Render woes with imported .3ds

[brancusi]

Hi all

I have built a house model in TFP and in a separate project I've modelled the landscape and gardens. To place the house in the landscape, I export it as .3ds from TFP and then import it again into the landscape project. Sometimes I've going via sketchup to knock out the windows to make them properly transparent as this seems to get lost in .3ds

So far so good.

This all works fine until I try to render the project. The house basically looks as if the bricks are highly reflective and there is a huge light somewhere. See attachment.

BUT - if I render the original house alone - it looks fine, no strange lighting or glass.

Equally, if I take the SAME .3ds model and use google sketchup / twilight to do a photoreal render - it looks fine.

Can anyone shed some light as to why TFP is making such a mess of the render? I've checked that the materials are all as expected and don't have some strange emmisiveness or transparency set and it all looks fine ...

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Roger,

I have seen a similar thing happen before where an imported photo, used as a background image became reflective when the a swimming pool in the landscape was set to 'water'. Why it affected the image I have no idea?  

Do you have 'water' as a surface anywhere in the landscape?  If so try changing to something else and see it it helps.  Have you tried importing it in a blank landscape? Does the same thing happen? If it works OK there then something in your existing landscape s triggering it and you may need to turn things off one at a time until you find the culprit.

The stray light could be a similar issue. I once accidentally inserted a glass front cupboard into a model several times in the same space.  It cause ALL the windows in the building to glow like lights. Removed the duplicated items and everything was back to normal.

If none of the above helps, I would like to experiment with it if I may, to see if I can track down a cause. You could post it here or email it to me direct if you prefer (alches AT iinet.net.au - obviously replace the AT with @).

Allan

[brancusi]

Thanks for getting back to me.

So ... creating a new project and importing the .3ds file shows the same problem - so it's not the landscape.

The odd thing is, if I render the .bld file - it looks fine. But the export and import process is causing the grief I've dropped you a mail with the files just in case that inspires a solution!

At times I love TFP, at times it drives me mad. In my case I seem to spend more time being driven mad than happy, which is a bit of shame. For example the lack of a basic copy & paste between files seems a huge oversight ...

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Roger,

I can sympathise with the frustration.  I get that way with a couple of other programs I use that do not do things the way I think they should.

I must admit I was puzzled as to why you would do the house in one model and the landscape in another but no doubt there seemed to be a logical reason at the time and I suppose with the expectation of being able to copy/paste, it would not have been seen as a potential problem. They say 'experience is the best teacher' - little comfort though!!!

Copy paste between files is something that is on the request list, so I dare say it will come along some day.

I will have a look at your files as I like to get such things sorted out - I don't like mysteries!!

I will get back to you as sson as I can - may be tomorrow as it is nearly midnight here.

Allan

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Roger,

I could not resist a quick look before I went to bed, and while I did not find an explanation, I did find a solution.

When I import the 3DS file using the Import Wizard I get the same result as you but when I import it directly into the catalogue it rendered OK - no reflections or stray lights. (Right click in the Catalogue and Add Element).

The import using the wizard does not bring in all the materials and importing to the catalogue brought less, so reassigned would be a huge job given the number.

Have you tried going the other way, export the landscape as a 3DS. It may not work for the plants but the rest should be OK. You would have to redo the plants.

Another thing I tried was exporting it as a DXF and imported that using the wizard. That imported fine and rendered fine also. The only problem with this is that the textures are reduced to 9 only.  Makes reassigning them easy but you do not have a lot of choices - all bricks are the same, roof etc but it may be usable if you don't want interior renders.

The house is very elaborate really - very good in fact, so if it was mine I would just redo the landscape in the house model and you should have no rendering problems. It is a pain I know but would be a lot quicker to do the second time.

Do you mind if I send your two files on to the programmers for their comments?

Allan

[brancusi]

Ahhhh ... many thanks for those ideas. Doesn't look like there is an ideal option Feel free to send it on to the developers so they can see the issues directly ...

Not sure I can face re-creating the landscape again ... the slopes etc make it quite complex. All very frustrating!!

Again, MANY thanks for the time you've taken to have a look.

Roger

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Roger,

If your main concern is the shape of the Terrain, then just turn everthing else off and export the Terrain only as a 3DS or DXF. Try both to see which takes the texture with it best - both will take the shape.

The only problem this way is that the plants etc on slopes will have to be elevated to align to the imported terrain - they will not snap to the correct height.

Worth a try maybe.

Allan

[Doug.S]

When import/export/import is used with .3ds, sometimes there are several things to watch for that cause issues with renders (in any 3D program)....

- check to see "normals" are all still correct....usually all should be pointing outward so the texture is correct

- sometimes flat areas have their surfaces slightly askew...so make all flat surfaces co-planar (also it reduces the number of polys)

- sometimes some programs make or delete triangle faces or 4 sided (quads) or worse more than 4 sided faces....or the render engine can't handle a mix etc.  So look at the model to see if face shapes could be an issue.

- be sure there is one or correctly named domains

- be sure there are no broken polys, stray points, stray lines, loose ends etc. import/export can break a shape (not often but it happens)