[Solved] Basic Model Help

[TimV]

Hi Folks

 

Very frustrated user here at the moment.  I have a model done in Hexagon.  It has been saved as a series of *.obj files and I have spent the entire day trying to import into 3DCoat.  I can bring in the file, and 3DCoat picks up the individual objects and as long as I don't try to convert them to vertex objects, all is well.

 

I am trying to learn this program and trying to start from what I know from Hexagon, which is lines and points and faces.  All of my objects are simple shapes although many have been created by using extractions.  As I start converting from S to V, I can do only a few and then 3DCoat reports that it is out of memory and crashes.  These are small individual 3D blocks.  I even deleted all the textures and I still can't get it to go in.

 

I then tried putting up a background image with the intention of recreating everything in 3DCoat as original blocks.  My background image shows just fine, but when I add a box  (I'm in the sculpt environment), it shows in the master object list but it nowhere to be seen in the sculpt environment.

 

I have attached a PDF of the plans that I am working from and a screen shot of the assembly that I created in Hexagon.  If it will help, I'd be happy to upload the *.obj file of the assembly.

 

The tutorials that I have looked through on getting started are great demonstrations of the power of the software, but I'm not ready for the kinds of things they are doing.  Can someone help me get started with basic block construction like I have done with Hexagon?

 

Thanks,

 

TimV3.pdf

[digman]

In this case having the obj file would help as I have Hexagon too. I could look at the file.

Question:

 Are you desiring to import as a voxel or a surface mode object?

[TimV]

In this case having the obj file would help as I have Hexagon too. I could look at the file.

Question:

 Are you desiring to import as a voxel or a surface mode object?

Hi digman

 

Thanks for the quick response.  I think for now that I would like to bring it in as a voxel object.  Once I learn that tool set I will move on to surface mode.

 

I have added my obj file and the hexagon file.  Sorry, it won't let me upload the hexagon file.

 

Tim

sheet3aftpasseggiata.obj

[ajz3d]

Hi Tim.

I inspected your model and it contains very messy topology, which most likely is the cause of your problems in 3D-Coat.

There are some concave n-gons (in object Shape0, for instance); in Form14 vertices share the same position, which causes z-fighting; Form231 in particular contains very dirty geometry; you have a lot of non-manifold geo (Form231 again);

I'd suggest either cleaning the scene up, or starting your model from scratch in Hexagon or 3D-Coat. You should be able to re-create this model very quickly in 3D-Coat using voxel boolean operations or carve tool with modified blueprints image as a stencil (or cut-out shape).

[digman]

I check your obj file and it has a number of problems.

You have interior polygons that are occupying the same space ( 2 polygons) and some of these are extruding through the exterior surface a little. These also can cause rendering errors. As a rule avoid interior polygons.

Where you capped the openings are Ngon polygons, these need to be triangulated.

Materials that are associated with different objects inside the obj file are applied as uv sets when importing into the Paint room but there are no uv set polygons that are associated with these groups. Create real uv sets for these separate objects if you want them to have their own uv set. Now this can cause problems too when importing a model as a voxel or surface object.

I checked some for reversed normals on some of your objects, did not see any but you could next all the objects.

 

All the above are causing most of your problems when loading into with 3DCoat .

Clean up the model but it would be better to redo the model completely.

 

Not sure what the floating panels are for.

 

And everything AJZ3d said...

Edited December 27, 2014 by digman

[ajz3d]

I did this model in 3D-Coat using a stencil with which I cut out the shape from a voxel hires cube. It's a rough representation of what you want to achieve. I smoothed it out a couple of times, converted it to surface and smoothed again with 25 smooth iterations. Then I reduced the resolution using Resample and smoothed the model again (25x). Finally I cut off the top and the bottom of the cube to set the wall height to my liking.

 

Below, the stencil file I used to create the walls (modified PDF fragment, traced in InkScape to EPS). Needs to be rasterized before it can be used in 3D-Coat as a stencil.

blueprints_walls_stencil.zip

Edited December 27, 2014 by ajz3d

[TimV]

Hi ajz3d and digman

 

Thank you both for taking the time to look closely at the model.  I really appreciate the detail of your inspections. I bought 3dCoat because I could see from the demos and tutorials that I would have better options for modelling.  I have the entire ship done and since the approach for each of the objects is done the same way, the number of issues that are in the model is likely huge.  

 

ajz3d

I am really impressed with the model that you created and for the detailed description of how you did it.  I will look up stencils in the documentation and hopefully find a way to create them.  Your process gives me an entirely different way of approaching the modeling process which is what I was hoping for when I started this thread.  I think it is likely that I can find a way to create a good stencil using layers in Gimp since I can trace the section of the .pdf directly.

 

The floating panels are textures which are the windows and doors that are drawn on the diagrams.  I was not able to place them on the model properly and in some cases there are several sections for a piece of geometry so I created flattened cubes to have a surface that I could put them on in order to place them where they are shown.  I'm sure the paint room will provide a better way for me to do this, but I haven't started anything there yet.

 

Again my thanks.  You have both helped me a great deal.  I wouldn't be able to learn this by trial and error on my own as my frame of reference is limited.  I'm a great believer in forums and look forward to being able to give back as I  move forward.  Any further suggestions or directional approach advice would be sincerely appreciated.

 

TimV

[TimV]

Hi ajz3d

 

I have downloaded Inkscape and had no issues loading one of the complete plans from the drawings set.  Everything I need to get started is here.  I have found a raster plugin for Gimp which I hope will do what is needed.

 

Thanks again

 

Tim

[ajz3d]

There's also a simpler way of cutting simple shapes with stencils.

Check out this video:

[ajz3d]

You can also use Sketch Tool.

[Tony Nemo]

My recent experience with the Sketch tool has been fruitless.Why does this configuration:

 

 

yield this result?

 

 

Should I use the Logo tool as the object is to be thin?

Edited December 28, 2014 by Tony Nemo

[ajz3d]

Tony, in this case you can use only one sketch plane axis for your reference image, and set thickness and trim by scaling down other axes (unless you also need to define the profile).

Take a look at this video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/az2ma5hulnbwafz/sketch_tool.mp4?dl=1

[Tony Nemo]

Thank you! That's just what I needed.

 

Oooops! At what point did you 'Apply? I see yours modeled early while mine remains cubical and my 'estimated polycount' goes to zero.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Tony Nemo

[Tony Nemo]

I don't see the model you show in the process.

 

[ajz3d]

Thank you! That's just what I needed.

 

Oooops! At what point did you 'Apply? I see yours modeled early while mine remains cubical and my 'estimated polycount' goes to zero.

I applied with "Enter" key around 0:44.

[Tony Nemo]

It seems my problem starts earlier with no visible object as I can see in yours.

 

 

 

[ajz3d]

It seems my problem starts earlier with no visible object as I can see in yours.

 

Sketch_2.png

This looks okay, but you need to tweak the size of the other two planes. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like you didn't do it on that picture yet.

[TimV]

Hi ajz3d

 

Thanks for posting the tutorials.  I find them too hard to follow with screens that are too small to read.  I was able to open and view the stencil file that you attached.  How did you get such clean lines?

 

Thanks,

 

Tim

[ajz3d]

I imported the PDF file to Photoshop at maximum resolution (32000px width), cropped the image to blueprint of my choice, cleaned up the image and saved the file. Then I imported the raster image to Inkscape and traced it with Path->Trace Bitmap to create a clean vector representation of the raster blueprint. Lastly, I exported it to vector EPS file.

[TimV]

Hi ajz3d

 

A couple of questions if you don't mind.  After you finished cropping and cleaning the image in photo shop, what file type did you save it as?  When you traced it with Path>Trace Bitmap, what parameters did you choose?  How did you specify the vector EPS file on the way out of Inkscape?

 

I cropped out a section from the original PDF.  I clicked off the background in nkscape so that I would not pick it up.  It went out as a PNG.  In 3dCoat, I chose the option to import an image into a mesh, with the png as the top and bottom textures.  I have a hollow box with the textures on the top and bottom.  How does one have the traced image extend through the box?

 

This is new to me, so please forgive me if my questions have obvious answers that are eluding me.

 

Thanks,

 

Tim

[Tony Nemo]

Just a guess, but try with a TGA format.

[ajz3d]

Hello Tim.

Hi ajz3d

A couple of questions if you don't mind.  After you finished cropping and cleaning the image in photo shop, what file type did you save it as?  When you traced it with Path>Trace Bitmap, what parameters did you choose?

24-bit format is okay, like JPEG, PNG or other. I suppose 8-bit grayscale will work too.

To address your second question - I don't remember, but I think it was "edge detection" with default settings. You can skip this step (and Photoshop/Gimp import) completely and import PDF file directly into InkScape. I did it the other way, because loading and manipulating the file in InkScape took way too much time for my liking.

How did you specify the vector EPS file on the way out of Inkscape?

File-Save As...->Encapsulated PostScript (*.eps)

It doesn't have to be EPS, but something readable in one of your 2D applications. You can also directly export (File->Export) the traced image to high-res raster image, just make sure you do this in very high resolution. I chose EPS because it's universal, takes very little storage space, and when I import it to Photoshop I can set whatever resolution I want without loosing quality.

I cropped out a section from the original PDF.  I clicked off the background in nkscape so that I would not pick it up.  It went out as a PNG.  In 3dCoat, I chose the option to import an image into a mesh, with the png as the top and bottom textures.  I have a hollow box with the textures on the top and bottom.  How does one have the traced image extend through the box?

This is new to me, so please forgive me if my questions have obvious answers that are eluding me.

Thanks,

Tim

Try what Tony suggested.

Also, I recorded a more detailed video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7s1pjut6ldanahd/sketch_tool_2.mp4?dl=1

And a stencil that you can use to do some tests: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzjg86aq29bxif7/club.tga?dl=1

Edited December 30, 2014 by ajz3d

[TimV]

Hi Tony and ajz3d

 

Thank you both for all of your help.  It's up to me now to work through it.  I really appreciate the video.  That is very helpful.

 

Tim

[TimV]

Hi Again.

 

Arrrrrrrg.  I'm wondering why my 3dCoat doesn't seem to look like anyone else's.  I have not modified anything in preferences so it should be as shipped.

 

I can clearly see in the video that the "Sketch" tool is being selected.  From what I know of the screens, it looks like the Spacebar was pressed to call up the tool menu.  After replaying the video many times, I can see that the icon for the sketch tool is in the "Objects" section.

 

When I hit the spacebar on my machine, I get the tools list and there are 15 items in the "O" section.  None of them are the Sketch tool.  I changed my screen display on the left side of the sculpt menu to text rather than icons.  There are 15 items is the text list under the Objects heading and they exactly match what is in the "O" category when the spacebar is hit.  There is no Sketch Tool here either.

 

Also, in many tutorials, I see that people are in the "Voxel" room.  I have Paint, Tweak, Retopo, UV, Sculpt and Render.  I have no "Voxel" heading.

 

The Sketch Tool is defined on pages 56 and 57 as a "very important addition to the toolset"  (I did not replicate the spelling error; "the the toolset")

 

I am using 3D-Coat 4.1.17(CUDA)(GL64)(educational).  I did note a few different start icons.  Am I using the wrong version?  Is the Voxel room not available in the education version of the software?  Did I do something wrong when I installed it?  Did I buy something that I can't use for what I want to use it for?

 

Thanks

 

Tim

[Tony Nemo]

In the Voxtree, the volume will either be identified with a V for voxels or an S for surface. click the letter to toggle the opposite. 3D-Coat is context sensitive which leads me to believe your working volume is in surface mode where Sketch too is not available, Switch to voxels,

[TimV]

Hi Tony

 

thanks for the quick response.  Without doing anything other than loading the program, I now have 17 options available in the sculpt tool window.  Sketch is there now, and also Cloth.   I can get started now!   I still don't have a Voxel heading in the Paint line, but I will check after I get something created

 

Switching back and forth between V and S in the volume and root entries doesn't have any effect on the room options in the paint line.  It is still Sculpt and does not switch to Voxel.

 

Thanks

Tim

[Tony Nemo]

It should not switch. It is the "Sculpt" room whether you are in voxel or surface mode. Typically. one uses voxel mode to rough out a subject with boolean operations, etc. Then switch to surface mode for less drag on resources and many more tools.

[TimV]

Hi Tony

 

Thanks for the fast reply.  I just read the "how to use" in the tool options above where you select which axis you wish to put the reference image on.  The end of the note says not to use reference images more than 256x256.  What I am trying to use is a ship's deck, which shows the layout of the walls on the surface of the deck.  Do I have to scale down all the drawings?

 

Tim

[Tony Nemo]

As seen in the video, the image was very large and needed to be scaled down. I don't know your dimensions but experiment. The suggested 256 my refer to the voxel volume with a big and unnecessary memory load.

[ajz3d]

As seen in the video, the image was very large and needed to be scaled down. I don't know your dimensions but experiment. The suggested 256 my refer to the voxel volume with a big and unnecessary memory load.

I used high-res image as a stencil out of a habit. I simply assumed that saving the file in high resolution raster image will provide better anti-aliasing than if I were to save it as a low resolution image. =2048 square pixels image will have better AA than 256 square pixels one (assuming the file is saved with the same parameters). This works well for stencils used for sculpting with brushes - I like to use very high-res images to be able to scale them up a lot, if needed, and to avoid "faceting".

But when it comes to Sketch tool, I don't know much about how it works under-the-hood. It's possible that one doesn't have to use high resolution image at all, especially if the manual says so.

Edited January 1, 2015 by ajz3d