Maya OBJ Out, Normal Smoothing vs Facet

[enzyme]

This one is for Bazuka.

I noticed something interesting.

When I use the Maya Octane plugins to send out the OBJ for render, I noticed that the Smooth of normal became Facet. I tried this many times and do comparison.

Now, if I export out OBJ manually and enable all (including Smoothing), then I could get the expected result, whether I set the normal as Smooth or Facet in Maya.

Try this with a simple sphere or soccerball polygon mesh. Play around and see whether you can get Smooth as Smooth and Facet as Facet. I actually keep getting facet when exporting soccerball, no matter if I smooth the normal.

It's probably something that can be specified when exporting OBJ for render.

Thanks Bazuka, you legend!

- Jimmy

[bazuka]

thx enzyme

in help that i read about the workflow for exporting obj from maya, smoothing groups must be off,

so i set by default in script to be off, i could add some extra settings so u can change in GUI before u hit render button

cheers

[enzyme]

yes, that would be great.

thanks again bazuka!

- J

[enzyme]

Also, I found out another funny thing.

I exported scene from Maya to Octane using plugins. Then I got all these faceted mesh. I was thinking... hey maybe I keep the file setup, which has camera and light already set and the just reload the scene, but the OBJ scene that is exported out from Maya manually (already smoothed out). The funny thing is that the render result is still faceted.

But if I start fresh and reload the object manually, I am getting the smooth result. Unfortunately, the materials I am getting has changed.

So, I think at the moment, I found this inconsistency to be annoying somewhat.

- Jimmy

[jboris]

I am having a similar problem.
When I export from Maya and directly load the obj, I get some faceting in Octane. When I use the "render" or "render animation" buttons from the plugin, I get even worse faceting.

[bazuka]

i made an update so u can control the smoothing export, plz dl the latest ver of exporter...

[enzyme]

Cheers for this update Bazuka

The interesting thing is that the facet vs smooth per object seems to work now, regardless whether I checked the option for "Smoothing" or not. I am using Maya 2010.

I tested it with Poly Cube, which then Smoothed. I make one faceted while the other duplicate just as is.

The thing that different when "Smooth" is on, is the lighting in Octane.

Cheers,
- Jimmy

[bazuka]

ill check again just in case i missed something in coding

10x for info

Cheers for this update Bazuka

The interesting thing is that the facet vs smooth per object seems to work now, regardless whether I checked the option for "Smoothing" or not. I am using Maya 2010.

I tested it with Poly Cube, which then Smoothed. I make one faceted while the other duplicate just as is.

The thing that different when "Smooth" is on, is the lighting in Octane.

Cheers,
- Jimmy

[jboris]

I'm still having problems with faceting. The new plugin, beta2f, didn't help. When I mess with the "native unit size" setting (ie set it something different than the maya scene settings), it sometimes helps, but not 100%.
Here is what I am getting when I hit the render button in the Octane menu (attached), notice the circular noise pattern over some of the geometry :

[enzyme]

@jboris

Aha! So it's not just me that is seeing the circular patter! I just found out that you need to set the unit now and it got rid of the circular pattern. I normally set the unit size to meter (Maya's native, I believe) before hitting render.

With faceting, I don't have issue. Basically I always enable the Smooth, providing I set the face to whatever I like in Maya first, before exporting to Octane and make sure I did Normal-Conform in Maya.

- J