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Smooth a 3D surface in 3D Studio

When a VRML object is generated from IGL Trace with vertex normals and imported into 3D Studio it should already be a smooth surface. However, under some circumstances, such as when vertex normals are not generated, the surface of the object will be patchy in 3D Studio.

Smooth each object as follows:

• Select the object: bounding box and axes will appear
• Select Modify Tab from Toolbox, then select Edit Mesh
• Select subobject: Face
• Under main Edit menu, choose Select All to select all Faces in object
• Under Edit Mesh - Edit Surface dialog click Smoothing Group 1 to make all the selected faces have the same smoothing group
• (Edit Face may not work when grouped)
• Return to Create Tab to end Edit Mesh

Note that this only smooths the shading of the mesh surface, it does not alter the mesh itself to make it smoother. In 3D Studio MAX R3 you can actually smooth the mesh itself with the following:

• Select the object
• Select the Modify Tab and click the More... button
• Select MeshSmooth from the list of modifiers
• The object will be smoothed using the default parameters. To change the amount of smoothing choose different parameters in the tool dialog.

Last Updated: 04/30/03