Really annoying object import problem... advice requested?

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1

Hi there everybody!

So the other day I was wandering around inside Turbosquid and (for a book cover project) picked up a nice looking object: a model of an item of the British Crown Jewels known as "the Sovereign's Sceptre" or "the Sceptre with Cross."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've done this often enough before that I wasn't expecting any serious problems. Download the .obj and .mtl, import the .obj into the scene in DS: or if necessary, run the .obj through 3DO, point it at the .mtl, export a new .obj, then import. ...However, this item is (mis)behaving in ways I haven't seen before, so I thought I'd ask the Group Mind if anything similar had been spotted before, and if so, WTF to do about it.

When I import the .obj file straightforwardly into Daz (from a desktop directory in which the .obj and .mtl files are both located), this is what I get:

...Okay, fine, this isn't something that's never happened before. (Please note also that I have more than enough metal/jewel/glass/etc. shaders to happily edit the object myself, but the Surface tab only shows me three editable regions: the bottom handle of the scepter, the two narrow raised bands around the main part of the handle, and one region containing everything else in a lump... which, from the item image above, makes zero sense).

So I ran the .obj through 3DO (telling it in the "Materials" tab where to look for the .mtl file), and got this:

As we say in those parts of the Net that skew younger, "...wut?"

...Fine. So I said to myself, "Okay, this object creator also has a .3ds and an .fbx file available: let's try converting those." ...So I imported into Daz (and then of necessity ran through 3DO as well) the .3ds file, and got this (and later .fbx results were similar):

 

...At this point "WUT" doesn't begin to cover it.

So I'd be glad of advice as to how to get this thing even to the point where (a) it's all in one piece and (b) all the materials areas can be edited in Daz. I'm not married to the original mats: the ones I have onsite may be better.)

Does anyone have any thoughts? ...Please and Thank You. :)

Best regards --

DD

Richard Haseltine

I'm not sure what the OBJ screen shots are shwoing, but you can use the Geometry Editor in DS to select polygons and assign them to new surfaces. I think Max breaks each surface group into its own mesh, though it doesn't explain their displacement.

lukon100

So yr saying you can get a import that either has all the parts alligned in place, or has the texture map correctly applied, but not both?

I've had tons of models import into both Daz and Blender with their parts scattered about like that. I think it means that the parts of the model have origen points at scattered coordinates. I have learned how to fix this in Blender. So now I always put a model I want to import into Daz, into Blender first to co-locate the origen points of all the model's parts. It's complicated, unfortunately.

Given that you have a collection of shaders that would satisfy you if only you could target your shaders to the right parts of the mesh, I suspect Richard's suggestion may be your best option.

 

SpottedKitty

Something that occurred to me since I've been playing in the Geometry Editor tool a lot recently — does the mesh have Face Groups corresponding to the gold, silver, various jewels etc., instead of the more usual different Surfaces? The "exploded" view of the .3ds version (which is unfortunately way too common) suggests it might. If so, then it should be possible to use the Geometry Editor tool to select those bits of mesh and create the new surfaces more quickly, cleanly and accurately than manually going clicky-clicky on the polys.

I just realised... a new cover? Will this be for a re-issue of On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service, or some new project...?

Catherine3678ab

An .obj file I downloaded once from somebody at DA would arrive in many pieces, or in a nice neat package -- depended upon which import setting to D/S was used. So maybe try the various options for .obj import?

Ask the creator of the piece for some help, at that price it should come with some support I would like to think. You would not be the only disappointed customer.

One can create more surfaces in D/S, and then save that as the prop. One can also create more surfaces using a modeler [Hexagon or whichever]. Might be interesting how Hexagon loads that file. Sometimes one ends up with many 'groups' and can then select all the groups, select all the faces and select New for new surfaces and suddenly have new surfaces for every group! Then rename all the groups 'the very same' and export out the .obj. Import it back into a fresh instance of Hexagon and it should be one unit with many surfaces [if this method will work for this obj]. Then export it out or send it over the bridge to D/S, polish off the surfaces [tends to arrive with an unwanted default surface], apply 'normal' shaders and save the prop. Then apply any fancy shaders and save out the mat files. Just some ideas ...

Zilvergrafix

If you got a white geometry just assign surfaces in DazStudio, I saw the product page and even it states materials and UV mapped does not use textures (and no need for IMHO), only shaders.

Catherine3678ab

Goes to show the value of people putting the link to the product they are talking about lol ... the one I found cost a lot more money!

eta: The one I found: Sovereigns Sceptre

This one has non-overlapping flattened uvmaps so if it loads in Hexagon, one could select each island and give it its own surface material.

diane.duane_e7fa2315d1

...So anyway: first of all I want to apologize for being so late in getting back to all the kind people who tried to help via responses upthread.

I spent quite a lot of time re-importing the object and attempting to massage it in varying formats. Finally I managed to get it into some kind of shape to be rendered: some of the fine detail was lost, but when I finally got some renders that were workable enough for the planned book cover, I put the issue aside for further experimentation some other time when I didn't have other imperatives breathing down my neck.

Here's what the pertinent part of the final render looked like, for those interested. (The full cover is over here.)

Thanks again, everybody! :)

--DD

WendyLuvsCatz

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/421816/fix-that-pesky-freebie-obj-with-only-one-material-for-everything#latest

Catherine3678ab

Looks lovely ... and all eyes are on the cat lol ...