Help: "Holes" in my SubDivs! :'(

[sequel]

Hiyas! I'm new to the forum, but I've been lurking around here for a few months cuz it's such a nice and cozy 3D community

Always, I'm having a really, really annoying problem in Maya4 Unlimited, where when I load my scene, my SubDiv surfaces have very annoying transperant patches in them (!!).

Everything is fine when I freshly do a Mesh -> SubDiv, everything seems initially fine, the texture seems to fit the SubDiv okay, without any of these "holes". So, I save....

The Problem Arises when I LOAD the scene with the subdiv... In the workspace window, when I have textures on, I get these "holes" (!!). :*(

No problems when textures are off, but the "holes" still appear on the renders

(See Screenshots - I've marked the trouble areas with red)

I've found a few dodgy ways to temporarily fix this problem (Problem still there on the next Load), but since I'm new to Maya, and 3d animation in general, I don't know if these things will screw up my anims later... I'm really, really love a way to fix this, or at least avoid it in future...

dodgy ways to fix it temporarily:
- Doing a SubDiv -> Clean Topology.
- Going from SubDiv standard mode to SubDiv Polygon mode. (and then going back to standard mode seems be okay)
- Converting to back to mesh and then back to SubDiv.

The Hull:

I originally thought that this problem was due to my messy Mesh/Hull, so I spend the afternoon modeling a new one with cleaner Mesh, and the problem is still there!!

I've even tried deleting almost all the polys on a model and then converting to SubDiv, but still the same problem!! (except, when the model is nothing but a perfect layout of quads, but I've seen people's work with Meshes that aren't layed out in perfect quads that still seem to work great). I'm pretty new to Maya still, but this problem has been haunting me for ages

I've reeeeeeeeeeally appreciate it if you guys could help me!

Thank you for reading my woes!

[gmask]

Do these show up when you do a software render?. all the screenshots you show are from the GUI and the OpenGL display is not that reliable.

Do these still reappera if you delete history on the mesh?

[sequel]

thnx for answering q,

They still appear after Deleting all the History, and they still come up in the software render (which is my biggest concern). hmmm... I come from using 3DsMAX, and the MeshSmooth modified there always seemed to tackled anything I once had a look at Maya 2.5, and I remember it being very picky about the surfaces before it let you covnert them into SubDivs (Altho it's probably changed alot since then)

[sequel]

thnx again qmask! I just sent the email

[gmask]

It's the UV mappings that is causing the problems..

Read up remapping them ..

file:///C:/AW/Maya4.0/docs/en_US/html/UserGuide/ModelingSubDs/subdUVMap.html#54425

[sequel]

Hmmmm ahh UV's!! I've still alot to learn

Thanks for all ur help qmask, I really appreciate the time and energy u put into answering everyone's problems!

qmask am the winnar!!!!!

[sequel]

Just a question tho, is it possible to constantly convert a model to and from Mesh to Subdiv and have the UVs stay in tact? (As SubDiv's are too slow to do any modeling work in)

[gmask]

I'm not sure about that.. they should ..but ...

[gmask]

.. I may have been wrong about the UV mapping issue.. when I opened your scene I got some errors.. I think it wa sthe mirroring? So I imported it and the mapping slook correct but there some mystery faces that you had described are there so i'm going to ahve to mess with some more to see what the deal is.

[gmask]

Yes it will but in this case it will also remember the screwed mapping son those missing faces.. which you could manually fix.

In the meantime I trie dto fix the holes in the subd version by deleting those bad faces thinking I could fill them again but this created an unopenable file?? I also noticed an eror say ing unrecognized maya node type called MayaManNugget? What the heck is a MayaManNugget??

[sequel]

thanks qmask!

hmmm not sure about the error I asked a friend to try it, and he apperantly got an error too (altho it doesn't seem to do it for me?). I think it was because I was mucking around with loading plugins at the time... if I use Renderman SubDiv's, it seems to render okay (Altho, that is a renderman render with no texture assigned to it, I don't really know how to use it yet). MayaMan however, still renders with the "holes".
hmm I think I saved the file with Mayaman still open, so that might explain the errors (altho it doesn't seem to let me close the plugin right now... somehow), but the problem existed prior to me installing anything beside maya.

I've been poking around... and It seems if I add just do quick SubDiv -> Planar Mapping, it seems to be okay when I reload...

But, if I convert it to mesh, then do a Edit Polys -> texture -> Planar Mapping, and then convert to SubDiv, the phantom holes are still there when I reload

I'm guessing it could be due to how I've modeled it, as I have edges that seem to end nowhere, which might make it hard for the SubDiv to translate the UV's from the orignal polys?

Altho it doesn't explain why it works by doing a "clean topology", or when u covert to proxy mode, etc.

Hmmmm

[sequel]

lol @ "mayamannugget". sounds funny.... ummm, I'll reset, resave the file without Mayaman [edit: I've saved a copy, without mayaman loaded, sorry about that!]

I'll email you again in a sec! [edit: Email sent ]

[sequel]

hmmm y'know, deleting the offending faces and then reconstructing em sounds like a good idea q!

Previously, I've had tried deleting only the faces that seemed to display the problem.... but that seemd to have no effect, so I lost hope in the idea... But I just tried deleting the offending face, and the faces around it, and then, it worked!! fixed!! w000t!

Thnx Qmask

[gmask]

But I just tried deleting the offending face, and the faces around it, and then, it worked!! fixed!! w000t!

...Ar eyou sure I was not able to opent he file again afterwards...

I have done soemtign that seems to fix it after reopening, without changing the UV and without deleting any faces but I'm not sure what.

I open the UV editor window and toggle the modle from standard to poly and back and now when I save and reopn the file the faces are fine??

[sequel]

Whoa, that sounds like an even better approach!!

Altho, I couldn't get it to work on mine...
I tried: opening the file, Opening the texture ditor, making it go into Poly mode -> standard again, saving and then reloading, but it's still the same for me?

If I leave it at poly mode, it seems to be okay on reload, but poly proxy mode is super slow (any way to speed it up?)

hmm no idea why it doesn't seem to save on yours, or why this trick doesn't work on mine tho Hmmmm Did the 2nd file I sent you work? (12T TEst2.mb)

strange :09

[sequel]

actually, would it be okay if you emailed me a copy of your fixed solution... I'm just wondering if it could be my current maya installation somehow? I would like to try and resave it and reloading it to see if they pop back up again?

[gmask]

No it's not your install..

WHatever I did before doesn't work consistantly but what doe sseem to work over and over agian is to do an automatic mapping and then a projected mapping and that fixes it. I'm goignto send oyu that file. OYu'll have to edit the UV's to your liking. The only probalm is that I can no longer switch between polygon and standard ??

[sequel]

hmmm Interesting! I just received it, and it definetely works, altho yea, it no longer allows the switch back to poly mode... hmmm!

It'd be nice and prefferable if I could just take the mesh, and do an "automatic mapping" and then stick all the uv's together manually in the UV editor, and then, when all was done, convert to SubDiv surfaces at the end (similar to what I could do with Max).

It looks as if, with SubDivs it'd be more secure to do the UV's after the conversion to subdiv's, but it's a bit harder to work with as there's more points?

Either that, or I need to learn how to model in a way that makes SubDiv's happy ;p

Hmmmm Thank you so much for all your help qmask, I'll keep poking around and use some of the solutions here now, and in the future.

Thanks again!!!

[sequel]

lol opps! I just realised your name was gmask, not qmask! sowwies! the underline hid the bottom of the g, and I just assumed it was a q, doh!

[gmask]

In the end it does seem that the problem had to do with the UV mappings. The only permanent fix I found was to do an automatic mapping and then a planer mapping. I tmay hav ealso worked to dleete the mappings all toghether and start over again. However I found after messing with the mapping sthat I could no longer switch between poly and standard mode?