C4D edge normal question

Hi guys

So I had a mesh in C4D, I exported it to UV map it in another program and then reimported it into C4D to use it in Body Paint. A few of the polygones lost there edge normals. So rather than looking like a nice smoth rounded garbage bag it has random hard edges that make the polygones very obvious. I could fix the problem in 2 seconds with Maya but I can't for the life of me find any comands for changing the edge normals hardness-softness in C4D. I have tryed the manual and google but I'm obviously now working things right. I would apriciate any help you guys can provide. Thanks Jeff

 

I think you mean Phong angle
just bring it to a higher value
see picture

 

I don't see any difference when I change the phong angle, and it dousn't seem to change depending on what edge I have selected, which would mean there isn't a phong angle for each edge. So I'm guessing its not what I'm looking for.

How do you make a selected edge hard or soft in C4D?

 

Maxon has the weirdest names for some of their tools.

But I would like to know this, too. Right now I'm having Unity recalculate my normals because I can't figure out how to properly set them in C4D.

 

You can use the "weight hyperNURBS" if you use "hyperNURBS".
If not then I think you are stuck with the phong angle smoothing.

If you could apply different phong angle smoothing for different edges, I don't think it would matter when imported into Unity, as Unity to my knowledge sets the angle for each object.(I am not 100% certain of this, and it would be really sweet it I am wrong)

 

What about going to menu 'Functions>Unbreak phong shading'? I think that should get rid of hard phong edges...
Cheers
Boxy

 

The "Settings..." button will allow you to tell Unity to "recalculate normals" for specific meshes or not.

 

This makes no sense to me. How in the world could C4D not allow you to average vert normals? Thats such a basic/essential operation for polygonal modeling. What the duce?

 

Well none of this fixes my problem. Thanks for trying to help guys. Man I miss Maya. Jeff

 

Could you post a screenshot or a demo file Jeff?
Cheers
Boxy

 

Ah, I partly misunderstood the question in the beginning.
You can use the "break phong shading" when using the edge tool.

 

As you can see in the included image some polygones are way messed up, they sick out of the mesh like mad, and since I want some of the edges hard and some soft I can't have unity recalc the normals. Jeff

 

Wow I think you might be right, the only thing I can think you do for now is move the offending edges until the phong shading pops back to what it should be. I've asked on CG talk, so it may be something we're missing or possibly a free plugin that can do this. I'll let you know if I hear anything
Boxy

 

Try downloading 'GeomCheck' frome here:

http://www.lotsofpixels.com/geomCheck/index.html

I've never used it but it does say that it fixes surface artefacts due to bad quad rotation whatever that may be. Might be a tool in there which fixes things for you.
Boxy

 

HOLY F*#KING CRAP. Are you guys all telling me that C4D can't compute some simple edge smoothing? Jeff, if this is true, make your escape now and come back to Maya! This has to be possible in C4D. Otherwise, Jeff, why not make the model in Maya and then 3D paint it in C4D? Then import it back into Maya and get all the edge smoothing correct.

But I can't believe C4D has no edge smoothing abilities (it's a decent app)... someone step up and tell Jeff how to pull this off.

 

Lol, I never missed it before but it does seem odd now that this has come up, but now that I see a situation in which it is useful I'd like to know how to solve it
Just to make sure Jeff, are you selected the offending edges before running the unbreak phong shading command?

 

that is corect, I am. My friend thinks the problem is that the vertexes causing the problem have one normal per face. creating the hard edge. So maybe a merge normals comand would work, but searching the manual for normals dousn't bring anything up on the subject. Jeff

 

I would be using Maya but a long line of unfortinate events has made that imposible for the time being. First my G5 got toasted, second the local shop wanted a fortune to fix it. So I purchased a new Mac Pro and of all the software I have messed with besides games Maya is the only one I can't get to run under rosseta. So unless they release a UB (which I heard they are planing to) I'm stuck with other tools. Ahhhh, I want Maya back !!! Jeff

 

No, apparently C4d works out normals on the fly, though apparently unbreak phong shading should work too. The only other thing I can think to do is subdivide just those few polygons so that there is a gentler curve...
Cheers
Boxy

 

You took the words out of my mouth Ethan. This again seems crazy to me, I was looking into C4D as a replacement for maya (since it seemed they weren't making a UB - Jeff new info?). But if it doesn't have even this, this is a _basic_ operation. I am starting to become frustrated for Jeff. Some one please tell me this is false.

 

Well it looks exactly like this to me:

http://www.savbox.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/posts/phong.mov

So without having the actual file I couldn't say for sure. Jeff, is your object imported from elsewhere? If so, it might have a normals tag associated with it in the Object Manager. If it does, delete the normals tag and that should smooth the geometry and let you use phong breaking etc. A Normals tag is keeping the normals as they were from the original app.
Cheers
Boxy

 

At Seriousgames we have 2 people running maya under rosetta, so it should work.

For starters, try doing a clean OS install on a secondary/removable drive and see if maya works there. It really should

 

Ok I'll try your sugestion Sav, and thanks. Nic I have tryed installing Maya a number of times, the installer throws errors, so I boot into Target disk mode and install from a PPC mac, the installer runs fine but Maya won't open (bounces in dock and then dies before even the maya boot screen apears. I'll try it on a secondary drive with a clean OS install when I can get my hands on another drive. Thanks a lot for the help guys and I'll let you know how it turns out. Jeff

 

We got a bunch of new Intel iMacs, and the installer and everything worked like a chamrm, so I'll say it's probably your OS

 

You could try running it from a shell to see if it prints any error messages.

--Eric

 

Ok thanks for all the help guys I got the normal problem fixed in C4D. My object had a normal tag (meaning it was using normal information from when it imported the object). What I don't understand is why C4Ds importer messed up the normals.

C4D dousn't call them normals, it refers to the edge hardness/softness as phong shading. So once you remove the normal tag you are able to slect edges and "break" (hard) or "unbreak" (soft) phong shading. So you can set an edge to all hard or all soft but not anywhere in between (like you can in maya). So thanks for all the coments, and helping me get this fixed Jeff

 

I've used Cinema 4D for years, nothing is wrong with it, and it does do what you're looking for.

First thing to try:
Select the object in object mode using the move tool.
Go to Functions> Align Normals.
Go to Functions>Unbreak Phong Shading.
Go to the object hierarchy(objects window) and select File> Cinema 4D Tags> Phong.
Click the tag and uncheck the Angle Limit box.

Next thing to try just to see if it works:
Make sure the object is still selected.
Go to Functions> Optimize.
Click OK.

If the second one works, then it means that you have points or polygons that are not attached to each other and will obviously need to remap your UVs.

If the first one works, then you can go into edge selection mode, select the edges that you want to be hard, and go to Functions> Break Phong Shading.

Also, it refers to the edge sharpness/softness as phong shading because that is what it is actually called in the technical world.

 

I don't really see the point of being able to choose values except hard or soft

 

maybe for gradual transitioning between a hard edge and a soft one?
Looks like that sack would benefit from some fall off around the top where its tied.
Boxy

 

I was thinking so too, but in my experience a soft edge will look soft no matter what. Might be I am stuck in C4Ds way of thinking.
Maya guys?

 

Probably has nothing to do with it but I think there was some issue with C4D altering point orders on import/export of .obj files. Someone developed a plugin called Riptide to counter the issue - no UB version yet but it runs under C4D 9.6 PPC :
http://skinprops.com/download.php?list.2
It makes sense to do all your obj import/export through riptide anyway
And what Deram said about optimize, I find that necessary especially on importing formats like 3DS
Cheers
Sav

 

The only thing that changing an edge to a hard/soft somewhere in the middle will do is adjust the relative length of the phong shading gradient for that edge... I didn't think Unity even supported this at all, so I don't see that it is necessary anyway.

 

Thanks for the help guys, I'm starting to get more comfortable with C4D. Although some good free tutorials on it might be nice, when I google I don't have much luck finding free training. Jeff

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but C4D Cafe is loaded with lots of excellent resources and helpful people. I would strongly recommend this site for anyone getting into Cinema 4d.

 

Maxon actually has a large selection of tutorials on their website. Also, C4DCafe has an excellent selection of member-made tutorials.

EDIT - Damn: beaten!

 

http://www.c4dportal.com and http://www.lynda.com also have many tutorials, though the latter is a subscription service.