Options for OBJ export

Feature requests
1

The problem that this feature will solve:

Currently any object exported in OBJ format that is inputted into Epic’s Unreal will be turned +90 degrees. So a house will have the front door sticking up in the air (hard to get in).

Although this can be done in Unreal, it would be better to allow optional (and persistent) rotation in Shapr3D.

Shapr3D:

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Unreal after import:

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While rotation can be done on import with Unreal (on x,y and z axis), most assets go through something like Adobe’s Substance Painter which DOES NOT have the ability to rotate on import. As such all assets imported from Shapr3D will be rotated 90 on the X.

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Adobe’s Substance Painter is used throughout the industry from everything from buildings to the small items you see in games.

Obviously attempting to paint the UV’s on something that is +90 on the X can be problematic.

Brief description of the outcomes that you expect from this feature:

An option that allows rotation on the X, Y or Z axis on export. (In my case, I need an export of -90 degrees on the X for Adobe and Unreal).

This would eliminate the problems importing objects into industry standard programs like Adobe’s Substance Painter and would go a long way to making Shapr3D a standard tool in the developers toolkit.

As it stands, there are methods to doing this translation, but it adds another step in the workflow.

What can’t you achieve without this feature?

As I indicated, the OBJ export does not allow an adjustment of the rotation so that objects are rotated “90 degrees the wrong way” for standard industry tools like Adobe Substance Painter. Although this rotation can occur (we hope — it is currently being investigated) it is another step in the workflow that should be part of the exporter.

Is this a workflow blocker for you? Is this why you can’t use Shapr3D for work? Is this slowing you down?

It is definitely a workflow blocker until we determine the best method to do the rotation.

2 Likes
2

Just a question out of my curiosity:
Wouldn’t a rotate-command applied before the export solve that issue?
You might as well undo that operation after the export.
To define the rotation around axis x,y,z pre export would be an additional (another) step in the workflow too.
And to state that your workflow is BLOCKED by adding an additional step… I don’t know…

3

Matt, let me address the three things you bring up:

  1. Rotating, exporting, then undo — this is not practical in a business environment.

  2. If the x,y,z is persistent, like most packages do it, there would be no reason to change it every time (again, this is pretty standard in the industry).

  3. I said it was blocked until we determine the best method for rotation — this means the best that allows us to create assets with the minimum number of steps. But make no mistake, it is a workaround, not a solution. The solution is implementing the feature.

I’m sure you mean well, but the feature request is to bring Shapr3D more in line with how the game and movie and TV industry uses digital assets.

4

Of course I mean it well…
I feel both the needs of a user as well as the needs of the CAD-developer/Industry.
That is why I would like to mediate between both extremes…
In regards of

  1. trust me: I am also from a business-environment (it may differ from yours, but we are making business!) - the guys that are about to manufacture my thoughts need to allign the bodies to their machines most of the time(because I don’t want do dictate the machine that they are machining the parts on… so stating that is not practical may suit your business - mine is more agile! :wink:
  2. Yeah, sure, the software may remind the last values for the export…
  3. To date the best way would be to model the model in the right orientation from scratch…
    … to rotate the model before export…
    … or to wait several days, months, years until the Shapr3D-team considers to deliver this function…
    After all I don’t know if any CAD-developing-company is very motivated to do everything that a “industry” says, when just a single additional step in the workflow is a no-go!
    I am not speaking for the guys of Shapr3D, but I understand what their challenges and needs are…
    They may see that differently, but I would say: go with another software if you would like to “cancel” Shapr3D over this one quirk.
    See it that way: How many guys working in the “game, Movie and TV”-industry using Shapr3D (and not Blender or whatever) need this feature and how many mechanical engineers, designers, etc. using shapr3D wait for other features(Assemblies, BOMs, Configurations, Parametric…)?
    I don’t want to hold you back from placing this feature-request, I just would like to earth you in regards of the expectations you have on it!
    Cheers Matt
5

I am not presenting the use case nor the feature request to you.

I find it disturbing that feature requests are trolled.

6

No, you are not presenting it to me personally, you are presenting it to the community!
I find it disturbing that you think that I am trolling you…
I am just standing my personal gound!
This is not a closed discussion between you and the deveopers, this is a forum, so it is open to the community to discuss the topic…
If you would like to have an enclosed discussion you should write an eMail to the Shapr3D-Team… otherwise live with different opinions like mine!
Every feature-request not discussed by the community would be kind of false balance, because there may be few people needing this feature over-representing the people wanting other features over that one feature…
and if I, as a single guy, am able to disturb you and your request that much, that may show how week that request is!
After all I just wanted to lower your expectations on the realization of the feature-request with my experience, because you guys tend to come with the expectation that your feature will definitely come with the next release - but it definitely won’t! If you don’t see it the way I do - fine! Time will tell who is right!
I am just one guy of the community speaking out - after all the development-resource belongs to all of us by 1/all… not the most by the one who speaks out the loudest… and that is what the Shapr3D-Team will consider.
Absolutely no offense!
Cheers Matt

3 Likes
7

Thanks for the detailed description!

8

You’re welcome!

As someone with over 4 decades in developing software from operating systems to GUI’s I’ve been very impressed with Shapr3D. The learning curve is remarkably short and what I have exported to Substance Painter has been remarkably clean (you wouldn’t believe the amount of rework we have had on “clean designs” only to find geometry gone wrong).

Shapr3D will be a boon to our asset creation! Now we just need to determine an interim solution to the rotation issue.

1 Like
9

Please see below what is being asked for — these would be persistent values for the X, Y, and Z and would be limited to 0, 90, 180, and 270 (I’m unaware of any need for oddball angles).

I would suggest they be put in the Advanced Options because not everyone needs them.

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1 Like
10

Got it, makes sense. We might add similar export options in the future.

2 Likes
11

Well, we’ve run into a serious issue involving UV painting. Take for example this “oven” created in about three minutes:f

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The problem is that when we UV paint it, we want to do so knowing groups of faces (which is why FBX is such a great format: it is hierarchal in nature and allows just that). Unfortunately, Shapr3D only thinks in solids. So while the design is already shaping up to be nice, for our needs it is already unusable: OBJ format just outputs triangles. I can select the faces in Shapr3D, but with no way to organize them, I can’t “just paint” the inside as dirty and the outside as shining steel: I have to reorganize it at the UV level.

Compare this to what is available to us under Sketchup:

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We’re able to group the faces so that when we export it under FBX, we don’t have to spend a lot of time just separating the different faces out in RizomUV — they are already roughly grouped. Thus all that is required is a handful of cuts, and on to UV painting.

I’ve looked at importing into another program and probably will also try Maya (after converting to FBX), but what we gain on modeling, we may lose, on UV’s unless you have a solution I’ve missed. I guess as a last resort we could model the inside of the oven as a separate object that slides into the external. That’s a little odd, but I can’t really see a way of doing it otherwise.

Please let me know if I’ve missed a solution!

Thanks!

12

What’s great about FBX is that the labels for the inside and outside follow from creation to final UV art. So if the artist is told “make the OVEN_KNOB metallic red with dirt on it” they don’t have to guess — the geometry is actually labeled. A little work on the front end makes things almost trivial on the back end.

1 Like