normals from maya->max

Deprecated XMesh Alpha Discussion
1

Are normal vectors supposed to be working from maya->max?

I exported a geo from maya via the ‘saveXMesh -p’ command, loaded it in max, and the normals seem all wrong. (uvs work great though!)

cheers,
laszlo

2

No, currently our XMesh plugins don’t load normals at all. Instead, the Maya XMesh Loader translates Smoothing Groups into edge smoothing. Saving smoothing groups from edge smoothing is on our wish list.

The XMesh Savers are not currently supposed to save a Normal channel. It looks like the Maya XMesh Saver may be saving a Normal channel, but that is not intended.

3

:frowning:

4

I suppose you could get the normals into 3ds Max with a bit of scripting. The script would open each .xmesh file, and change the normal channel’s from Normal to Mapping2 (or some other unused map channel).

Then, in 3ds Max, create a material for the XMesh Loader. The material should have a Vertex Color map from Map Channel 2 feeding into a Normal map. You’d also need to change the Normal map to flip the axes appropriately.

EDIT: Never mind, this approach will not work in general.

5

I dont actually see a normal channel exported, just:

faces
verts
channel_TextureCoord_faces
channel_TextureCoord_verts

You get normals from just running saveXmesh -p ?

Maybe i am using an obsolete version?

l

6

Sorry, my mistake. Normals are not saved in any release version.