Help! Poser is eating a polygon

[Gadget Girl]

So I was working on some promo images for my Luna outfit, and I was making one in the back, and I found a tiny hole in my headband mesh that A shouldn't be there, and B looks awful once you render.

So I figured I would go into Maya, and idealy just move one vertex around (so I wouldn't have to redo my UVs) to close up the hole. The problem is, when I import the same OBJ file into Maya, there's no hole. Just to be sure I went into the face selection tool, and yep, there's a face right there I can select.

See, I have it selected.

I've tried reimporting the OBJ in Poser with both weld identical vertices on and off, because I've seen that make a difference but still the hole is there.

Any ideas on how I fix this? Or why it's happening?

 

[Glitterati3D]

That's because the polygon NEXT TO IT is 5 sided.

It looks like a simple repair........just clean up all the polys there into quads. Yes, you'll have to re-rig (if it's rigged) but you can use the existing one to rig from (Copy Joint Zones from).

 

[Gadget Girl]

Thanks. I was so obsessed looking at it, that I didn't notice that about the one next to it. Luckily it's not rigged, it's just a smart prop.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Thanks. I was so obsessed looking at it, that I didn't notice that about the one next to it. Luckily it's not rigged, it's just a smart prop.

Ahhh, very simple repair then.

 

[Pendraia]

Interesting...I've had polys disappear when porting stuff over but I don't think they were 5 sided. Next time it happens I will have to check.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Interesting...I've had polys disappear when porting stuff over but I don't think they were 5 sided. Next time it happens I will have to check.

It's almost always a malformed polygon if that happens - not necessarily 5 sided, but could be anything like manifold, tris, etc. Now that triangles are acceptable to both programs, it's typically going to be a "more than 4 sides" or manifold.

 

[Pendraia]

Aah...thanks for the info. DS must be more forgiving as items that I had working fine when I try to move them across to Poser have problems. I always wondered what was causing it.

 

[Gadget Girl]

Yeah, I've started to notice I have to be careful with MD, sometimes it starts making some pretty crazy meshes, at least when I'm working in quads. And then these oddly shaped quads become empty triangles in Poser. I've started playing around with tris in some cases if it's going to be dynamic, because the meshes tend to be more orderly, at least when really with very curvy things.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Aah...thanks for the info. DS must be more forgiving as items that I had working fine when I try to move them across to Poser have problems. I always wondered what was causing it.

This has been true since DS2 when I started working with it. DS will accept malformed polygons, Poser will not. That's been true since I started 3D.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Yeah, I've started to notice I have to be careful with MD, sometimes it starts making some pretty crazy meshes, at least when I'm working in quads. And then these oddly shaped quads become empty triangles in Poser. I've started playing around with tris in some cases if it's going to be dynamic, because the meshes tend to be more orderly, at least when really with very curvy things.

I had a shirt for M4 once where 2 polygons literally collapsed - concave polygons. Sometimes, sh*t happens.

 

[Ken1171]

Yeah, I've started to notice I have to be careful with MD, sometimes it starts making some pretty crazy meshes, at least when I'm working in quads. And then these oddly shaped quads become empty triangles in Poser. I've started playing around with tris in some cases if it's going to be dynamic, because the meshes tend to be more orderly, at least when really with very curvy things.

I love MD, but I have said multiple times in the forums that the meshes it creates can be quite a mess. There were many cases when I've loaded OBJs exported from MD, and 3DSMAX gave a message claiming "Rats nest detected". No, I am not kidding you! MD can create quad meshes, but the quality can be quite bad. I have found that out the hard way, by trying to rig those meshes, and it was basically a disaster. The way to deal with that has been to always retopologize everything in ZBrush, and only then I can get things rigged. A side effect is that retopo also requires recreating the UV layouts, and that can be a challenge after a mesh retopo, because it doesn't tend to preserve the outer borders.

Unless you are only creating dynamic clothing, MD can be both a bless and a curse. LOL

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I love MD too. It creates such lovely UIs (and clothing) ... so easily. How can one not love it!

But ... attempting to get quad meshes out of MD or out of ZBrush is just entirely too frustrating.

I upgraded to MD4 ... thinking yay! Finally! Quads. Only to be terribly disappointed in the results. They also changed a few things (pins!) so they are more difficult to use now than they were in MD2. So, I've relegated MD to the "not so very useful" tool list.


I had missing polys a couple weeks ago and couldn't figure out what was wrong. There were no holes in the mesh in Silo, but most certainly were in Poser. I just happened to notice there was a 5 sided poly next to where the hole was in Poser. So I fixed that area so the 5 sided poly was no more ... and lo and behold, no more hole in Poser.

Now I know why I had the hole and how I fixed it

 

[Ken1171]

There are many reasons why holes may show in Poser, to include duplicated faces, duplicated vertexes, unwelded edges, flipped faces, stray vertexes, and... manifold polys. Poser is very picky about mesh quality, and perhaps that's a good thing. While DS is more lenient about bad geometry, artifacts may show up when the clothing is posed or rendered, so it would be better if it had detected it from the beginning.

 

[Gadget Girl]

I love MD, but I have said multiple times in the forums that the meshes it creates can be quite a mess. There were many cases when I've loaded OBJs exported from MD, and 3DSMAX gave a message claiming "Rats nest detected". No, I am not kidding you! MD can create quad meshes, but the quality can be quite bad.

Yes, MD needs a 'rethink about this mess button'. I've actually tried a couple things to see if I could get it to 'refresh' the mesh but they haven't worked. I think maybe when it comes to quads it has a sort of memory, so the more you adjust and push and pull the mesh the crazier it becomes. The next time I create something from scratch, I think I'm going to start out with tris, until I'm ready to export out and then convert to quads to see what I get. I have this theory because I don't tend to see issues with quads on the pants I've made, but they tend to have less adjusting in them then the tops.

 

[Miss B]

I never upgraded from MD3, and had wished it had converting to quads available. I didn't realize you can actually work in quads with MD4, as I thought converting to quads before exporting was going to be the only option.

I agree GG, that may get you better results. I've tried converting to quads in Blender, and even though it does have that option, it doesn't do a "clean" job on any of my MD3 outfits, so I have to go in and fix all the tris that didn't get converted, because in Blender it only works on "adjacent" tris. IOW, there has to be a common edge, and I have problems getting those common edges around a waistline seam. I get better results from a one-piece dress, but it still needs cleaning up.

 

[Ken1171]

For conforming outfits, the problem with MD is that we have no control over mesh topology, and there is no option for symmetry.

 

[Miss B]

I agree Ken, which is why I still stick to Blender and/or Silo. I'll keep the MD outfits for Dynamic clothing.

 

[Ken1171]

I think the solution is to simply retopo the outfit in ZBrush, which will also require redoing the UV mapping. I have tried this and it does the job for me. It appears that Poser doesn't like asymmetric models. It's a lot of work to rig.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Poser has no problem with asymmetric models - they're just a lot more work. But, Poser itself deals with them just fine. Dusk is not nearly symmetrical - his right and left collars and feet aren't even close.

 

[Ken1171]

Yes, that's what I meant by "doesn't like asymmetry", it's just more work to rig and morph. Thanks for clarifying. ^^