[Plugin] Universal Importer - v1.2.6 - 30 July 2024

samuel_t

OK, I managed to import FBX model properly textured Thank you for your help!

You mean I should totally reinstall NVIDIA drivers? (I'm actually afraid to do it because NVIDIA does problems with driver installation. Plus I'm an amateur and don't want to mess up with my computer.) Or should I just reinstall one of MS Visual C++ Redistributables or some other package?

Yes, you should totally reinstall NVIDIA drivers.

panixia

Hi there, thank you for this wonderful plugins.
I tryed it a bit and looks pretty robust and useful.
Do you think could be possible to have a feature to preserve quads in obj and fbx import as per thomthom convention of pseudo-quads in sketchup (mark the diagonal with "soft" "smooth" "don't cast shadows")?
That would be perfect!

samuel_t

@panixia said:

Hi there, thank you for this wonderful plugins.
I tryed it a bit and looks pretty robust and useful.
Do you think could be possible to have a feature to preserve quads in obj and fbx import as per thomthom convention of pseudo-quads in sketchup (mark the diagonal with "soft" "smooth" "don't cast shadows")?
That would be perfect!

I don't think it's possible.

panixia

Thomthom has an obj importer in quadface tools which does that in the proper way, but is noway near as fast as your plugin and it also doesn't manage the textures this good.. but it got quads, which makes further poligon editing better and easier.
Having those two importers merged togheter with the best of each one would be an absolute dream and I would buy that at any price because I could then edit, unwrap and export quad/sub-d models back and forth beetween sketchup and 3dsmax.
Thank you anyway.. this is a great tool.

samuel_t

@panixia said:

Thomthom has an obj importer in quadface tools which does that in the proper way, but is noway near as fast as your plugin and it also doesn't manage the textures this good.. but it got quads, which makes further poligon editing better and easier.
Having those two importers merged togheter with the best of each one would be an absolute dream and I would buy that at any price because I could then edit, unwrap and export quad/sub-d models back and forth beetween sketchup and 3dsmax.
Thank you anyway.. this is a great tool.

There's a plugin named Quadrilateralizer. It converts faces to quad faces. Maybe it could help you.

panixia

No sir, that's not what I'm talking about.. that plugin just splits existing geometry in quads.
I rather need the existing non-planar quads in obj coming from 3dsmax, blender, maya etc to be preserved.

most of those softwares have an option to preserve quads in obj and fbx exporters, here is 3dsmax

here are some good reasons to care about this in objects and characther modeling workflow

https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-modeling/training/modeling/quad-based-topology/
https://topologyguides.com/

Thomthom wrote an implementation of non-planar quads in sketchup wich is really handy for modeling complex stuff and makes for a better integration of sketchup with most 3d-modeling packages used to produce fbx and obj files

https://github.com/thomthom/quadface-tools/wiki

maybe there is a way to read the "quad property" set from those eporters and translate it to thomthom's diagonals while converting obj and fbx files?

Einstein

I support your request, panixia. I would also buy this plugin with ability to read quad-based topology. Then we wouldn't probably need Transmutr, which is an expensive tool.

There's a toolbar called AMS Soften Edges. I don't know if you know about it. It has a smart button "Reveal quadrants" that can sometimes be helpful. It finds quads automatically, though often not the way you wish.
Here you can watch how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHc4ySzEhxs

panixia

@einstein said:

Then we wouldn't probably need Transmutr, which is an expensive tool.

I don't know how expensive this tool is, but as far as I saw, this doesn't supports quads from other modeling pakages.
If it does, I would pay for it no problem at all. Now. The "shut up and take my moneys!" style.

@einstein said:

There's a toolbar called AMS Soften Edges. I don't know if you know about it. It has a smart button "Reveal quadrants" that can sometimes be helpful.

If you look at the example of the car, in the video you linked, looks like it has an auto-detect for quads, like other algorithms do. Let'say the "original" quadface tool's "convert triangulated mesh to quads" wich is really similar to 3dsmax quadrify or similar tool i saw in c4d.
All of this tools work fine on pretty regular meshes, but when they find lot of poles, as in the car example, they are not able to predict properly where the next quad should be.
Moreover, they tend to ruin uv's of meshes.

What I'm talking about is to just preserve the quads already present in the obj created in other apps, marking quad diagonals in obj with soft + smooth + don't cast shadows when rebuilding the model in sketchup.
Not to create or find new quads, just "preserve".
As The importer in quadface tools already does, but with the speed and the textures mangement that this importer has.

Khai

eh?
I'm importing mesh made in trueSpace... in Quads. also OBJs... again in Quads..

not sure why your not getting Quads preserved...

the only thing I'm losing is Grouping... it all comes in as one mesh... which is a pain but I can work round it... getting the old tS models back is enough..

pibuz

Hi! First of all thanks for your wonderful plugin and great work!

I have issues trying to import objs....

samuel_t

@pibuz said:

Hi! First of all thanks for your wonderful plugin and great work!

I have issues trying to import objs....

Hi! Try to run SketchUp as Administrator then import a model again. Let me know if problem persists.

pibuz

THAT WORKED..

Is there the hell of a way to tell sketchup to ALWAYS run as admin?
I thought I already did this but seems like I couldn't do it.....

samuel_t

@pibuz said:

:roll: THAT WORKED..

Is there the hell of a way to tell sketchup to ALWAYS run as admin?
I thought I already did this but seems like I couldn't do it.....

There is a way... Check this guide.

zuzca

Helo,
unfortunatelly for me does not work, I dont know why, bug screenshot attached..
Thank you for any help.
Zuzana

samuel_t

@zuzca said:

Helo,
unfortunatelly for me does not work, I dont know why, bug screenshot attached..
Thank you for any help.
Zuzana

Hello,
I don't see screenshot.

juju

@zuzca said:

Helo,
unfortunatelly for me does not work, I dont know why, bug screenshot attached..
Thank you for any help.
Zuzana

Below a certain number of posts you cannot attach anything.

samuel_t

@juju Thanks for the info.

@zuzca Could you please upload screenshot to an image hoster or copy (CTRL + C) error msg as text?

pibuz

...sorry Samuel another question: when I try and import a model, the plugin asks me the "height" of the model, and scales it to that dimension. Problem is that most of the time I don't know the original height of the model and I just want to keep the original size. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks in advance!!!

samuel_t

@pibuz said:

...sorry Samuel another question: when I try and import a model, the plugin asks me the "height" of the model, and scales it to that dimension. Problem is that most of the time I don't know the original height of the model and I just want to keep the original size. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks in advance!!!

I don't know... Maybe with an external viewer.

TIG

To allow the user to NOT scale the imported geometry could there be a possibility to enter 0 when prompted, and if so you skip that step ??