Gorf

It's what all my 3DS imports look like before they get cleaned up...

I think this is a pretty good thread - perhaps we need a "How would I model this shape" forum. I'm modelling a military helicopter with a bulbous targeting module on its nose. I can model the copter and the module separately, and move the two parts into position to make the whole aircraft with non-connected parts. But I'd love to know how to turn the interface between the surfaces of the unconnected parts into a spline so I can make the join less "sharp".

So if you don't want the brownish "ground" surface, delete it from the choreography. How do you render so that the ground doesn't appear in the rendered file, but a shadow falling upon it does?

You don't get rust on the submerged part of a boat anyway (until it stops being submerged). It's usually an area that fades upwards from the waterline.

Sorry - now I feel a complete idiot. 12.0v (note - not v+) on a 3GHz P4 with HT disabled in BIOS, Matrox Parhelia 128 AGP in dualhead mode. EDIT: Got it wrong. Although I've downloaded 12.0v - I've never installed it. I'm running 12.0n+ when weathering crashes to desktop. I'll download and install v+ and see if it's still a problem before submitting a report. Tried it in 11.1 and it works, although it looks a bit rubbish so I might have to "age" my model by some other means.

Sorry for reviving a long-dead thread. I get the weathering dialog up when I right-click the model in the PWS - but when I try to apply the default (50%) I crash to desktop. Has weathering definitely been discontinued, or is this something I need to report? I'm trying to "dirty up" my model for a trial-run.

Battle damage???? The cockpit and R2 have been blown away!

Thanks, Ken & Niels. Niels - the problem is that the CP won't attach, not that I'm getting deformation. The spline going through the CP must be visible on at least one side for the CP to attach. If you can only see the CP, not the spline, a new CP can't be attached.

I have a model that's getting too complex, so I'm hiding huge chunks of it while I work. this means that sometimes there are CPs visible but the spline running through them is not. When drawing a new spline, is there any way I can force a new CP to attach to one of these CPs? As an example of the problem: lathe a four-point circle and extrude it twice to make a cylinder. Select the middle spline circle and hide the rest. Break the spline twice and delete the two remaining splines. Try to attach a CP from a new spline.

If you're on a PC, try IrfanView - it's free and it can convert your images to TGA

Does the display invert automatically? ;o)

Is it bad to have a model where two patches cut through each other? I'm modelling a Harrier GR7, and the fuselage does not taper to the rear, as with most jets, it’s just a cylinder ending in a hemisphere. The tailfin looks like it could be modelled as a single object with the lower part cutting through the fuselage and forming the small ventral fin, for simplicity and reduced splinage. Is this sort of modelling frowned upon? Are there any rendering considerations I need to take into account? The biggest question, though, is that if I should be modelling the whole thing as a single assembly, is there a quick and dirty way of turning the interface between the two patches into a spline? While I’ve got your attention, I’m not happy with the amount of messing about I had to do to integrate the tailfin and the little air vent at its fore base. Was there a better way to do that?

And if the women I know are anything to go by, their mouths are usually moving. A lot. If you look at the ep3 DVD, one of the bonus features is a deleted scene of this poor Jedi being executed.

Hi, all. I'm trying to rig up a simple contraption, where I just need to move one hinged lever, and it has a knock on effect moving all the other attached bits (see WMV file for what I'm doing). I've got it working, but I can't believe it needs to be as complicated as it is. Do I really need so many bones? The JPEG shows the bones and their constraints. I just move Bone1 and everything else works from that. Bone3 has a kinematic chain to Bone2. Bone6 has a kinematic chain to Bone5. Any critique of my method most welcome... action.wmv

I thought so - either that or the cold is having an effect...

Why not have the topmost elf holding the star's stick - as if it's a magic wand? That way you could give it a bit of an angle...

I'd love to take part too!

Man, you must be really old

Reminds me of a couple of bikers I know - they ride like their helmets are over their eyes, too.

Which is Dhar's way of saying that boobs "wobble" I feel a bit cheeky, criticising when I can't model or animate for s**t, but her pubis seems too high, and her right hand seems to pass into her thigh while walking.

Hmmm - hash and coke. Two drugs for the price of one.

Same here. It appears to be some sort of memory leak. I get it after working on the same model for an extended period of time, so it's not other programs' fault - it's either A:M, the memory card driver, or the o/s. OpenGL is not an option for me. As soon as I click on a CP, it cr*shes the ENTIRE system. I emailed Steve about it. He was nonplussed (OpenGL is usually the safer of the two). XP Home SP1 A:M 11.1g Dell 3GHz HT w/512MB Parhelia 128 AGP with current drivers. I'm reluctant to go SP2 as my video editing buddies have reported compatibility problems, however I'd do it if I thought it would fix this memory leak...

Is there an easy way to fix that, when it happens?

Yep - I made the half cross-section with three lots of three CPs as per image: (These will become the latitudinal troughs) The reason for choosing 108 lathe sections is simple - I need three splines per longitudinal trough, and I want 12 panel sections. At a rough guess, I think that the space occupied between each of the troughs should be twice the width of the trough. So for every three trough splines I want six spacing splines. 12 x (3+6) = 108. Lathe it, and you get a ridiculously complicated shape: View it from the top, and use the lasso tool to get rid of the spacing splines: Until you end up with this: Then {Ctrl-click} a pint on each centre spline, and press {comma} to select the whole spline. Turn the view without losing your selection, {Ctrl-click} then {comma} each of the three central latitudinal splines. Call this group "Inner ridge": Scale the CPs that make up "Inner group" to 95% If you want to be complete, you should go into top view, and scale these CPs back up from this: so that they make a circle again. Then you're ready to add all the other stuff to the model... Apart from setting the diffuse colour to white (from black), and the refractive index to 1.05 (from 1) the materials are all identical to the way they are in the Hash-supplied library. I've attached the model itself in case it helps. Total time, 35 minutes including screen capture and cropping in photoshop. Grenade1.prj

Thanks for the replies. @ Mr Jage - I can't see myself using this, but I'm toying with the idea of using it for a decanter or crystal whiskey tumbler. @ Biotron: WF attached below. I still can't believe someone who's got "Master" status has asked me for a wireframe! I'll try my best to get a quick tutorial together. @ Josh: I think glass just powders when subjected to really high pressure. Apart from shockwave, I think a glass grenade would be ineffective. I hope we get to see what Aldrich Quai Hoi (the OP I did this for) has planned for this "weapon".