Textures in 3DS import

[Paul King]

Has anyone ever successfully imported photo mapped textures/skins into GDL from 3DS original file, with correct mapping / orientation / origin / scale?

I have a 3DS object consisting of a number of seated people sitting at cafe tables. Each person has individual face & clothing features texture mapped over the many polygons of each figure using a single skin/image file per person

After importing to ArchiCAD, all textures are hopelessly scrambled per polygon, as is some of the geometry (a few elements rotated & offset)

Have attempted many things - some have improved the geometry imported a bit, but none have helped so far with preserving the textures.


To attempt to correctly remap each polygone with separate texture origins etc in GDL for the hundreds of polygons involved would be a nightmare task!


Would the new Maxonform plugin help? I can successfully convert object into C4D format with textures intact and I am wondering if Maxonform could then bring those textures safely into ArchiCAD?


Any suggestions (or hope) for me out there?

Cheers

[Djordje]

Paul wrote:
Any suggestions (or hope) for me out there?

Did you try opening it in MaxonForm first?

[Paul King]

Hi Djordje

No I havent, because sadly I don't have Maxonform, though I do have C4D.
I was wondering if Maxonform handles textures going into ArchiCAD?

[gerd]

hi,

I'm wondering about the problems a little.
Ok, normally I don't care about textures in archicad, because I make my renderings in artlantis and in most cases it is easier to apply the textures there.
But some days ago I tried to import the example plant in 3ds format fr5om there: http://www.vb-visual.de/db/agb.php?demofile=VBexteriors_Demo_3dsFormat_Vol.2.zip
and converted it in archicad 7 to gdl file format.
the textures was placed correctly, only the cutout with alpha channel got lost.

so I think, your problem may be caused by another effect, perhaps by the method of projection?

best regards, gerd

[Paul King]

Hi Gerd - in this case a single jpg containing multiple images was used to skin the entire object, across hundreds of polygons - so texture offset to origin for each polygon needs to be different for each one - but that offset info seemed to be lost in translation for me.

Under AC9, projection during translation is not an issue as the import process is handled directly by a command in the Extras menu (no 3D projection required) - result is usually a nice GDL object, complete with material parameters & toggles automatically scripted in. I think this command looks at structure/heirarchy within 3DS file to do this - so problem I think may be with the internal structure within the 3DS file in this case confusing the interpreter.

Resaving 3DS file from originating package with different texture groupings might be the key?

Thanks for your thoughts

Paul King

[gerd]

hi paul,

ok, this is a much more komplex thing than some correct placed leaves.

I tried the same now with a free 3d-human model from this site:
http://www.axyz-design.com/
(you have to tell them your mailadress, then you get the downloadlink)
- with cinema4d version7 I converted the lwo file to 3ds
- with archicad 7 I converted the 3ds to gdl format

rendering seems to be ok (see picture)
perhaps you can get another file format and convert it with cinema.
I think the problem can be solved with another file or perhaps with some corrections made in cinema, because in my case it worked well


best regards, gerd

[Paul King]

Hi Gerd - well I am convinced!
Will indeed try to get from another format

Thanks

Paul King

[Djordje]

Paul wrote:
No I havent, because sadly I don't have Maxonform, though I do have C4D.

Then all you should get is the Plug In (ask your ArchiCAD guys) for two way traffic ...

Paul wrote:
I was wondering if Maxonform handles textures going into ArchiCAD?

Quite well, IMHE