i have problems with the attached model. no matter what i tried i can’t get rid of the smoothing issue. i tried making those areas quad, but didn’t helped and it stays the same with whatever configuration of polys - tri/ngons. Any ideas?

file is from max 2009

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smoothing_issue.zip

Hi Pixel,

First, I would never have the courage to navigate in such a modifier stack. :-)
Second, in my opinion the initial module could be simplified a bit, you don’t need that many edges at these stage.
I would put an edge or two elsewhere; (See Attachment) maybe this will eliminate the artifacts.
Also, just for info, you have hidden faces in one of the Edit Poly modifiers the second or third from above.
I personally would model the half of it, clean up all mesh problems and then collapse the stack and finish it
using symmetry modifier.

ivan

	Attachment

I have to agree with Ivan (for the most part) - I would model a quarter of it (less work) then Shift+Rotate to get the other 3/4, attach & weld.

You will almost certainly need to use smoothing groups at some point, and also look into the “crease” value (for Edges) - the higher the value, the less the TurboSmooth will affect those edges, thus removing the need for so many edges very close together.

Triangles = bad, quads = good (where Smoothing is concerned), also watch your Edge Loops - there are quite a few places where you have “T” junctions between edges which can also cause “anomalies” when Smoothed.

One other thing is the scale of the scene. I noticed immediately that it was difficult to zoom in on the affected areas. System Units of cm and display units of M is not the best choice for an object 10cm across. Sys Units of mm, display units of mm (or generic), Rescale World with a factor of 10 and things become a lot easier. Note. The will not work unless you collape the stack (to the top-most Edit Poly) - implying that there has been sone scaling at the object level going on somewhere (not a good idea!).

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Thanks for the replies both of you.

Yeah, i didn’t modeled it all of course:

circled in yellow is the basic pattern which was the only modeled part, then mirrored and attached to become 1/4 of the whole thing, and then symmetry madness.

One other thing is the scale of the scene. I noticed immediately that it was difficult to zoom in on the affected areas. System Units of cm and display units of M is not the best choice for an object 10cm across. Sys Units of mm, display units of mm (or generic), Rescale World with a factor of 10 and things become a lot easier. Note. The will not work unless you collape the stack (to the top-most Edit Poly) - implying that there has been sone scaling at the object level going on somewhere (not a good idea!).

i see. Well that is part of a bigger scene so i guessed it’s more comfortable in the long run. I will try as you suggested.

As for the edge creasing - i need to export the model to create additional small scale detail as a normal map, will the edge creasing propagate trough programs (.obj format)?

edit: yeah, what иван said worked pretty well, thanks.