Mesh-lines visible in 3DS Max

[Tiger]

Hi,

 

I have a problem with 3DS Max, which is kinda hard becuase I know next to nothing about 3DS Max. In the attached image (and file) you can see lines in the image that wasn't there in the actual image. My guess after a bit of looking around is that Max creates meshes from this image (it's exported from Infraworks) in sizes that it decides on its own, and the lines in the image is somehow the edges of the meshes. I have assumed that it's the old problem of two objects occuping the same Z-level and that is why the edges are showing.

 

Now, the question is, can the lines be removed? Can the image on top of the mesh somehow be lifted a fraction of an inch so that the mesh edges don't show?

 

I think I got the file down to .. (edit: now 2011), let me know if anyone wants to look at it in an older format.

 

Thanks for any pointers!

 

strangelines.max

Edited August 29, 2013 by Tiger
changed file format

[Cad64]

Hi Tiger. I use 2011, so I can't open your 2012 file. It's hard to tell what's happening from looking at the image, but if you're right about the meshes overlapping, that's an easy fix. You just need to use the Studio Max snapping tools to snap your various meshes together so they all line up precisely.

 

Here's a video about snapping in studio max:

[Tiger]

thanks for the video, I couldn't find any snappoints on my meshes though - could be there is none?

 

I changed the fileformat of the max-file to 2011 if you are interested in taking a look.

[Cad64]

No, there are snap points. Every mesh has vertex points. You can see the mesh by hitting F4 to enable "Edged Faces". Or hit F3 to switch to "Wireframe" view.

 

I've opened your file and it looks like the various meshes are all matched up precisely. I don't see any overlapping or gaps between them and all the meshes are sitting at Z0. I don't have the images though, so I'm just looking at blank planes. Have you examined the images in Photoshop to check the edges? Maybe there is a very small border of pixels along the edges that's discolored?

[Tiger]

That is the weird part, the lines are not in thenoriginal image. The image is actually bigger than the meshes, there are no edges on the image, where the lines appear.

 

Strange that you don't see the image, I'll see if I need to do a bind or something

 

Heading off to Amsterdam tomorrow so it won't be til monday though.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Tiger
correct my own grammarmistakes *doh*

[Cad64]

Strange that you don't see the image, I'll see if I need to do a bind or something.

 

Images are not saved with the file. They are externally referenced in, just like images in Autocad.

 

Use the "Archive" option under the "SaveAs" category to grab all the files associated with your Max file and stick them all into a .zip file.

 

Have fun in Amsterdam.

[Tiger]

So, we made it home from Amsterdam. The whole office is a bit subdued today, I have a feeling that a lot of coffee will be consumed to try and get the energylevels up. It was fun though

 

Anywho, I zipped the file and there were apparently a lot of files! So many that it was too big to upload here, I dumped it in Dropbox and I hope that you can access it from the link.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hx0s2tvzvwzdiq6/strangelines.zip

[Cad64]

Ok, I'll take a look at it tomorrow when I get back home.

[Cad64]

I moved one of the image planes away from the others and rendered it by itself. As you can see in the image below, the bad edge still shows up. I thought there must be a problem with the image edge, so I downloaded and installed a DDS image converter for Photoshop and opened the image to check it out. The image appears to be fine though. I can't see any problem with the edge at all. So I don't know why the lines are showing up in the renderings?

 

If you want to look at the images in Phtoshop yourself, you can download the converter here: https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

 

Maybe you can convert all the images and then stitch them together, into one big image, and then apply that single image to a plane in Studio Max? Either that or just touch up the images, after rendering, to remove the lines.

[Tiger]

Bummer that it wasn't an easy fix... Thanks for checking it out!

 

Is there an easy "touch-up"-tool in 3DS MAX? Perhaps just to get the coloring right, like for the lines in the water to get them at least grey or more water-colored?

[Cad64]

Is there an easy "touch-up"-tool in 3DS MAX?

 

There are painting tools, but I have never used them:

[Tiger]

This just gets weirder and weirder.

 

I looked at the video you linked, and opened Viewport Canvas, Highlighted one of the meshes with the strange edge, and clicked the paint brush to start painting - and the image on the mesh changed! And if I look at the edge (where the strange line was) I can see that this is the image that I see the edge of! But why on earth would there be double images??

 

That souns like there is something wrong with the export from Infraworks though ... something happens there in the switch.

[Cad64]

Yeah, that does sound weird. Sorry that I can't really help much with this. I do all of my model painting in Modo or ZBrush. I don't really use Studio Max for anything anymore other than occasionally rendering with Mental Ray every now and then. I do everything else in other programs.

 

My best advice would be to do what I said earlier, in post #9. Either convert all the images and then stitch them together into one big image, save as .tif format and then apply that single image to a single plane in Studio Max, or just render out the images you need for your project and then touch them up in Photoshop to remove the lines.

[Tiger]

Thanks for all your input mate