Help! Create Polygon Tool?

# 1 01-09-2004 , 03:40 AM

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Hi there, I have been using maya for a little while now but have only just started using the "create polygon tool" and am having some problems..

First off I used an image plane in the top view to create my outline for the dragon.

Next i went to face view in perspective and noticed the point for the face was outside the outline - see first image???

so i just clicked the point and extruded the face...see second image. this is pretty much how i want my finished object to look.

Lastly i exported it as .obj and then imported it into another 3d prog "poser5" and the third image shows the result!??
obviously it only seems to show the outline.

Can someone please help me with this problem or point me in the direction of a good tutorial?

All help vastly appreciated!

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# 2 01-09-2004 , 03:58 AM

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Make sure the normals are all facing outward.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 3 01-09-2004 , 04:07 AM

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Im sorry im not sure exactly what you mean here is an image of the normals - when or how do i manipulate the normals please any more help appreciated

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# 4 01-09-2004 , 04:10 AM

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what you have seems right. Perhaps try triangulating and then quadrangulating the model first to give the center faces some stability before exporting.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 5 01-09-2004 , 04:28 AM

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No unfortunately it still doesnt work...

poser just doesnt even seem to recognise the origional face i created with create polygon tool - only the the extruded edges?

are there other things i can try or maybe im not entering something into the settings of the "create polgon tool" that im supposed to?

is it normal for the face point to not actually be on the face of silhouette that i created?

once i have the outline what steps should i take exactly to finish up with an object that looks like image 2 in my first message in this thread?

Anyone?

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# 6 01-09-2004 , 04:58 AM

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I can only assume it's having difficulty because of the complexity of the single faces on the top and bottom. Why do you want to import it into Poser anyway? That's not exactly the most robust program.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 7 02-09-2004 , 05:19 AM

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actually i need to use poser5 for a comp where you have to use+render with poser5 - and i just want to create some objects for the scene im creating.

there must be a way around my problem if maya is truly robust.

do you think i could use booleans to thicken the face which is not being rec ognised in poser?

is there a way to move the point of the face onto the actual face - maybe then it will be recognised.

The create polygon tool is such an excellent tool it seems to be a shame that its work isnt recognised universally as polygons???

anymore help appreciated....

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# 8 02-09-2004 , 12:05 PM

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I would think the problem must lie in Poser's importing rather than Maya. I've not managed to duplicate the problem by importing into Max for example..

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 9 03-09-2004 , 05:21 AM

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Please forgive my ignorance mtmckinley,

When you first mentioned triangulating and quadrangulating...I only tried quadrangulating which didnt work.

So after triangulating the object and then reducing the polygons, I came up with this..(see attached image)

although for some reason the triangulation shows up on the object once imported into poser, instead of a flat surface???

is there a way arounnd this (i have tried smoothing polygons also to no avail)?????

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# 10 03-09-2004 , 11:59 AM

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Because of the complexity of the surface, you'll probably need to adjust some of the edges so that they aren't overlapping or anything.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 11 03-10-2004 , 08:50 AM

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Quickfix76;

If you want you could always post the scene file and I can try to prepare it for you to be used in Poser.

What you have here as a problem is a hole issue actually. Poser recognises triangles and quads. but rarely bothers to convert an n-sided polygon to a suitable one...

In your case you have a serious N-sided.

If you just go to Polygons/quadrangulate you will not get an extremed result. Because it will just see the surface as a hole and not a face that needs to quadrangulate. And you have already selected a face and extruded it, so your sides are all quades. For short no matter how many times you press quadrangulate it you are going to get the same darned result! It will be the exat same thing as you have exported earlier to poser.

Try this out; it will help you grasp what I am talking about a bit better:

Select the dragon face.. the one on at the top.. or at the bottom aswell.. don't know if you have it on both sides.
go to edit polygons/Subdivide or poke faces

Your going to notice that your object has gone literally bezerk! It has an edge running out of every corner to the center of the whole face.

This is sort of a bug, or naa better said a disadvantage of the polygon tool. and extruding a face from it. Soemtimes deleting the history actually helps. but not in most cases.

WHAT you can do is to just grab the split polygon tool and go in there and manually split the surface into decent proportions so you have less streched and bent regions.

Poser is actually importing the mesh correctly.. it is just not as capable to recognise what it has imported. One OTHER option is to try out polytrans if you could afford it. It is a really impressive software in conversions and has proven useful in situations such.

I hope this helps out. If nothing works just post it or send it to me. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fix if I am right.

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Help! Create Polygon Tool?

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