Polyhell

# 1 28-02-2008 , 07:13 PM

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Join Date: Jun 2007

Posts: 2

Hi all,

I've been playing around with Maya on and off for about six months, mainly with trying to get modeling together before moving on. However, on anything but the most simple model, I always seem to get to the same dead end.

From the early tutorials I read, then the convert poly / subdiv / poly as you go seems to be the best way of working. However, I always seem to get to a point where the poly model looks fine, but it will not convert to a subdiv. I get the 'use cleanup with the non-manifold option' message. When I do this, the model will then show a border edge around each of the faces. If I then select them and merge the vertices the border edges disappear. If you try to convert to subdivs, you get 'use cleanup...'. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

The techniques that I am trying to fix the poly geo:

Merging vertices (individually and with all of the vertices selected)
Cleanup (with the non-manifold option set)
Hunting down incorrect normals (show normals, backface culling etc)
Conforming the normals and reversing where they are incorrect
Using 'show border edges' to find any unexpected edges (merging etc)
Removing any additional faces and 'orphaned' edges.

So my questions are:
1, Am I missing any techniques for finding problems in the poly geo?
2, Is there any way of getting more information out of Maya on where the problems are (e.g. is there something that MEL could tell me)?
3, Is there such a thing as 'unfixable' geometry? If so, how can I avoid getting myself into that position?

Finally, this problem tends to occur after I start extruding faces and using split polygon. I _think_ I'm always careful to ensure that I'm splitting quads into more quads and that the split are logical. Is there something that I could be doing wrong at this stage?

I know that this is a topic that has been covered a hundred times on all of the forums and the techniques that I have learnt have come from scouring those posts. However, I still can't get round this! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Ian

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# 2 28-02-2008 , 07:51 PM

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Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

When your extruding, make sure that youve got the keep faces together option on, thats a biggie for making non manifold geo.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 29-02-2008 , 10:15 AM

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Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: ONTARIO, CANADA

Posts: 3

Hello this is the "original hammer" to solve your delema I would have to recomend the free tutorial with the "franky" character this tutorial covers the method you are requesting.
The problem I think you are enduring is that you have to make sure you have no loose ends on your polygons that is they all have to be 4 sided for example and no lines or faces in between but as I had said watch the video anyway it has given me a great introduction to maya.
And thanks to the creator that was a very good tutorial.
ERIC B.

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# 4 01-03-2008 , 12:26 AM

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Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Posts: 3,708

when you use clean up, you can tell it to just select the problem areas without fixing them - just look at the option at the top. you should also have a play with the other clean up options. If maya's telling you to use clean up then that should solve the problem - it sounds like you're just not using the right options. open up the script editor to see if it has any other suggestions.

arran3D

arran3D blog

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# 5 01-03-2008 , 03:25 AM

Senior Software Developer
Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: Livingston, Scotland

Posts: 1,701

unlucky my friend...

Steve is right on one count and keep faces together MUST be ticked before extruding anything.

The other issue, and I have had this one personally, is you have faces on top of one another and all occuping the same space, this is caused by extruding incorrectly or not having keep faces together ticked.

The Clean Up action will not resolve it, it never will for this issue, so I must be the barer of bad news and say go back to on older version (get into the habbit of saving diff versions as u go), or start over again. No Tool will fix it and to test if you have the issue, select a face and delete, there will be another under it and so on until u get no faces left.

As I said Clean-Up will not fix it, I think this maybe due to merged verts, but multiple faces on the 4 vertices.

Sorry...

Chris (formerly R@nSiD)
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# 6 06-03-2008 , 01:50 PM

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Join Date: Jun 2007

Posts: 2

I think I got it!

After spending the last few days working through the Franky tutorial (thanks for the pointer Eric!), it's the 'delete by type -> history' that I seem to have been missing out.

As long as that's been performed before the first polygon to subdiv conversion (and subsequently if there's some major poly re-work being done), then it seems that you can convert it back and forth with no surprises.

Thanks, everyone for your help!

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Polyhell

I think I got it!

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