help with 3dsmax

[RF13]

I'm a beginner in 3ds. I'm working on this project, a bus I created years ago in pencil sketch, then CorelDraw, then Photoshop, now 3ds.

 

Everything was going well, I finished the body, glass, seats, lights, small details, but... when I started doing the wheels, things got ugly.

 

In this type of bus, a 4-axis, there are 10 wheels. But when I finished the second wheel, my pc went to the limit, because of RAM - I have 1Gb only. And the wheels are very detailed, I made two versions of wheels. I'm not talking about rendering.. just to move objects in wireframe is extremely slow. To render it's a lifetime. For example, I render a 640x480 jpg in 45 minutes..

 

What I need to know is how to weld all the wheel objects - nuts, rims, etc. I believe this is going to make the file less heavy, once it has less polys to generate.

 

I searched in Google but didn't find what I'm looking for, if anyone can help, please.

 

Edited February 20, 2011 by RF13

[Vinc_Vega]

Select the objects to be welded and go to "Utilities" palette.

Than select "Collapse", choose Output Type: Mesh; Collapse To: Single Object; and click on "Collapse Selected".

Finally you can reduce polygons in the "Modify" palette with modifier "Optimize".

Note that afterwards you will have to generate mappings (texturing) again.

[aaron886]

I don't think that's going to do much for the resource cost... it doesn't reduce polygons. You can try reduction methods but you can lose quality of work. May I suggest picking up some more RAM? It's not that expensive. I had to up from 4 to 6 recently when working on some very high resolution textures.

[RF13]

Vinc_Vega, it didn't weld the objects, just grouped. Isn't it the same as Group?

I put one box inside another, and after aplying your commands, I see in wireframe that the object is inside another, not welded to it.

 

 

aaron, unfortunately, here in Brazil it is expensive.. but I must buy a new pc soon.

THanks

Edited February 20, 2011 by RF13

[Grimes]

I guess a good question to ask is how many polygons are each wheel in their entirety?

[RF13]

editing

Edited February 20, 2011 by RF13

[RF13]

1 wheel = 121,864 polys

entire bus = 701,724

-----------

FPS (all entries selected, wireframe view) = 2.33

Edited February 20, 2011 by RF13

[TOMCATZ]

Oh my god- Thats to much to use it in a game engine. The art of modeling is to create a maximum of effects while using a minimum of ressources. I`de never understand that guys which used hundred thousands of polygons for simple thinks just like tires. Sometimes it much more effectfully to use some good textures as well- But these are my 2 cents only ...

[RF13]

No game purposes here.

[joey45]

I'll happily render it for you...

[Vinc_Vega]

Vinc_Vega, it didn't weld the objects, just grouped. Isn't it the same as Group?

I put one box inside another, and after aplying your commands, I see in wireframe that the object is inside another, not welded to it.

...

THanks

 

I forgot to mention, that you have the chance to enable the "Boolean" box and "Union" in Utilities/Collapse panel.

After that it is welded in your meaning without intersecting geometries.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Vinc_Vega

[RF13]

Thanks, it worked.

But like aaron mentioned, it makes no difference. Even in 320x240, no lightning plug-in selected, ONE wheel as the only object to be rendered (all others hidden), it takes half an hour to render.

I need a new PC...

[joey45]

What's your PC specs?

[Grimes]

Upload a .3ds file of 1 wheel. That way we can have a look at it and maybe highlight and point out certain areas that should be changed. Since the poly count is so high you either put way to much detail into the treads or you actually modeled the "Michelin" logo and other details in rather than doing it via textures.

[Apples]

You could always sell your 3ds and bye 3 good computers!

[RF13]

Grimes, the art on the tire is a jpg texture. Like I said, I'm new to 3ds, I have no idea of what is considered a "high poly count", can you give me an example?

Edited February 21, 2011 by RF13

[RF13]

Nuts are chamfer boxes and rims are meshsmooth (emember that this is only one wheel, the bus has TEN wheels)

Is there another way to make it less heavy (less polys)?

 

[Alfa]

..a couple of things,

 

Unless you want to be able to render an "exploded view"(e.g. technical presentation) of all parts of the wheels, you don't need all those micro-details, such the holes in the nuts - simply place the bolt-ends on top of the nuts. It generally takes a lot of triangles to make holes - the more smooth("rounder") they are the more triangles and since you need a lot of nuts for the wheels, you could save a lot of polys this way.

 

All the round objects in your wheel seem to have an insane amount of triangles, so consider whether it is necessary for them to be that perfectly round - i.e. how close up you want to render them.

 

Also as far as I can see, the wheel hubs have a lot of intricate detail(grooves) that won't be visible anyway once the tires are fitted.

 

Chamfer boxes can also be quite a poly-heavy solution - if you chose to use them in order to get a rounded edge, another solution could be to do them as simple "Ngon"s, convert to editable mesh, highlight top polygon and then use the "bevel" function to create an edge.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Alfa

[RF13]

Yes, that's what I thought. Too many details for an object that won't be seen in a render. I will make another wheel.

Thanks for your help, Alfa.

[Alfa]

You are welcome :)

 

I am relatively new to the world of 3D modelling as well and I think its very common for beginners to want to make every little thing a little too perfect.

 

Since you said your model isn't meant for game purposes, it should be possible for you to solve your rendering problem just by focusing on the most polygon excessive parts.

 

But for a game related project it is necessary to have it at the back of your mind from the beginning and constantly consider the best(most rational) approach for building each part, so that you don't end up with a model that, although looking very nice, simply cannot be handled by game.

[RF13]

(in yellow, the new low-poly objects)

 

 

Unnoticed in a jpg render of the entire bus, wich is my objective.

What do you think?

[Alfa]

(in yellow, the new low-poly objects)

 

 

Unnoticed in a jpg render of the entire bus, wich is my objective.

What do you think?

 

Yup thats it :)

 

The poly-count of the new yellow nuts and bolts are clearly only a fraction of the old and when multiplied over 10 wheels, its going help a lot :)

[Grimes]

The way I see it there are 3 types of modeling approaches in terms of polygon numbers.

 

1. Game modeling. You make it the absolute least it can possibly be and you rely on textures for almost all of the detail.

 

2. High poly, but reasonable. Everything is pretty high poly but you don't model the detail for what you don't plan on seeing.

 

3. You work at Pixar, ILM, or Weta. What's a polygon limit?

 

 

I took the liberty of cropping the image and painting areas to make a point.

 

Lets say you are modeling an exploded view of the wheel, so it makes sense to have these parts modeled. The 8 parallel lines follow edge loops that are not needed as they serve no purpose in adding to the physical detail. Given the number of polygons used for the "roundness" of the wheel you've added quite a few useless polys to the model.

 

The other point I want to make is related to the number of sides used to form the wheel. How many sides are you using? If I had to guess I'd say its around 200. IMO, that is 4 times to many. About 50 sides is all you need to attain a look of a round object such as a wheel at everything but super close up distance.

[aaron886]

The trick is that you can't just start at that "Ridiculous" level, and then just scale the poly count back normally... you'll lose detail and probably sacrifice smoothing. The best bet is to decide what kind of poly count you're shooting for, and then model accordingly. It's not too difficult to be more frugal with polygons, you just have to start with that in mind.

[RF13]

Since it was the first time I work with 3dsmax, I had no idea of this "polygon count" thing.

 

Grimes, that's right, it has 150 sides.. lol. Thanks for helping.

Edited February 21, 2011 by RF13