Repair Geometry and Import Meshes (OBJ, FBX, ...) - Blender Tutorial

We show you a couple of tricks how you can fix some issues when you import geometry from other 3d-packages like 3ds Max or Sketch-Up. Especially when using FBX, OBJ, DWG, DXF or STL this might occur.
In this tutorial you see how you can turn triangles into quads again, fix screwed normals and other common problems, when importing a 3d-mesh from another software. Hope, it helps!
Music Credits: Energy by Bensound, www.bensound.com

[@rogermoore9742]

Young people don’t understand. 15 years ago we would have had to pay for software with this functionality. Like 500 to a 100 Bucks! Blender in 5 years does all this for Free?! Crazy.

[@sakirabbit900]

Thank you for this tutorial! I seriously needed this for my arch viz projects, especially when importing models from 3ds Max to Blender!

[@artisans8521]

Invaluable, no nonsense, no woolgathering. Real German straight to the point. I hope you don't mind me subscribing.

[@XoioDe]

Thanks, I take this as a compliment. Sure subscribe, I just ahven't found resources lately to do new videos ... maybe soon again!

[@Spacebar-3D]

Very good tips! the steps with the roof are super helpful - thanks!

[@kleyber1548]

1:31 OMG THIS! I've been looking for this function all day!

[@maloro5189]

very underrated tutorial.. Thats sofar the best method to convert complex stl files into a simpe hardsurface geometry. Thx Xoio!

[@XoioDe]

You're welcome!

[@jamesriley5057]

Well thanks. I found this video 2 years late but this is GOLD. sub'd

[@jandrevikovsky76]

Thank you. Reseting vectors helped me.

[@XoioDe]

Great! Sometimes you need to try a few options, especially with the normals / vectors

[@FilamentWizards]

Wow the topology of my mesh is so clean now thank you so much

[@XoioDe]

Ha, great that helped!

[@houseking9211]

Thank you for this, I was working on a poorly converted car model, and one of the meshes, the biggest portion of the bodywork, was completely ruined

[@el_loote]

Great Tutorial, thank you! I may add what saved me an awful lot of Retopo-Work lately: *M, B* = Merge by distance. This removes Double Faces - the main problem when "Tris to Quad" doesn't work on imported meshes. So it's... Edit mode, A, M, B, ALT + J, Bingo!

[@nic7363]

I don't know how, but your tip works like magic incantation. I want to cry how good your advice was!!! I was desperate all day!

[@el_loote]

@@nic7363 Happy to be of service :)

[@FeRusBand]

Heeeey, very useful thing! Thank you!

[@jeffdavies2824]

I never though of stacking the decimate modifer! That tip alon is a game changer. Innevitably, when I import a mesh from an external source (blendswap, blender market, cg trader, etc) what I get is often a total disaster (as far as blander is concerned). Thanks for these tips!

[@XoioDe]

Good - good ! Glad there was something in there. (Cleaning out crap meshes seems like something AI will not bother doing :) ).

[@CraftyKaname]

Thank you so much! I had to recalculate my normals!

[@Jonah_Anthony]

Saved my life dude! You're amazing

[@XoioDe]

Glad that helped - nice feedback is always appreciated!

[@andrewdeacon4384]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@CGTricks]

Great tutorial, thank you

[@XoioDe]

Thanks, glad you like it!

[@RecNinja]

Thank you for this ;)

[@digitalbase9396]

Good tutorial, thanks

[@bugparis7252]

Realy useful thankx

[@ikrambouras5848]

crystal clear is a nice drink

[@Filipincho]

Oh man, I'm so relieved and angry at the same time. I've wasted countless hours struglling with shit geometry and now I feel so dumb because it's so easy to fix :D Thank you so much

[@XoioDe]

Glad the video could help - really!

[@abdennacer6329]

Thank u so much this is helpful

[@MichaelHalsell]

Very useful.

[@Rockmih]

You are a life saver man thanks

[@XoioDe]

Thanks, glad to hear this!

[@kabayanpets]

these tips surprisingly solve my current problem haha! oh my god

[@XoioDe]

Good to hear, Emir.

[@Beaxim]

Or one click in Instant Clean addon

[@behzadmehrdadi5282]

Thank you very much

[@kjh090194]

thank you!!!

[@justride1493]

Thank You very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥰

[@3dVisualist]

Reset Vectors! Thank you!

[@anim23322]

veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery helpful thank you

[@PolyLIne-wi8of]

wwowwwwwww... i found gold....Thank you. Subscribed DONE!!!

[@user-ut1fp6hn4p]

0:35 i believe shift+n is the shortcut for this! it works the same, as you have to have the vertices/lines/faces selected in edit mode.

[@lucamaretti]

thank you bro you saved me

[@George1791-]

Thanks!

[@PersianScimitar]

THANKS!

[@Zakko64]

Thanks

[@tamaskarsai2072]

Well I gonna take a look at cleaning my building up like this, but geometrynodes does some weird stuff. When I spent like an hour cleaning it and imported it into unity, it was showing faces and hiding faces all over. Even tho in blender it showed that the normals were all facing the correct ways.

[@MonsieurNaif]

Super usefull, thank you very much

[@germanlorenzetto3020]

Great! greatings

[@XoioDe]

Grank you :) !

[@UnboundGodz]

Resetting mesh normals was def my issue after importing an OBJ.

[@muhammadsaied1857]

Thank you

[@XoioDe]

Very welcome

[@nirajkapadiya3890]

does it work for objects with .skp extension? or imported via sketch up importer

[@100kahuamo]

Bobby Z I use the signature version but I tNice tutorialnk most of the stuff was also available in the producer edition (I bought that first). I am using

[@GCEXTREMEMN]

Ive got a weird piece i created in tinkercad and its got alot of shapes used to make it. Im trying to round of some of the corner edges, cant do it in tinkercad really, so i exported it as stl and when i open it in blender its a messy mesh and i cant really use the bevel tool to round off the corner cuz its got too many lines and is a mess..

[@TacticsTechniquesandProcedures]

So, after I decimate, convert to mesh? That explains a lot.

[@XoioDe]

Yes. Because you want the clean mesh to continue your modeling process, right? Otherwise you still have the broken mesh underneath, which probably has a bigger memory footprint as well.

[@CandyStrawberrySystem]

0:32 Spit swallowing sounds, Yay

[@userxbw]

what are the pit falls in using fbx models in blender, or how flexible are they over or as apposed to or equal to a model made in blender? ( or all of the other possible imports)

[@XoioDe]

FBX is totally fine for its purpose. It is basically a format to exchange data - all of them have certain advantages and disadvantages - try OBJ and DWG as well. But to save Blender stuff for itself you would obviously use then standard Blend file. Happy Blending!

[@userxbw]

@@XoioDe I was wondering how much can one modify the mesh , or basically closely can one treat it like a blender file object (model) . scalping and such on it without completely screwing it up.

[@XoioDe]

@@userxbw That is impossible to say. If you know what you are doing, you can completely modify an import mesh, optimize it etc. and it might just get better. But several processes might involve loss of detail or UV-data. So always keep a backup.

[@userxbw]

@@XoioDe thanks, I just didn't want to be wasting my time modifying everything only to find out I screwed it up more then not. its a big learning curve going from making a model with face builder, makehuman put them together head on body, because I suck as an artist in that respect then to UV's getting skin tones then I am a that does not look absolutely like the person perfectionist kicking in . then to animation with the aid of miximo needing to be done then the other stuff afterwards, and I am still redoing the head part. I basically haven't gotten anywhere other then repetitiveness to remember some steps in what to do.

[@XoioDe]

@@userxbw Got ya - understand. Best to take this kind of stuff with small steps and small projects to learn the workflows that suit you best. And then you can patch them together for something big. Otherwise it feels really overwhelming - I know the feeling. Good luck!

[@kevinm3751]

You lost me at 2:40 where you said to convert back to a mesh. At what point did you set it up to not be a mesh, or is this just a function you can use to apply the cleaning of the roof?

[@XoioDe]

Convert to mesh basically applies all the modifiers in this case. You can also use this command to turn curves/ texts into meshes, butt in this case it is as simple as that. You could alternatively apply the modifiers by hand, but that's more clicks.

[@itsblkworld]

So bad you're never updated your channel when I just found it :(

[@XoioDe]

I haven't uploaded content for a while - It's a lot of work, you know. I will see when i get around to do some more videos. Cheers!

[@jamesback6823]

sorry, I have a question... I often create meshes which I then export to Unreal and I've noticed that the format that creates the least problems for me is gltf... but when I'm on Blender and for example I model a building, paying attention to the geometry, in short I create a mesh perfect then when I export it and import it again into Blender the geometry changes and is no longer as precise as I had done, why does this happen?

[@XoioDe]

Hey James - sorry, would not know anything about reimports from UE :(. Normally a good exchange format is FBX, no? But that does not say anything about precisision.

[@jamesback6823]

​@@XoioDeWith FBX, I encounter many problems like faces disappearing and textures being inverted. With glTF, this doesn't happen... but I was referring to importing and exporting from Blender for Blender. For example, I create a mesh that I will use in another project still in Blender, so I need to export this mesh to have it in a new Blender file... I recalculate the normals, apply the transformations, in short, I do everything necessary to have perfect geometry and a clean mesh. However, when I export and re-import, everything goes to hell. For instance, on a flat face like a plane, it adds loop cuts that I never made... Should I perhaps use OBJ if I am only working within Blender?

[@flyingroads3498]

How do you popup the search gismo?

[@XoioDe]

I placed the space-bar as search. You can configure in the first splash screen or later in the configs in "Keymap". Good?

[@jamesotteson7839]

For some reason when I go into properties and add a modifier, it doesn't affect my model. It is weird because if I just click mesh then clean up then decimate it does. Anyone know why this is?

[@jamesotteson7839]

Update, it has to be in object mode to be affected.

[@mw3874]

As you say in the last sentence. I hope to see you in the next tutorial. Too bad. It has been almost a year. I hope everything is okay with you

[@XoioDe]

Thanks for the concern - yeah, we are ok. But times have been very busy in our studio. I have to see when i find time again. Just life, I guess ;).

[@noemiviccari9033]

Bro thats what I said haha im back right now sober lol

[@anaislegros2440]

Hi, I am facing a problem I would like to know if you can help me. Do you think you could have a look on my mesh? I send it to you with wetransfer? I tried everything..

[@XoioDe]

I see, if I can squeeze it in. What is the problem in general? Send me the link, if it is not a huge mesh.

[@armaganbozdogan7304]

1:26

[@essentialelephant8850]

Do you have a twitter account?!?!

[@XoioDe]

No, no twitter. What's up?

[@essentialelephant8850]

@@XoioDe You are doing amazing work and I would love to tag you there so people can easily find you ... but for now I will just use the link for the KZbin channel Consider Twitter though ... It's newer for Blender folk but I think it could be a great space to invest in :) Keep up the awesome work!

[@XoioDe]

@@essentialelephant8850 Thanks, man. That is very kind. We have a xoio instagram: instagram.com/xoio.de/?hl=en ... but you can only feed so many channels, right ;) ? (And our website" xoio.de", but that feels like being oldschool already .. )

[@marcogarridocastillo1334]

L struggled to make soft

[@nikhuzairie3973]

yo are you sober yet?

[@garyspeed8961]

toooo fast ,,,

[@XoioDe]

Maaan, you are Gary Speed and this is too fast :) ? Where did I loose you?😄

[@garyspeed8961]

@@XoioDe haha,,, first command... Blender interface is pretty daunting for new users.. complicated by multiple ways of accessing the command and versions changing the interface... suffers from being designed by committee in that regard... so how you tracked down "tri to quad" took me 30 minutes of further research.. PS speed is my "ironic" nickname from my teenage years... aussies love giving ironic nicknames to their mates.. I was notably lay back in my youth

[@XoioDe]

@@garyspeed8961 Hey Gary. I personally got pretty well used to Blender UI. You should be willing to use a lot of keyboard shortcuts - it really pays off in the end. If you don't know a command just smash the search bar - it is really realiable ( I kept the space bar as search) and additionally the results also tell you where the command is found. And if you really use a command more often, consider putting it in your quickfavourites - I always have 5-6 standard commands there. Good luck and Godspeed!

[@Stanislavlvanov]

Blender bad bad bad bad