I’m currently evaluating Shapr3D for use in our game asset development. One aspect we need is the ability to group faces. This is trivial when exporting in FBX format (which has a hierarchal format) but OBJ format is rather loose in this regards.
We are attempting to move away from SketchUp because of the amount of rework required to eliminate bad geometry.
I’m unfamiliar with the other export formats (we don’t use them in game asset design). There is a hack that allows it in SketchUp (grouping). Unfortunately, this is our main source of bad geometry as well.
As a simple example, let me present you with a simple oven design. This is prior to UV unwrapping. The green are the faces we have grouped as being internal and having a different texture than the external (for example, rough and slightly dirty) whereas we may have the external faces being shiny steel.
Unwrapping it gives us this:
It’s a little messy, but because we are able to mark what faces are separate, the amount of work really isn’t that bad (although the red and pink are a good indicator that a few lines weren’t cut very well). But it gets us very close.
Everything from the faces of the knob to the display are grouped under SketchUp. This works pretty well knocking things out.
So even though I can select the faces of interest that I would like to group together for UV painting, there does not appear (to this mortal) a command that actually groups them.
Exporting as an OBJ file presents many problems for UV painting: since “planar” surfaces aren’t “known” there is a lot more human effort. What we save in modeling we may actually lose in UV unwrapping. This is frustrating because this is an awesome tool that solves a LOT of our problems.
Importing the file from Shapr3D gives us this after we unwrap.
The feet are pretty close to perfect (they all need one cut to make them into squares for painting), but the internal and external part of the oven is a LOT of work.Requiring someone to go in and cut on the same line as each bevel. This is where mistakes in UVs are frequently made. Then they have to unwrap it again. It’s extra work that could be fixed if there was a method to group the faces prior to export.
Being unfamiliar with the other formats, do they possibly allow grouping of faces? Is that even possible under Shapr3D?
Thanks in advance!
