Max to Sketchup conversion - UV issues
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Hi everyone! I have a bunch of models I've created in the MAX format - arcade and pinball cabinets for the 3D Arcade project. I'm looking into converting models into Sketchup (which I'm fairly new to), while the conversions look pretty good, I'm running into some issues with some of the texturing. It appears to be an issue where certain polygons don't have the UVs transferred properly. It might have to do with the smoothing groups, though I've tried unsmoothing everything and came across the same results. I've also tried converting to Sketchup via 3DS export and Collada DAE export, pretty much the same issue. I've even tried the Tig OBJ importer but faces got flipped and UVs didn't line up properly. I'm pretty much out of ideas on my end - if anyone has any ideas how to convert the UVs properly, or have some kind of "unwrap" option inside of Sketchup I'd appreciate it! Below are some snapshots of the original MAX format, the 3DS conversion, and the DAE conversion. If anyone needs more information I'd be happy to provide it. Thanks!
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Hi btribble! welcome to the SketchUp forum!
I've had a whole load of problems getting stuff out of SketchUp into other Apps (like Unity for eg).
Firstly, you must be absolutely sure that all faces are the right way round- otherwise you are doomed! If you switch to monochrome mode, you can pretty much tell from there which faces haven't been drawn the correct way round, and then these can be corrected.
Secondly, use the Entity info window to see what's what on each face. You can manually swap faces around in there too.
Lastly, export using DAE/ COLLADA and I usually drop that file into Caffeinated bits excellent little Sket2fbx converter (which costs 1 dollar to buy). This usually does the trick and is a lot more reliable than anything else SU has to offer (at present).
Good luck!
Tom
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@tfdesign said:
Hi btribble! welcome to the SketchUp forum!
I've had a whole load of problems getting stuff out of SketchUp into other Apps (like Unity for eg).
Thanks for the response! I'm going the other way 'round though... I have a bunch of existing models in 3D Studio .MAX format, and I'd like to get them INTO Sketchup. As the pics show I've had moderate success, but a few of the polys/faces/tris/verts/whatevers appear to have lost their UVs in the process. I don't have Sketchup Pro so I haven't tried importing into Sketchup via FBX, but I've tried just about every other method I can think of.
So I guess, barring some other importing process, is there a way to fix the affected regions of this model? The model that went from MAX -> DAE -> Sketchup actually does have the correct bitmap applied to those regions, it just looks like it's tiling a bunch instead of the way it's supposed to be applied to the model. In MAX I'd apply "UVW Unwrap" and it would be a fairly straightforward process, but I haven't found a similar tool in Sketchup.
Thanks again for any help/ideas!
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You might have some success using the UVTools Beta by Whaat (Dale Martens). You can find it here
It creates a proxy obj bridge between SU and mapping software. I tend to use it with Ultimate Unwrap, because that's specifically concerned with mapping, so pretty light on its feet; but Dale claims that the process is also compatible with Max. It enables you to go pretty much instantly between SU and the mapping software, creating something as close as we're ever likely to get in the way of a mapping studio within SU itself.
I've been using it to develop a range of fully mapped figures. They're modelled in SU (for low-polyness), mapped in UU3D, then any small, subsequent tweaks are applied using the UVTools plugin.
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