WIP - On a hiding to nothing

24

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    Grab hold of the gizmo's Z handle and move the mesh forward of the main object which you can now unselect and hide/lock. Fig 14. Follow this by selecting all of the mesh and click on the increase thickness icon to be found on the surface modeling tab; paying special notice to ensure that the number of points are reduced to 4. Fig 15.

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    The finished result prior to allocation of a shader; intended to remain unsmoothed will be as found in Fig 16.

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    In conclusion, whilst on the surface all appears well, all is not as it seems; for in my experience a mesh created with the coons tool does seem to have a bit of a flaw. In as much as the mesh consists of “independent clusters or irregular islands” of verts' and nothing to date has given me any success in welding them into a whole. (Snapping; Welding; target welding or average welding)

    If anybody can suggest how to get round this problem, I'm all ears. So the result is on the wing of a prayer that the clusters do not get dislodged, ok on static rendering but dubious I would have thought if required to be part of an animation or a rigged pose.

    Some interesting results occur if one gets too carried away with the level of smoothing. :lol: :lol:. Fig 17.

    Quite pretty really. :-)

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Interesting effect, Red - thanks for the explanation:)

    Same thing happens when you extract a curve from a primitive sphere, for instance. It'll show as one curve, but when thickness is added and smoothed, it shows that it's not all connected. Won't be a problem animating, as long as it's all welded as one object.

    Cheers:)

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    Really, never noticed that I always tend to use either of the curve tools. But the coons is a bit of a nightmare. I've tried all forms of welding both prior to bending; after bending but prior to copying & pasting and, after pasting.

    Always the same result. What really becomes a pain is applying a shading domain to this structure, since there's a gerzillion forms; maybe it will be easier on my other computer with more of everything; I'll find out later. :roll: :)

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    I've never enjoyed the coons surfaces either.

    If you are only applying one shader domain, you could weld (not point weld) all the gazillion bits and bobs into a single object, select the lot and do it in one fell swoop:)

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    But's that my point, whatever I try, I cannot seem to be able to weld. Anything I seem to try I still end up with the same, gerzillions.

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Aah, yes, I see - sorry, I thought you meant point welding wouldn't work. Maybe the gazilion is a couple million too many for Hex to handle in one bite? Have you tried doing it say, 10 at a time?

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yup! Even tried one at a time gods help me. It still would not have it.

    So knickers I shall cogitate it over a pint of beer later. Whilst I read my 3D World mag',

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    So, back to a bit of modeling.

    Thought I would jig around with the main hull before I go back to repairing the pods. So I've tinkered a tad more....

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Couple of more tweaks, A medium hanger plus a few subtle pokes....

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Looking good - nice and smooth.:)

    The only reason I can think of for failure to weld is if the bits are in a group?

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    In a group ! Well, that they are. Hmm, I'll ungroup them to the root and see if I have better luck that way.

    I have a vague memory that I have tried that, but I can't be positive. So after I've tackled my suspected dust bunnies hiding in the farthest regions of my mother board, I shall give it a whirl and see if that solves my problem. Thanks Roygee.

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Whose de man den - Roygee !!! :coolsmile:

    No good, had to try it and it sort of worked; first time I tried with the whole lot, mini beast crashed through running out of Window handles. :roll:

    So rebooted, selected ten did a normal weld and bish bosh. All welded, a little bi-product however, the rest disappeared.

    So, will dup this file. Delete everything in it excepting this, try to average weld and if successful copy & paste it back into the original. Fingers crossed.

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yay! You were right roygee. Un-grouped and progressively average welded until I ended up with one; :cheese:

    Saved it. Loaded up the original file, deleted the gazillions and imported the revised object. The only thing which I found a tad strange following this I lost 90% of my shading domains on the "model", However, I found I still had the shading domains & the accompanying materials listed. Odd! All rectified now.

    All dust bunnies eliminated, cor twas bad. :red:

    Right, back to repairing the pods.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    :-):-):-)

    Methinks you are taxing the bu..er to the limit!

    Dust bunnies can be reached - my last incident when the PC went bowel upwards was the gunk behind the fan - looked all clean to me, but when my computer guy opened up - yikes!

    This is what you get from living at the coast - humidity + dust =gunky slurry on the back of the fan:(

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    Gunky slurry :bug: Not encountered that I must confess. I did remove all the fans and cleaned behind them where possible.

    So... again as a bit of a break from repairing twisted verts on my pods, I've tweaked a bit more the main hull by introducing itty bitty ; small and medium/large sized elevators.

    In the bottom shot, I have untwisted the relevant verts takes about 3 hours +/- and I'm replacing the missing parts. Now back to the repairs six done two to go. :roll:

    Edit: One to go; last one was a real pig. :-/

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Good grief, I've been tearing my hair out trying to repair the last pod. I tried every this way and that and back over again and again and again. Tried re-doing the bridging. Nope. repeated so many times I lost count.

    Then tried extruding. Nope. Etc. Gradually reduced down the faults until two areas left. See figs;

    Eventually heaved the model around until I found gaps appearing where they shouldn't, even when bridging. All flaming day I struggled, but all fine now. :cheese:

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  • A3DLoverA3DLover Posts: 198
    edited December 1969

    All those domes pods and cities and buildings reminds me of a anime called Macross Frontier.
    Too huge for me, great work Redsquare.

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    Thanks for your comments A3DLover.

    Macross Frontier.

    Umm, never heard of it I'm afraid, so you have the advantage of me. May be when I finish this I'll go a hunting and see if it is still about. A least I can now get on with filling the pods now I've sorted them out. :)

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  • m_m_italym_m_italy Posts: 386
    edited December 1969

    Hello Red.
    You know my proverbial ability to use the English language ....
    For this reason, if I ask you very briefly, what is it?
    :)

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    For this reason, if I ask you very briefly, what is it?
    Ha bl**dy ha.

    Now there's the rub. Think self sufficiency;

  • m_m_italym_m_italy Posts: 386
    edited December 1969

    RedSquare said:
    For this reason, if I ask you very briefly, what is it?
    Ha bl**dy ha.

    Now there's the rub. Think self sufficiency;

    Forgive me.
    I did not understand.
    No problem.

    Bye

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited January 2013

    Oh knickers! the texture has too low a resolution. :red:

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    OK After alterations and additions to my recreation pod mesh, I have now started to plant it. Phase I completed for better or worse.

    The first is just a screen grab of the boundary boxes. Makes the real one seem a tad nude

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Hmm! Disappointment! Zeroed in to the ground level and I seem to have lost my ripples in the sand. I pretty sure it is because I UV'd the revised mesh slightly differently. Bummer, not sure I can face another 6 hours instancing an alternative mesh. Either that or my lens focus point is all wrong. Or both. :down: Unlike the second shot.

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Right I've found my ripples plus the odd reversed normal but I can live with the latter. After the first shot I doubled the size reduction, whilst not so noticeable better for scale I think.

    Start planting tomorrow methinks.

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Very impressive, Red - what are you using to make the terrain?

  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited March 2013

    Cheers Roy

    World Machine - http://www.world-machine.com/

    Fortunately the latest version outputs to .obj Yay! Even the free version, whilst my earlier paid for version doesn't. So I downloaded it. It's a brilliant proggy although in theory you can model a whole world the output of the freebee is downsized restricted to a tile 500x500 . Nothing unusual in that of course after all it's a freebee.

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  • RedSquareRedSquare Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    So this is what 537,817 instances look like. :)

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