Hexagon crashes very often

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  • Thank you Morkonan, Hex does not crash that often on me but I have made the changes you suggested - We'll see how things go :)

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247

    it seems pointless to continue fighting Blender's hot-key hell and "hidden" basic operations and unintuitive, cobbled-together, confusing spastic module-interface-gone-insane interface. It's not a "U.I.", since it can't be actually... used. ;)

    I don't want to go promoting Blender in a Daz forum - that is like insulting your host at a dinner party...but just for clarification, so far I have only found one function that is not accessed through a menu and that is so common that you pick up on it in two seconds- the crazy key combination shortcuts are exactly that - shortcuts to speed up workflow.  You have no need to memorise them all, but the most common used are soon remembered.

    I mean, e for extrude, x for delete, Ctrl-z for undo, j for join, h for hide...etc, etc, how difficult can that be:)

    All over the place folk are begging for more hotkey shortcuts, and Blender gets a bad rep for having as many as you can handle, (something like 3 pages for the most common) plus as many customised as you care to make for yourself.

    Hexagoners may be surprised to find that Hex actually has several functions that Blender users would give their eye-teeth for, especially the line and edge tools, which is what I miss the most.  They have only just recently introduced the Hex equivalent of "Extract edge around edge" and it is very limited in its usage.

    Just wish I could do some coding and bring in some very useful Hex functions into blender :)

     

  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,206

    Not too much crashing lately, in Hex. Knock on wood. I actually made something very simple, a dog biscuit-shaped spacecraft, seen here with Juice3d's excellent planet earth model. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!! <DEEP BOW>. Big moment for me. smiley

     

    So would it be common say, to hit some roadblock in Blender and then stop, save, then send the mesh to modify some aspect of it that Hexagon is good at, and then go back into Blender?

    Sign of the times: the main public library here in my major center has been putting on little Blender demos for the general public.

     Roman K., Toronto Canada

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  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247

    So would it be common say, to hit some roadblock in Blender and then stop, save, then send the mesh to modify some aspect of it that Hexagon is good at, and then go back into Blender?

    I suppose one could, but I've not found any need of that - soon find methods of doing something similar in Blender.

    What I miss the most in Blender are the line tools, especially freehand curves and arcs, which is how I used to start off most models.  Blender can extrude from a single vert, which is the substitute for freehand curves I now use.  Most of the model in the attached pic started from a single vert.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247

    So would it be common say, to hit some roadblock in Blender and then stop, save, then send the mesh to modify some aspect of it that Hexagon is good at, and then go back into Blender?

    I suppose one could, but I've not found any need of that - soon find methods of doing something similar in Blender.

    What I miss the most in Blender are the line tools, especially freehand curves and arcs, which is how I used to start off most models.  Blender can extrude from a single vert, which is the substitute for freehand curves I now use.  Most of the model in the attached pic started from a single vert.

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  • An interesting thread and great work, Roygee.  Delighted as I am that you're making such great strides in Blender, its kinda sad since you always gave me great encouragement in the few Hexagon models I tried to make.

    The last one I started was way back in May (a military vehicle which wasn't far off being finished. It's high on my list of things to do).

    Because of its bad press and my unwillingness to keep going on to new software, I haven't been tempted by Blender.  I bought Silo in a sale (still unused) in case Hexagon dies totally for me but I've had amazing luck with it.  It does crash but mostly through some slapdash moment of carelessness.

    @ Morkonon:  A way to extrude while using the gizmo is to do Fast extrude by holding down the Ctrl key (in Windows) and pulling the arrow manipulator.  When I learned about this it made all the difference.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited November 2015

    Thanks, Markus:)

    My reason for moving on wasn't due to any lack in Hex, but because Carrara wasn't developing in a direction I wanted to go.  Thought I'd continue using Hex for modelling and Blender for the rest, but found the modelling so easy to get into.

    The Universal manipulator - now that is a work of genius that Blender could use:)

    Post edited by Roygee on
  • MorkonanMorkonan Posts: 215
     

    @ Morkonon:  A way to extrude while using the gizmo is to do Fast extrude by holding down the Ctrl key (in Windows) and pulling the arrow manipulator.  When I learned about this it made all the difference.

     

    True. But, I got out of the habit of using hotkey-manipulator combos back when Hex would tend to crash with my old setup when I did that. :) Out-of-sight/out-of-mind... There are many hotkeys I could be using in Hex, should be using in Hex, but those old habits of begging Hexagon to "not crash" on me die hard. So far, with my setup above, Hex is pretty stable. The only exception occurs with certain camera rotations combined with geometry manipulation. I tend to move pretty fast and can do things before I've finished doing them... which upsets Hexagon. :)

  • MaxHancockMaxHancock Posts: 226

    In the past Hexagon has crashed on me, but I can look back and see why that was. I was using the application incorrectly. Now, I am much more knowledgeable about Hexagon, and I can model happily for a long time without any crashes.  Lately, when something does crash, I immediately try to recreate the crash to figure out what the problem was.  I've started to note the things that cause Hexagon to crash, and I would like to hear from others if they found particular operations that cause the application to freeze or crash, or just cause incorrect behavior.  btw, I'm on a iMac. I've noticed that some of the things that cause Hexagon to crash are very subtle, it is something you did 5 mins ago that causes the interface to spiral into chaos and eventually crash, which I think is why people think it crashes for no reason. 

    • Naming materials from the name dialog will result in missing material and then eventual crash. 

    • Making a new folder from the save dialog will result in directory problems, and un-savable files, need to save to desktop instead of created folder.

    • I find that when I select to save changes before quitting from that dialog, the next time I open it locks up before fully opening. If I select no instead of yes, then this won't happen.

    • Free-slice tool in isolation mode causes crash (if interface isn't displaying free-slice interface correctly for some reason... still investigating).  

  • MaxHancock, I'm on a PC so it might just be Mac's but I've never had the problems you've noted. I do agree though, Hex does crash on me now and again, but less often now-a-days.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247

    I'm also on PC and can't say I've had any crashes related to your list ...may be a Mac thing?

    Sure-fire crash is trying to selec a twisted (non-planar) n-gon or non-manifold face.  Another is trying to do an operation with a curve - extrude, etc. without collapsing DG. 

  • MaxHancockMaxHancock Posts: 226
    Roygee said:

    I'm also on PC and can't say I've had any crashes related to your list ...may be a Mac thing?

    Sure-fire crash is trying to selec a twisted (non-planar) n-gon or non-manifold face.  Another is trying to do an operation with a curve - extrude, etc. without collapsing DG. 

    I have tried to mangle a n-gon but wasn't able to produce a crash. If you could make an example file and post it here, that would be super helpful for testing.  

    I have Hexagon on both my Mac and PC, but I use it the most on my Mac.  I am able to reproduce the renaming error on the PC version.  It's unclear if it eventually causes a crash. I turned off OpenGL optimization, so that may have fixed some of the issues I had in the past. 

  • MaxHancockMaxHancock Posts: 226

    • I find that when I select to save changes before quitting from that dialog, the next time I open it locks up before fully opening. If I select no instead of yes, then this won't happen.

     

    I can reproduce this error on the PC version as well.  

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247

    I have tried to mangle a n-gon but wasn't able to produce a crash. If you could make an example file and post it here, that would be super helpful for testing.  

    Typical of software - when I tried to reproduce, couldn't get a crash, but I can assure you that this has in the past been a major source of crashes.  Some very computer savvy users had a ball with this one and we eventaully found the only method of fixing it was to export to to Daz Studio as .obj and re-import.  Not even Meshlab was able to fix it.  Possibly this was due to other unknown factors being involved:)

    I have had Open GSL set to VBO for years, under Win XP, Win7 and now Win10, without any problems at all.

     

     

     

  • LasciareLasciare Posts: 184
    edited April 2018

    Hi DidrikB,

    The latest version of Hexagon does have various issues. I would first suggest some steps to try to find where the problem lies.

    1. If Hexagon has crashed, there is the possibility that the configuration file as become corrupted. So first, open Hexagon and "File-> User Resources-> Reset all". Then restart Hexagon. (sometimes, even resetting Hexagon will not be enough, as the configuration file itself may required manually deleting. Hexagon does create a new config file on re-start).

    2. There can be problems due to the OpenGL optimization. The setting for that is in "Edit-> Preference editor" -> "3D display-> Advanced-> OpenGL optimization". Change the setting to "No optimization"

    3. The next problem can come from attempting to export objects while there is dynamic geometry active (although that was supposed to be fixed. I have seen reports stating it can still cause issues)
    So for example, after you create your tubing, before you export to .obj file, select the object then go to the lower right hand side window "Dynamic Geometry" and click on the little lightening bolt, which will collapse the DG.
    If you do not use the dynamic geometry, you may be best, in the dynamic geometry window drop down settings, set it to "No DG", so you do not forget to collapse the DG.

     

     

    Thanks SO much. Your tips are still useful in 2018.

    Post edited by Lasciare on
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