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Importing Blender mesh that's been *mirrored*

Posted By sonic7 2 Years Ago
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Importing Blender mesh that's been *mirrored*

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sonic7
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This has really stumped me. I've been trying to get successful iClone mesh 'imports', ones that have come from Blender as 'mirrored'.
When I first tried importing such mirrored mesh I noticed weird shading and part of the mesh is transparent. - It doesn't behave at all like *real mesh*. So after a couple of days of digging around and trying all sorts of approaches, I've all but given up.

I've tried to get a definitive online answer on how to "convert" mirrored mesh into *real mesh* but no go. Even attempting to do it 'manually' rather than with Blender's 'Control-M' approach. So I position the mesh to it's equivalent negative co-ordinate value (ie: if it's X = 100 units, then I make the duplicate minus 100 units) and this in conjunction with a minus 1 scaling on the appropriate axis. But this didn't work as I got the same results. In the end I *round-trip-exported* in OBJ format out and back from Blender and only then (when positioned), would I export as FBX to iClone. Although this solved the shading and half-missing mesh issue, it presents a new problem. You no long have proper tessellation control. *Any* amount of tessellation and it's like an explosion in a mattress factory, and this seems linked to the OBJ formatting. And iClone itself doesn't allow for negative scaling. Sketchup does, and I've gone that way in the past, but I wanted to stay in Blender with Quad faced mesh.

Surely there's a simple way of generating symmetrical ('non-attached) mesh in a way that allows you to sculpt one piece and duplicate it for use as the other. I'm probably missing something very obvious. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 
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4u2ges
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Hey Steve. Please define this:
<I've tried to get a definitive online answer on how to "convert" mirrored mesh into *real mesh* but no go.>
How did you mirror the mesh in Blender? Mirror modifier? Did you apply mirror modifier before the export?
Maybe some pictures explaining the problem.




sonic7
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Hi Gurgen - yes, I said:
<I've tried to get a definitive answer on how to "convert" mirrored mesh into *real mesh* but no go.> because the mesh I was importing into iClone was 'incomplete' (like part of it was missing) and I sort of knew it was the way mirroring worked and I needed to get it from a 'projected state' into an *actual* mesh. So I thought there was some step I was missing. My 'work around' was to export the mirrored mesh as OBJ - that was just a desperate measure.

But you've actually solved it by saying "Did you *apply* the mirror modifier before the export". (I've just tried it). My procedure was wrong. As you say, the Mirror Modifier must actually be *applied* - not just left as an active modifier. Only then can I go into Edit mode and separate the meshes (using "P" "by loose parts") to isolate the mirrored side and to 'save' it (as its own mesh) - which is what I was after.

So I thank you ! :)


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 
MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram iClone-7.93  3DXChange Pipeline 7.81  CC-3 Pipeline 3.44  Live Face  HeadShot  Brekel Pro-Body  Popcorn FX  iRAY  Kinect V2  DaVinci Resolve17  Mixcraft 8.1

jeff.davies
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Are you getting what appears to be "face fighting" in iClone? If so than you need to add a Triangulate modifier in Blender. I'm pretty sure that all modifiers are applied to FBX exports from blender (FBX doesn't "do" modifiers) so that shouldn't be the problem.




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Rampa
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Use the mirror modifier instead of Control-M. Control-M mirrors the vertex positions to their equivalent negative values (324 becomes -324), but does not mirror the normals. So if use Control-M, you need to then flip the normals on that part.

It's like if you have half an orange peel and invert it. The orange part is still on the same side, but you made it concave instead of convex.
sonic7
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Hi Jeff - If by face fighting you mean the flashing effect where two surfaces are contending to show as the visible face, then no, I'm not seeing that effect here. It's more like incomplete mesh with a transparent effect. Here's an image showing the issue:

76% of original size (was 662x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/aa51f021-546e-4323-bafe-012d.jpg


HI Rampa ..... Yes, that could explain why I've been getting inconsistent results. At first I was using "Control-M" and then later, the Modifier. I'd thought (wrongly) they were two approaches for doing the exact same task. What you say sort of explains things somewhat. I don't know much about Blender - just a few tricks like rearranging props (in a basic way) and maybe some smoothing, so it's mostly import in > basic task > export out. The little piece of mesh I'd made (an add-on for a DAZ droid), was my first encounter with trying to mirror an accessory (just a cylinder - as a 'hoop'), but it caused be a lot of grief. Like a lot of things I come across, I maybe finally get a 'result', but I don't always fully understand the technical reason 'why' something works. I jot down heaps of brief notes in case the same task needs to be done again later, but in the context of an overall project, some things may only be needed once. It would be nice to fully understand everything, but to achieve an end result (finished film), I have to limit myself to 'just enough' knowledge to get me by. It's been thanks to forum members that I've even got this far.


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 
MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram iClone-7.93  3DXChange Pipeline 7.81  CC-3 Pipeline 3.44  Live Face  HeadShot  Brekel Pro-Body  Popcorn FX  iRAY  Kinect V2  DaVinci Resolve17  Mixcraft 8.1

toystorylab
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I had a similar issue from Blender to Unreal...
Everything looked fine in Blender in Unreal right side of tires were invisible.
On the left side everything was ok...
76% of original size (was 662x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/0e539bdf-1435-4848-9bf7-dbb5.jpg
The developer wrote:
To me this looks like a flipped normal inside Unreal.
When exporting the objects they will have their scale applied, which is no problem for most objects.
However, if an object has a negative scale it will have its normals flipped in the "applying scale process".
I have the Transportation add-on as well, so just checked this model and it does indeed seem like the right tires have negative scales. 
76% of original size (was 662x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/77ddba50-6779-4a23-9674-ede4.png
So a way to get around this issue is to manually apply the scale on these "issue meshes" with "Ctrl+A -> Scale"
and then go into "edit mode" for the meshes, select all vertices with "A" and hit "Alt+n -> Flip" to flip the normals. 

That worked for me...


Toystorylab on Vimeo : 76% of original size (was 662x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/ce44ea78-6984-47d8-9bf4-b783.png    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 76% of original size (was 662x19) - Click to enlargehttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/fcc4df30-b3a8-40a5-a427-0735.png




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