Shade 7 Import/Xport Files?

[guru2z]

I have just purchased Shade 7, but efrontier has site problems and I can't register. Which means I can not download updates. I read in the efrontier FAQs that it is better to inall CD and updates one after the other. (I am talking with cutomer service about problem)

I flipped through the paper manual and noticed there is not a lot of imprort/export options with Shade 7 v1.3.

Not able to download the updates just yet I wanted to know if this is improved with updates or should look at some import/export workaround?

Originally I bought Shade7 for texture and rendering for AC3D, Silo and Milkshape. But the manual has shown me that it is great modeler also and many other capabilities such as animation. Makes me want to upgrade to Shade 8 but I have to start someplace.

Thanks in Advance

[juanmanuel]

First of all, welcome to the wonderful world of Shade. You should consult with customer support, maybe you can get a good deal updating directly to Shade9, which has been released in Japan, so in the western world should be released quite soon.

Second, as far as I remember, the updates on Shade7 dealed among other things, on improving Poserfusion (the plugin which handles importing Poser scenes), more stability, and several minor glitches. Oh, yes, there was a problem with obj files, that when exported would not generate the exact point order as the original unmodified file, so making morphs for Poser this way was impossible. That also got fixed.
I don't know about ac3d or milkshape, but I use Shade alongside Silo a lot. They make a great combination. Shade8 has much improved polygon mesh support, but then again, Silo is a dedicated polygon modeller, so if you feel at ease with Silo, you can stick to it, and try what Shade is best at: curved surfaces. Somewhat like nurbs, but not quite. Very versatile.
As to the import/export options, it depends on what version of Shade you have. LE has not as much options as Standard, and Professional has quite a lot of options. However, I have found that as most programs support the obj format, this is almost always more than enough.

One thing, as you are coming from Silo-world. You can import eps files into shade, they get automatically imported as flat surfaces, which you can then either manipulate in Shade, or export to Silo. Same goes for text. Shade can do nice polygon models of text too.

The only thing worthy of mention that you should bear in mind is, that Shade only recognizes a material for each polygon mesh. That is, it only recognizes one material group for each mesh. The reason for this is that first and foremost, Shade is a curved surface modeler and renderer, with polygon mesh support. So for example, when it imports Poser scenes, the plugin automatically divides the mesh by material groups. If you import a file by obj, 3ds, etc directly, I recommend you do this before importing. I use unwrap3d for this and other "general" mesh and uvmap processing.

So anyway, I hope you have a nice time playing with Shade. Hope to see your renders soon.

[guru2z]

thanks juanmanuel

But what about an untextured mesh? Taking Silo as an example, say I export only the mesh to obj format can this now be directly imported into Shade 7?

I have since read several other posts at Shaders Cafe after you anwsered my question in this thread and it seems that importing obj directly into Shade is no problem. Or am I reading these posts wrong? Is there some pre/import formating an untextured mesh will need before import to Shade?

Hoping to get Shade registered soon. Then downloading updates, several days on and off the modem. And finally install and begin learning.

[juanmanuel]

Originally Posted by guru2z

thanks juanmanuel

But what about an untextured mesh? Taking Silo as an example, say I export only the mesh to obj format can this now be directly imported into Shade 7?

I have since read several other posts at Shaders Cafe after you anwsered my question in this thread and it seems that importing obj directly into Shade is no problem. Or am I reading these posts wrong? Is there some pre/import formating an untextured mesh will need before import to Shade?

Hoping to get Shade registered soon. Then downloading updates, several days on and off the modem. And finally install and begin learning.

Importing obj files into Shade is 99% percent of the time quite straightforward. You just do a file->import obj. Voila. Be it textured or untextured. There is even an option to correctly scale it if the obj comes in Poser units (and an other option to scale it back to Poser units on export).
The 1% that can be troublesome is for meshes that on a single polygon group have different material zones. In this case, Shade will just import the definition of the first material zone, and ignore the rest. This is where simple pre-processing will fix the problem. Nothing really difficult to do. Shade does import and export the uvmap information, unless you explicitly tell it not to.

There was a problem with one early version of Shade7 that exported obj files with a different vertex order than imported (even when nothing had been edited inside Shade) but this got fixed in an update.

[guru2z]

Well that really simplifies what seemed like something very difficult.

As I get into Shade 7 there will be a thousand more questions but this one was very improtant to getting started. At least for me.

Thanks Again juanmanuel!