Ruby (or other way) to subdivide for displacement

Frank_N · 1 Sept 2008, 07:35

Hi, i'm wondering if anyone knows a ruby or another way to subdivide a mesh or face.
If someone as an example want to use a material with displacement mapping in indigo, maxwell or any other renderer on a flat surface directly from SU it ends up looking really weird. The face needs to be divided into lots of smaller groups, and it would take forever to draw the smaller meshes manually.

I've been thinking if it was possible to export it as an .obj file and do it in Silo or another cheap modeler. But wouldn't the SU materials dissapear, and how would the materials look on a highly subdivided plane? (im thinking UV as SU sometimes changes rotates these when a plane is divided into maybe 3 faces)

So is there an easy way to make SU models ready to use with displacement materials? I've seen lots of renders with displacement materials in the gallery.

remus · 1 Sept 2008, 08:05

You could use whaats subd and smooth plugin, although it costs $20, or theres also the zorro plugin, but its prety much a manual proces.

If your going to be doing this lots id suggest using silo, it will be a lot faster compared to the plugins, as they all run in ruby (which is slow.) You could also make use of silos shiny new UV mapping tools.

p.s. Indigo does the subdivision for you, i don think this is the case in maxwell though.

edit: some links

Subd and smooth: http://www.smustard.com/script/SubdivideAndSmooth

zorro: http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/EM/Zorro.rb

pichuneke · 2 Sept 2008, 11:34

Use Blender. http://www.blender.org/

Use the plugin for .obj exporter if you don't use the professional version of sketchup.

Then import the generated .obj file in blender.

You must use the "decimate" function:

302 Found

(www.blender.org)

You can increase or decrease the resolution. After that, export it to 3DS and open the model with sketchup, or better with the plugin OBJ importer.

I did it only once, so I don't remember the process, but I started to learn Blender. In half an hour I learned and made it.

I told you to use .obj to export and import because it gave me better results.

Hope it helps.

Frank_N · 3 Sept 2008, 07:52

Hi, and thanks for the help

I was also afraid that i had to use silo or another program to do this. I tried Silo a few weeks ago, and it looks awesome!!!

My only concern is that i will loose all my materials if i export it to Silo or belnder and then back to SU, since i will have to do this as an .obj file (right? or is there some smarter way to do this using Silo). It would be a pain to apply materials to a whole subdivided model in SU. Also, how about UV mapping in SU with all these faces...
Or does it import the UV's set in Silo? (or blender)

Is it possible to subdivide planes or other object with Whaats plugin without smoothing? Because that would be pretty much the best solution so it would be possible to keep the original material settings.

remus · 3 Sept 2008, 09:10

Yes it is possible to just subdivide with whaats plugin, it also preserves all the materials which is cool.

As for preserving the UVs on export to something else, i think you'll have trouble with it unless your app can import .skp files, i may be wrong though. I havent done a lot of exporting to other apps.

remus · 3 Sept 2008, 16:53

I obviously wasnt clear, Its very good at preserving the materials when you just subdivide, but if you subdivide and smooth the materials preservation is often more hap hazard.

pichuneke · 3 Sept 2008, 18:22

@frank_n said:

Hi, and thanks for the help

I was also afraid that i had to use silo or another program to do this. I tried Silo a few weeks ago, and it looks awesome!!!

My only concern is that i will loose all my materials if i export it to Silo or belnder and then back to SU, since i will have to do this as an .obj file (right? or is there some smarter way to do this using Silo). It would be a pain to apply materials to a whole subdivided model in SU. Also, how about UV mapping in SU with all these faces...
Or does it import the UV's set in Silo? (or blender)

Is it possible to subdivide planes or other object with Whaats plugin without smoothing? Because that would be pretty much the best solution so it would be possible to keep the original material settings.

I can't help you, sorry. As I told you I want to learn blender, and at this moment I am not an expert importing and exporting models from SU to Blender and vice versa. I don't know anything about textures in Blender. Anyway Whaat's plugin is cheap... I don't know if it does what you want, but if the answer is yes, If I were you I would buy it, if you are so interested.

CPhillips · 3 Sept 2008, 21:10

SketchyFFD does subdivide (well it really dices the model) and you can use it without using the FFD. It should preserve texture coords as well.