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Strange Discovery - The Dig
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Strange Discovery - The Dig // Work in Progress
Post by Finis // Nov 15, 2008, 6:54pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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click ... buzz ... click ... Sir? ... Burgess sir, Dr. Burgess. I'm an archeologist ... I understand. It gave me a good laugh too but it's not a hoax ... Approximately life size. Tool marks and some sand around it indicate it was abraded using other stones ... no, I can't explain it. |
Post by Finis // Nov 15, 2008, 7:20pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Not an official entry but here is my strange discovery project. I probably won't finish by the deadline anyway.
I'm having some trouble texturing the ground object shown. TS 6.6 object attached too. Using TS 6.6 tab on model side of the free TS 7.6.
It's a cube with the top divided several times. Some ploy bevels and point editing done. I'll use this with more detail and SDS to be an archeological dig site.
I can apply a texture, dirt image and bump, to the entire object. When I try to apply another texture only to some polys TS crashes. Select the polys and then click Paint Face = crash. Click the polys in Paint Face mode = crash. I shut down my computer and restarted. Then I started a new scene with just a cube and tried Paint Face on it. TS crashed. Some crashes say out of memory even though 3/4 of RAM was unused. Some say TS encountered a problem. Some also trigger the MS report error box. Some just make TS disappear with no error message at all!
I also saved the ground object as a TS 5 object and tried Paint Face in TS 5.something and it crashed too. TS 5 could Paint Face on a cube.
If this object causes the problem why does just a cube also cause it?
Any ideas? |
Post by spacekdet // Nov 15, 2008, 8:02pm
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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Tried it out here.
Large textures, small textures, Paint Face by itself or via Point Edit first, all worked ok.
Tried it in both Model and Workspace.
Is it one particular texture that's causing the crash or any texture+Paint Face?
I know 6.6 had a 4000 pixel texture limit, not sure if Model inherited that tendency or not. |
Post by nigec // Nov 16, 2008, 2:01am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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For 11 months I've had issues TS 6.6 and 7.6 crashing when applying a colour or custom shaders and just couldn't figure out why
I found a reason y'day and for me its doing it if "multi thread" render is selected, its in the "enable raytracing" drop down menu
Its not a feature i've ever used and I think its enabled by default as TS 7.6 has always been totally un usable till now so i couldn't of accidently turned it on |
Post by Finis // Nov 16, 2008, 6:21am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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spacekdet, nigec thanks for your help.
It happened with any texture, even simple colors.
I tried it without multi-threading and it still crashed. So I started turning other things off and found that it worked fine in wireframe mode (from the Direct 3D, Open GL, Wireframe icons). I had been using "Direct 3D". Out of Direct 3D mode it would work with multi-threading on.
Some people are posting about many strange problems with TS. Others then reply that they've had no problems at all. I think some of them defend TS irrationally but mostly I think that TS is not very versatile or compatible with different systems. Different graphics hardware, drivers, XP or Vista ... plenty of bugs but versatility is likely an issue. |
Post by nigec // Nov 16, 2008, 6:58am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I had to model wire frame, and scanline render, no DirectX tools, it was the only way i could actually do anything lol
i also turned off the 3DNow and SSE optimizers in the "files" dropdown in 6,6
I'm uses a Nvidia card and AMD dual core, funny enough it misbehaved on XP partition
my old steam powered pc with a 64meg on board chip worked better, i wonder if its a multi core CPU's causing the issues?
a |
Post by nigec // Nov 16, 2008, 7:34am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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ok.. on the model i got a texture with bump map, it worked fine, then died a death using the 3d brush,
if you notice as soon as you select the brush the box's edges trianglate, maybe a plain would be better?
In the pic i just dabbed the brush in three places. if i try drawing a short line it crashes |
Post by spacekdet // Nov 16, 2008, 8:27am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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High five, wireframe buddies!
Hey, I'm a big fan of wireframe display, steam powered, single-cored machines, being the current user of one.
It seems you've narrowed it down to a display card issue, which can sometimes be fixed by a) updating the video card driver or oddly enough in some cases b) rolling back the driver to an earlier version.
Visit your particular card's manufacturer's site and see what they have to offer.
Hope this gives you an avenue to explore to help improve your stability problems...for some people with the 'right combo' tS really can be 'rock solid'.
I think issues like this are necessarily tough for Caligari to nail down due to the sheer number/combination of boards and CPUs out there.
It must be a nightmare to code software to work with rapidly evolving and often quickly outdated hardware.
Having the OS change beneath you is also a factor-hopefully with the recent events tS can get ahead of the curve in that regard.
Good luck! |
Post by nigec // Nov 16, 2008, 8:51am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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With my card i had to roll back, the last drivers really messed TS up even on XP
Over at Adventure Maker guys using Nvidia cards had loads of strange in game issues caused by the new drivers
Like you say theres so much involved, so many different manufacturers, and a jumble of parts, plus the graphics card companies are focusing on the new "in things" |
Post by Finis // Nov 16, 2008, 1:02pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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I want to use textures applied to selected faces of the ground to make layers of different stuff. I did that with the basic mesh shown and then applied SDS.
How can I make the lines between textures less distinct?
Some areas have distorted UV. The UV editor (haven't used it before) shows jumbled lines that don't look at all like an unwrapped version of the mesh. I need to read the instructions of course but any advice on the UV editor?
Ideas for other ways to make this terrain will be appreciated too. |
Post by nigec // Nov 17, 2008, 1:10am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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Try using LithUnwrap (http://www.sharecg.com/v/5169/software-and-tools/LithUnwrap) its a free UV mapper, I can't get away with the TS one :o |
Post by Finis // Nov 20, 2008, 6:47am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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@nigec -- I downloaded LithUnwrap. Thanks.
I have to stop spending time on this and the layered ground I wanted is difficult. So I'll make a scene that avoids the troublesome aspects and post what I've got soon and leave this as a project for later. |
Post by Finis // Nov 20, 2008, 2:50pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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click ... buzz ... click ... Sir? ... Burgess sir, Dr. Burgess. I'm an archeologist ... I understand. It gave me a good laugh too but it's not a hoax ... Approximately life size. Tool marks and some sand around it indicate it was abraded using other stones ... between 4000 and 11000 ... no, I can't explain it. |
Post by Breech Block // Nov 20, 2008, 3:42pm
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Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
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Hey, that's really cool. |
Post by Steinie // Nov 20, 2008, 5:08pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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I'd like to buy a vowel please Alex...
Clever work! |
Post by MikeJoel // Nov 20, 2008, 5:40pm
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MikeJoel
Total Posts: 266
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Pat... Pat.... :rolleyes: Alex is the other one....
Very clever and funny.
Mike |
Post by tahnoak // Nov 21, 2008, 4:28am
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tahnoak
Total Posts: 487
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Very well done! |
Post by Finis // Nov 21, 2008, 7:51am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Thanks for the comments everyone.
Since it is mostly basic tools and techniques here's a Making Of for those new to 3D. Model side or TS 6.6.
Wheel body:
There are 24 text panels on the wheel but 24 sides would make a faceted cylinder. I made the cylinder primitive and used the primitive parameters panels to set the number of sides to 48. Used parameters panels to set the number of divisions vertically and circles on the top so I could give it the tiers and delete the central points with point edit. Then point edited to delete the center edge from each panel face and bevel to raise the face.
Text:
Text tool to make only the letters and numbers needed. I swept each to have some depth and beveled the undersides. Then I copied, arranged, and grouped them for each panel. Each group was boolean subtracted from the wheel body. W!zard's rule of bool: A complex group object will work better in booleans than many separate boolean operations.
Posts:
One cylinder with a beveled top. Apply array tool. Each text panel has 3 sections so there are 72 posts. Posts grouped together.
Contestant Rail:
Sized a cube so one side had desired profile. Point edit mode to select the side and sweep into shape. Point edit mode: ractangle select, with backside on, the original cube part's vertices and delete. Subdivision Surface (SDS) applied to smooth. The wall beneath was made this way but no SDS.
Triangular Objects:
Made a cube then used primitive parameter panels to set number of sides to 3 and round the edges. These panels are great for making geometric shapes beyond the regular primitives.
Pointers:
Cylinder altered in point edit by rectangle selecting columns of vertical edge vertices and moving. |
Post by nigec // Nov 21, 2008, 8:01am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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That's great Finis!! cool idea :cool: |
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