XNALara

You asked for this, here it is!

I use 3ds 2011 version, but I suppose this works in other versions too.

Blender allows you to split certain meshes in order to avoid bones limit problems and such, but this also gives you a bunch of ugly seams in XNALara.
In max it's possible to hide those seams and have a smooth model instead, so this is the pretty easy method:

1) First of all load your XNALara model using the XNALara script. Once you have imported the character select a random bone, then right-click on it and choose 'select similar'.



Every bone in the scene will be selected, so right-click again and select 'hide selected', in order to leave just your model visible.

2) Now press ctrl+A in order to select every mesh in the scene, then click on the 'Modifier list' on your right (clicking on the second button -Modify-), then select 'Edit Mesh'.



Do the same thing again, but this time choose 'Edit Normals'.

3) You should have something like this:



Now, press ctrl+A again, all the normals will become red. On the right, you need to check 'Use Threshold' and change the value from 0,1 to 0,001. Be sure to be on 'Edit Normals' and not on 'Edit Mesh'.

4) Time to finally remove the seams. Click on 'Unify' and then on 'Selected', wait a little bit until it's done.



So remember: 1) Use Threshold, 2) value on 0,001, 3) Unify and 4) Selected.

And done! Your seams are now gone. Do a test render (Rendering - Render) to test your result.



See? His face looks smooth and without annoying lines export it with the script and check the final result in XNALara.



Perfect! (don't pay attention to his incredibly shiny face >_< I still need to fix that and modify this model. It was just to show you how to remove the seams ;D)

Big thanks to Goha for showing me this very useful method and to Love2Raid for fixing the model for me!

Thanks! Great instructions, very concise yet informative. You're a natural!

IMO you should leave a little sheen on the face, I think most people tend to get oily in that area.

Thanks Whenever I removed seams in 3DS it turned ugleh D: But I think this will be perfect

It's a nice and quick method I had problems too before, but Goha was so kind to show me this one and my models looks all pretty now

OMG, thanks!

This is great, I will try this as soon as I can.

One thing though, does this get rid of all sharp edges? Because some meshes need those sharp edges, they look better that way (for example the blade of a sword).

edit

I can show it here:

This is the lower part of Credo's coat, with sharp edges (I made them that way XD):



This is how it looks after removing all double vertices:



See, ugly shadows. It's not so bad here, but in some cases it's really not right. Like a sword or a cube that's supposed to have sharp edges.

Usually no, seams are merged and hidden from the meshes. However, it could happen that certain models need to be fix selecting just some parts instead of all... because yeah, merging the normals bad shadows could appear. I noticed this today with a scenary and recently with a model. It's pretty rare, actually... but still. Let's say this method works great with the 98% of the models so far

Ok, sounds good. I'm going to try it soon, a model that I'm working on right now would be excellent for a first test.

This method works perfect with Mass Effect models. Works also for B&S models. I did it yesterday to fix Irina's model from TLR and I had to leave her hair because bad shadows appeared >_<

Let me know how the method works for you

I would like to thank you again!
I used it on 'Unknown' from Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and it worked great! Just not on the line where her head and neck are attached. I suspect that it might have something to do with the treshold being too low. I think that, if I had merged those parts in Blender first, then split them again and finally got rid of the seams in Max, that it would have worked. But oh well, that's something to keep in mind for another time!

Love2Raid wrote:I would like to thank you again!
I used it on 'Unknown' from Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and it worked great! Just not on the line where her head and neck are attached. I suspect that it might have something to do with the treshold being too low. I think that, if I had merged those parts in Blender first, then split them again and finally got rid of the seams in Max, that it would have worked. But oh well, that's something to keep in mind for another time!

Also, sometimes it might depend on a sligh difference of colour in the textures (if the head and the body use different meshes, of course). Unify the normals twice, sometimes could make the trick... I tried the other day with a model that still showed some ugly square and line here and there, it now looks perfect after a second operation with the normals but, obviously, it depends on the model and on the real problem