• Maxon Cinema 4D

  Smoothing CAD polygons

  Posted by James Mcnelly on March 29, 2016 at 10:33 am

  Hi

  I have been given some CAD awk which I opened in some open source software, then saved it down to a .stl file.
  I was able to then open in CINEMA 4D which is great.

  However, the objects are just singular, so I can’t adjust the amount of polygons they have, as I need to smooth everything out. I tried the subdivision surface but it didn’t work due to the complexity of the single object. I presume I can’t really do anything about this, and will probably need to remodel everything?

  Any advice would be appreciated!

  Thanks

  J

  

  James Mcnelly replied 10 years, 1 month ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Brian Jones

  March 29, 2016 at 2:53 pm

  hard to say without seeing it (the file). Perhaps the file could have been output differently but some things you can’t do much with. You might be able to join the pieces inside your object in C4D then optimize a bit before trying to smooth but that’s hard to tell without seeing the file. It doesn’t look hopeless just by the image but that’s not enough info.
  What was the original format (before you opened it in the open source)?
• 

  James Mcnelly

  March 29, 2016 at 3:16 pm

  Hey, it was an .stp file which I managed to open in ‘FREECAD’. I was then able to export it to an .stl file.

  I found this thread, but it still didn’t really help 🙁

  https://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59

  Thanks!
• 

  Phil Leide

  March 29, 2016 at 3:55 pm

  I am having similar problems with some OBJ files I am importing to render. Same idea – originally from CAD, converted to OBJ.

  The workflow that I’ve found that works best for me right now is this:
  1) Import OBJ
  2) Reverse Normals
  3) Optimize, with the tolerance set to 0
  4) Apply textures
  5) Set Phong to 5 degrees
  6) Test render

  This fixes most of the issues major banding issues, but sometimes it causes weird marks on flat surfaces elsewhere in the model. If it does that, sometimes playing with the Phong settings helps.

  I’ve yet to find something that works 100% of the time. If you find anything else that helps, feel free to share.
• 

  James Mcnelly

  March 30, 2016 at 6:36 am

  When I import the .obj into C4D I only have 3 options, should ‘reverse normals’ be in there too?
  Would you mind pointing me in the direction of ‘optimize’ too please?

  Thanks!

  
• 

  Phil Leide

  March 30, 2016 at 12:18 pm

  They are both in the “Mesh” menu after the object is imported.

  Mesh -> Normals -> Reverse Normals
  Mesh -> Commands -> Optimize

  When you use Optimize, there is a small box to the right of the menu. Click on it to bring up the options and change tolerance to 0.
• 

  James Mcnelly

  March 30, 2016 at 12:40 pm

  ah cool, thanks so much!

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