Decimate my mesh!

[AlienSlof]

I'm working on a mesh, that although high poly, is not more than Blender can actually handle, plus I have reduced the poly-count significantly as I've gone along. All doubled verts are also removed to further optimise the mesh. Pic shows ver and face counts:

 

http://www.slofshive.co.uk/content/art/decimate.jpg

 

Yet, when I try to export this, I get an error telling me: 'too many faces to export, please decimate your mesh'

 

However, as this is a conversion, it comes already UV'd - when I hit the decimate button it loses the UV.

 

And I really hate UV'ing, and I hate even more trying to match an existing uv.

 

Why is it complaining that there are too many faces when this is clearly not the case? I've exported far bigger poly-counts than this before without a problem. Help! :)

[Quetzlsacatanango]

I can't see your screen, I'm guessing it's on photobucket or something else that I can't see from here, but all that comes to mind without it is that maybe you have hidden meshes parented to your skelly that account for the gap between what you think you have and what blender thinks you have. I don't think I have ever tried exporting with hidden meshes, maybe it would be smart enough not to export those, I'm not sure.

I never knew that decimating loses the UV, although I guess it makes sense. Good to know.

[AlienSlof]

The pic's hosted on my own webby - if you have that blanked by an adult filter, that will stop it showing.

 

No hidden meshes - what is shown is what's there. The body is cropped out where it would be under the clothing, to reduce clipping, so there are not even extra polys there. I don't hide parts because I don't know how to unhide them - so I just avoid using that feature! :)

[Quetzlsacatanango]

I guess my work blocks your domain then. I will try to look later.

btw, alt-h unhides hidden objects in object mode and hidden vertices in edit mode. :thumbsup:

[AlienSlof]

Thanks! I know there are times when hiding a piece would be handy. :)

[Quetzlsacatanango]

It occurs to me that you said it was a conversion... maybe the original has some parts hidden? Try alt-h and see if anything appears, maybe that is the problem after all.

[Alecu]

Hmm,the biggest mesh that I have exported had more than 280k triangle faces or 147k quad faces so high face count isn't the problem. But I did got an error the first time I've exported the mesh,because some individual objects had too many faces and I had to edit their mesh and separate them in smaller objects with fewer faces. The most I got was 32k triangle faces or 16k quad faces on an object.Any more and it wouldn't export them. Maybe the pants object has more than 32k triangle faces. Separating the object into smaller objects doesn't break the uv map but I don't know if you can do that with the pants object,if it is the culprit indeed.

 

I also had to re-rig the meshes,clear the weight painting and then copy it again but at a lesser quality,like 2.Or you can try to convert the faces to quads. I would start by doing the latter because it is the easiest one but from the faces/vertex count some of the faces are already quads or even all the possible faces.

[throttlekitty]

What format are you trying to export it to? If it's .nif, there's a ceiling on the number of faces for a single shape (a little over 64k). So either reduce or split into subobjects. (pants don't need 70k in my opinion, but anything goes in modding)

 

As far as decimation goes, that sort of routine rarely gives output that is friendly towards rigging. Much better to start killing off edge loops and rings, collapsing unneeded details and whatnot.

[LHammonds]

Maybe it is complaining about particular faces. Try this but make sure you do not save over your original after doing this...go into EDIT mode, select all vertices and press ALT+J to convert triangles to quads. Then see if you can export. If not, do it over and instead of pressing ALT+J, press ALT+T which will convert all quads to triangles. Then try export again. This is just a shot in the dark to see if the problem is due to something wonky when the mesh was imported from some other editor or format.

 

If your model is in a nice quad format, you can quickly decimate the total amount of verts by choosing edges that you can delete that will not affect the shape / shadow outline very much. If you are in EDIT mode, you can get into Edge Select mode by pressing CTRL+TAB+2. Then ALT Click an edge...if the edge is selected vertically instead of horizontally, just press ALT Click again in the same place and you will eventually highlight the edge all the way around the object (assuming your model is well-formed). Once a complete loop is selected, press X and select "Edge Loop" to make the loop disappear.

 

Keep in mind that UV maps can become affected whenever you remove edges...especially if they were part of the seam. Just need to experiment and keep an eye on the UV Layout window and see what changes if you delete any edges. A CTRL+Z can quickly undo a mistake and allow you to re-evaluate where the next area should be edge selected.

 

LHammonds

[AlienSlof]

Thanks folks! I finally got the thing to export by splitting off the buckles down the sides and exporting both parts separately. The mesh was in quads when I imported it, then I converted to triangles for game use. It's a conversion of a Daz outfit I bought last week and converting for my Ob boys (not for public release, obviously!). It's mainly just an experiment to get used to Daz meshes in Blender so I can someday make my own. :)

 

Thanks muchly - it now works! :thumbsup: