Holey OBJ (batman)!

[michael]

I downloaded some free models today and loaded a few into Houdini...

they are OBJ files and come in just fine...but what is strange is this :

anyone have any suggestions?

oooopss....here's the link to the models:

http://www.3dfestival.com/story.php?story_id=1115

edit-

hmmm... it imports into Mya just fine...then out to Houdini without any issues....strange

[Wolfwood]

Flipped normals?

Did you try busting out the Facet SOP?

jim.

[michael]

flipped normals was what I first thought, but when I turned on normals in the display that seemed fine...I'll do a few more tests, and try the Facet SOP also...

[Mcronin]

I've seen this, that's one of those CG talk models, right? There's a whole bunch of busted ones in those archives. The problem is they are using Deep Exploration to convert the files and I don't think it writes OBJ exactly correctly, or it has problems going from LW to OBJ or something. If you bring one of those models into Maya and export OBJ, then load it in Houdini it'll be fine. Well, you'll still need a reverse SOP, but there won't be any holes.

I just looked at the difference between a broken CG talk model from DE, vs. a fixed one from Maya... The difference is about 4 megs, that's almost half of this particular model.

[michael]

yeah...that's exactly my experience....

Houdini = lots of holes

into Maya = all good

out of Maya (much bigger file size) and into Houdini > all good

[edward]

The problem with at least some of the models is that gwavefront currently does not handle backslashes as line continuation characters without a preceding space. So to fix the object file, replace the string "\" with " \" (add preceding space) and then it should work.

[michael]

thanks edward...

it's funny (in that bad, annoying way) that the idea of a 'file format' is just a vague concept...obj should be obj...iff should be iff...etc...

[Wolfwood]

This looks like a job for duct-tape.

makeGoodObj.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

while (<>) {
	$_ =~ s/\\\n/ \\\n/;
	print;
}

Usage: cat MyModel.obj | perl makeGoodObj.pl > MyModel.Good.obj

perl is such an ugly language.

jim.

[Wolfwood]

On a side note you could add this or a beefed up version to your $HFS/GEOio.

jim.