Material changes from Wings to Maya

[Geta-Ve]

This has been this way for as long as I can remember, but for whatever reason when importing objects that have been worked on in Wings, into Maya, the material is always super shiny. Doesn't even matter if the material was one previously used in Maya.

I really wish this was something that could be changed or fixed.

Quite possibly the option exists within Wings/Maya to fix this, but I have not found it as of yet.

You could say "just reapply material in Maya" and you'd be right, if I hadn't had hard edges applied in Maya previously. After exporting from Maya, with hard edges, and then importing into Wings, working on the file, and then again exporting out and importing into Maya, in order to get everything back the way it was I am forced to unlock normals, set to soft edges and then reapply all my hard edges, and also of course reapply my material.

Really hoping someone has an easy fix for this.

[Arg Arg]

i don´t know if i understand you right ...if not so, iam sorry
it could be a problem by the importer... maybe some datas are just ignored.
maybe it´s another problem.

to check for yourself what happens, you can create a simple cube in maya.
than apply any material of your choice to the cube.
export it out of maya.
open the exported material file (*.mtl) with a texteditor (i would recommend to download Notepad++).
import the cube to wings.
export it out of wings.
open the exported material file also with the texteditor and compare it side by side (maya-export-mtl and wings-export-mtl).
you can also post the content of both files here.

[Geta-Ve]

I shall give that a try! Thanks AA!

[VladD]

reason: Super bright ambiant, in Wings material properties.

[Geta-Ve]

Yeah, that is definitely PART of it. But it seems like the smoothing groups get fucked up also.

[VladD]

(btw I was typing from a phone before, hence the stern tone, sorry)

Well, when I import OBJ files into maya, exported from Wings, I get normals reflecting exactly the hard and soft edges that I had set in Wings without issues. BUT, yes, it is a pain in the xxxs that Maya automatically locks normals when importing OBJ, and that unlocking the normals destroy our patiently crafted set of hard/soft edges. Wings exporter is not at fault here, it's one annoying "feature" of importing any obj, from any software, into maya.

Possible work-around:

(edit: snip)


2. You can try this oldish python script:http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/lockednormals-to-hard-soft-edge
I don't know if it works (or can be made to work) for more recent version of Maya, if you find out I'd be interested by the results . Anyway, this script will read the locked normals information and convert them into editable soft and hard edges again. That way you can edit your object without losing your work.

[VladD]

I tried this script in Maya 2014, and it works fine.

[Geta-Ve]

Hey Vlad! Thanks man, this should come in really handy! Truly appreciated.