Flat Surface is not Flat

gixerp

Hiya

I have had this problem a few times now.
I made an object in Blender and exported/saved it as a wavefront.obj and them imported into daz... usually with no problems,.. BUT now and then an object with a flat surface in Blender appears smoothed/wobbly when imported into Daz.

here is a simple example.. A Plug socket... (I have shown the edge loops etc)

All vertices on the front face are exactly in line and flat
All Surfaces are Flat.. In blender it is as it should be..
All Normals are correct
UVs are fine

Once in Daz it makes no difference if it has been textured, coloured or lights, No llights... it always looks kinda like its been smoothed or something, like as in the screenshot.
I have tried '...Remove smooth modifier' (even though it wasnt applied) and still nothing happens/

In Blender it looks as it should... but perhaps I'm building it wrong?

Thanks for your help

FirstBastion

select the object, go to the surfaces tab and lower the smoothing angle, or turn off smoothing.

gixerp

DOHHHHH... what a *%$~*&!#! IDIOT I am..

I just tried it and its perfect... for almost an hour I couldn't see the wood for the trees :)

Thanks for pointing out the obvious... tho I'm really angry at myself now for being so dumb now :)

Thanks

Pete

jestmart

It will look the same in Blender if you set it smooth shading which Studio does automatically.

StratDragon

you can do it from Blender as well.
select the edge in Blender
CTRL+E
select Mark Sharp
the selected edge will have a blue highlight.

now go the to modifiers tab (the wrench icon) and select Edge Split from the list

Leave default values and you should be fine.

When you export the model it will always be pre-set in Studio and anything else to be sharp, but if you join the shapes with something else just check to see if the Edge Spit modifier is still there.

StratDragon

just outlines the ENDS of any edge that need to be straight.

the Blender file is here for a reference if you want to see how looks

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=36267456925381069105

the pic on the bottom is the obj from the correct version directly imported into Studio with no modifications in Studio to give it clean edges.

Richard Haseltine

You could also convert to SubD, then use the Geometry Edit tool to select the edges and weight them - 1 would make them sharp, but a lower value would let you round them slightly which might look more natural without the penalty in polycount that a bevel imposes.

gixerp

Thank you all for the time and effort you have given... Much appreciated.

I have never had to deal with this particular issue before so have never even looked at any of these solutions before... Looks like there is more than one way to sort the issue out tho, so I will try them all in future ventures.

Thanks all again for you time and effort

StratDragon

I found the mark sharp method after I spent two days trying to make an office building that looked like a fudgecicle when I brought it into studio. The Blender forums are really good over at blender artist but many users have never heard of Studio.