Killing babies because of OBJ

[DartStriker]

Well, I'm ready to smash my computer. I can't seem to get OBJs to work anymore and I have no idea why.
They worked fine before, and now not. Every time I try and export an OBJ from Maya and put in it Milkshape it turns the model into one group, and screws up the textures. Each piece needs to retain its own group or they don't work. If anyone can help on this I will praise you to the gods of sirius.

The only thing I did differently this time was group the entire model into once piece and set all the faces to face out so I don't get any weird glitches in milkshape. When I was done I UN grouped everything, and exported it. Same problem everything is in one group.

Please help. The children are suffering.

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[Durandal]

Try .3ds instead, OBJ makes me do the same thing.

[DartStriker]

Do you know of a good 3ds exporter for maya.

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[Durandal]

I don't, but I could've sworn that mouthshot used it, then again, I may be wrong.

I'll do some digging if I get some free time.

[DartStriker]

I've been looking around, I found one but it's part of a 500 dollar program. Not willing to spend that money.

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[DAnvilFan]

I use Maya. Will look into this when I have time.

Well, I'm ready to smash my computer. I can't seem to get OBJs to work anymore and I have no idea why.
They worked fine before, and now not. Every time I try and export an OBJ from Maya and put in it Milkshape it turns the model into one group, and screws up the textures. Each piece needs to retain its own group or they don't work. If anyone can help on this I will praise you to the gods of sirius.

The only thing I did differently this time was group the entire model into once piece and set all the faces to face out so I don't get any weird glitches in milkshape. When I was done I UN grouped everything, and exported it. Same problem everything is in one group.

Please help. The children are suffering.

[DartStriker]

Well it's not the best solution, but in maya select two objects and regroup them, then ungroup them. Do this for every object and when you export it in OBJ they will all have their own groups. I'm thinking is has something to do with the background information maya, or 3ds stores that cause them to group certain ways in OBJ.

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[DAnvilFan]

Your terminology is a little confusing. When you say "each object will have its own group" do you mean Maya like groups or just that every object is a seperate mesh from another?

I'm not sure I understand your situation entirely, but here are a few pointeres on exporting OBJs from Maya:

1) When you have your exporting window open, make sure that in the "File Type Specific Options" you have "Groups" and "Materials" unselected. If you have "Groups" selected, your OBJs will retain the Maya grouping format which is unreadable in other CG applications.
Leaving it on will cause other applications to simply force all objects into a single polygonal mesh.

2) I'm not sure why grouping/ungrouping every pair of objects solved your problem. Seems to me like you had objects in various groups already. Did you use your Outliner by any chance? I think what happened is that you had objects in a single group. Taking two objects and grouping them removed those objects from that group. In this manner, it appears that you gradually pulled all objects out of that one big group until it was empty.

Try this for a faster solution: Open up your Outliner. Check to see if you have any groups in there. Select all the groups you don't want, then ungroup all of them. Afterwards, select all of the objects you have ungrouped, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History.
As you work, Maya retains a lot of information that you may not be aware of, such as null groups, transformations, etc. Deleting by Type History will clear a lot of jargon.

[DartStriker]

Ill try that on my next model and see if it helps. Thanks for the information.

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