.”

[cire792]

I’ve had no problems exporting blender files to 3ds, except normals being flipped.
But 3ds file’s on the internet that I’ve tried to import to blender are messed up.
I don’t know if theres an improved script or if it was just the model I found.
I wouldn’t know about converting it to .obj before importing to blender.
but I think it is the most compatible.

[Vertex_Pusher]

“I did my work in 3ds Max so i can send you max file if needed. If i convert to .obj or .3ds file format for blender, you wont be able to see edgeloops as industry standards demands for proper char development.”

I would have to seriously doubt the experience of someone who makes a silly statement like that . Either this guy has lead a very sheltered life or isn’t much of a 3D artist if he thinks exporting geometry to another format/application will somehow “hide” his “industry standard” edgeloops …

Geometry is geometry, if he put proper edgeloops on the models they will show up in Blender just like it does in Max . The only thing that might be an issue is if he uses a bunch of N-gons and leaves them in in the final model (which he shouldn’t do for character/organic models) .

I’ve been importing/exporting via the .OBJ format between Blender and Wings3D with absolutely no problems .

[ralusek]

if he exports them as .obj’s it is 100% fine. all his edge loops will be there. (edge loops are no different than any other geometry, it’s just a pattern you do it in)

the only problems that i’ve ever encountered importing .obj’s can all be easily fixed:

1: Separated Polygons: select the object in Object Mode, go to Edit Mode. Push A to select all vertices, push W and select “remove doubles.” You can do this even if the polygons aren’t separated, just in case. there is no consequence for doing it unnecessarily.

2: Some Reversed Normals: select the object in Object Mode, go to Edit Mode. Push A to select all vertices, push Ctrl+N to recalculate normals outside. Again, there is no consequence to doing this even if they were already correct, so i recommend doing this as well.

that’s pretty much it, 90% of the time neither of those will be necessary. if you do have any problems on the import though, it’s likely one of those two

[Platypus_Green]

He could mean that he has used turbosmooth or some other modifier, and when he will export to obj it will collapse the stack and be the high poly smoothed version and not the cleaner lower complexity version; making rigging or such really difficult.

The way that 3dsmax turbosmooth modifier works is a little different than the blender subsurf modifier, so even if he was to remove the turbosmooth from the stack before exporting the results in blender may turn out different. Due to the weighting control and smoothing groups you can use to contorl how the turbosmooth modifier smooths things in 3dsmax.

Here is an example of a 3dsmax mesh that I would not be able to import into blender (At east i do not know of a method to do so) without exporting the smoothed high poly version or heavily editing the mesh itself to work with the blender subsurf modifier.

But this is only a guess as to what he is talking about.