General Category > General CG Discussion
Rhino to 3DSMax
louisryko:
I know this has probably been discussed to death for the past 10 years... BUT, I still cannot find a suitable answer or solution to the problem of importing a clean model to 3DSMax from Rhino.
My goal is to have surfaces imported so they are non-triangulated. I would also really like to be able to edit the imported models (specifically with chamfers) - something which I'm struggling to do.
I know plenty of people model in and import from Rhino... whats everyone's preferred method?
Many thanks!
EDIT... I should note: I'm only wanting to import simple geometry - for example: walls (straight 90 degree corners) which are solid/capped polysurfaces. Nothing fancy. I essentially want to import walls, then chamfer them in 3DSMax. Any 'complex' geometry will be imported and unedited, basically.
lupaz:
I always export as DWG
telemix:
SAT format is good for solid models.
SAT imported as "body object", is true solid model.
Apply edit mesh modifer, not edit poly. And do not convert to edit poly, it is kill all normals.
To get non-triangulated faces, you can use "Moi3d" for reexport.
pokoy:
--- Quote from: telemix on 2018-06-13, 02:22:38 ---SAT format is good for solid models.
SAT imported as "body object", is true solid model.
Apply edit mesh modifer, not edit poly. And do not convert to edit poly, it is kill all normals.
To get non-triangulated faces, you can use "Moi3d" for reexport.
--- End quote ---
Sorry but there's so much wrong information here it needs to be corrected.
Use STEP or IGES for Rhino.
If you're on Max 2014+, you can import both formats natively, they will come in as Body Objects. With Body Objects it's possible to change tesselation at any time since the original NURBS data is kept and tesselated only for viewport display or rendering (even renderers that render NURBS directly will tesselate them).
With Max 2017+ you can also import NURBS data with the ATF importer (Autodesk's own NURBS kernel) which will work better for some cases - however some drawbacks are that you won't be able to change tesselation afterwards and the resolution slider is the only parameter, so you have less control over how the data gets tesselated.
To use ATF, use 'convert to geometry' set to ON from the dropdown in the importer dialog. To use Body Objects, use OFF.
The limitation where normals were discarded upon converting to Editable Poly has been lifted a long time ago, there were many undocumented changes in the last few years and converting to E-mesh and E-Poly will retain surface normals now.
Chamfering or any other manipulation of NURBS in Max is not possible, Body Objects are very limited in what you can do with them, even Undo doesn't work reliably. If you change something, make sure to save first ;)
One note if you're using Corona for rendering. If Corona uses the shadow terminator fix (which is does by default) surface normals from NURBS will render with artifacts. To get rid of these, your only option is to disable the shadow terminator fix.
My personal adivce - there's no benefit in modeling the walls in Rhino, it'll probably cause you more headaches than needed if you aren't used to NURBS meshes in Max, they have their own quirks and you need to know how to solve them.
Unless there's something specific you need that you haven't mentioned.
louisryko:
--- Quote from: pokoy on 2018-06-13, 11:46:10 ---
Sorry but there's so much wrong information here it needs to be corrected.
Use STEP or IGES for Rhino.
My personal adivce - there's no benefit in modeling the walls in Rhino, it'll probably cause you more headaches than needed if you aren't used to NURBS meshes in Max, they have their own quirks and you need to know how to solve them.
Unless there's something specific you need that you haven't mentioned.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the thorough advice pokoy.
I'm using Max 2018.
This might be a fair bit of a departure from the original topic, but I'll go anyway: ....I'm new to 3DSMax, so excuse my ignorance. Do most people model in max? I'm a long-time Rhino user and - like most people with my experience in Rhino - absolutely hate modelling in 3DSMax. It's a complete pain. It's inaccurate, it's unfriendly. However, I do understand that this is an unpopular opinion.
I know companies such as The Boundary model the architecture in Sketch-Up, then import to Max. I totally get why - its easy, its accurate and many architectural companies use sketchup for their 3d needs. Similarly, as an architect - I was taught in Rhino. I consider myself a Rhino expert. So modelling in anything other than Rhino is basically out of the question for me. Additionally, as I work exclusively with architects, on REAL projects, I require accuracy. I receive most models in Rhino. So this is why I'm needing to import from Rhino to Max.
I find it totally strange that I can't cleanly and easily import to Max from Rhino. I want to build the basic architecture in Rhino, then edit it in Max (with corner chamfers etc, for added detail as an example).
Now that rant is over - I'll continue trying STEP and/or IGES as suggested... Though from 1 full days worth of experimentation, I can't say any process is preferred over another...
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