modeling in v8

#1

i’m working - or trying to - on a model with about 4500 patches on my old G4 dual 450 OS9.2. the problem is that when i do anything beyond simply moving a point - that is, insert, break, detatch, connect a point in shaded mode, i must wait for up to half a minute for the thing to do the following: 1) finding patches 2)aligning normals 3)building texture maps (though there are no materials, colors or decals).

this is maddening. is it my system? is it some preference? i understand that it’s an old set-up, but it seems that at one time i wasn’t having this trouble. i get reasonably good performance in cinema 4d on the same system, with much denser meshes. any advice would be welcome.

doug reichert

#2

Version 8?

4500 patches is pretty patch-heavy not necessarily for your CPU rather A:M.
You could try selecting Tools/ Options, Rendering Tab, Real-Time Options. I’d select “4” in the polygons per patch area. Also, at that many patches, I’d work in wire-frame mode instead of wire-shaded…

#3

There used to be issues if one of your bones was in shaded mode this would happen. Maybe check each bone and see if this is the case.

#4

I echo nerrazi’s comment about working in shaded mode when modelling but

  1. in your tools>options>render options panel you can turn off or unselect “show decals/texture maps”.
  2. if you must work in shaded mode then you could always copy the parts of your model you are working upon into a new model and work on it there. (AM will only count a smaller number of patches before you can go again…) When you’ve done, take the new mesh back into (a copy of) your original model mesh and replace the old section.
    The above is easier with things like mechanical or architectural models but you could do this with a character also - I have a whole directory named “bits” which houses various versions of hands, heads, feet and clothing that I have tweaked differently and sometimes re-cycle into new models.
    Can’t help with bones and shaded mode - that always used to crash AM on my Mac.
#5

Hi! I’m also AM8 user.:slight_smile:
As for modeling…
My machine’s spec is 900MHZ CPU and 128MB graphic bord. I think my model’s patches are more than yours but I always do dividing modeling. As for human, I model each parts indivisualy and finally I attatch all the stuff(Not when shaded mode but wireframe mode, therefore when you attatch all the stuff and shade them, it will take some time). Then I export it to LightWave3D and polygonize it. Because polygonized model is very useful than parametric models like spline models, you know. Now I’m modeling an intricate organic model with AM. I think AM is very good for organic modeling I think. But the problem is the normals. Once I’ve heard the dealer about the normal problems but it seems hard to align the normals. But I hope the algorithms are gonna be fixed and be useful. Anyway, AM is my best organic modeler for me.:beer:

Thank you.

#6

Building models in a seperate window… I build a lot of my models that way. That Droideka on my site has over 13,000 patches that were all built using that method otherwise, it would take forever to create splines and save the model. I built the U.S.S. Arizona once and that puppy had somewhere in the neighborhood of 33,000 patches.:eek: But I try and keep most of my models under 3,000 patches, sometimes it’s just not feasible.

I too think A:M is great for organic modeling and some mechanical. There are some modeling tools that I’d like to see Hash develop for smoothing out your model’s geometry on denser meshes. Grabbing each control point and nudging it to the left or right is a bit tiring. I believe Lightwave has a “make smooth” button in it’s modeler interface, something like that for A:M would be invaluable to modelers and may help the software get more floor-time from professionals.:rolleyes:

One of these days I’m going to give Lightwave a shot. I hear for best results, you should model in Lightwave, animate in Maya and Render in Lightwave.

#7

thanks everyone.
it sounds like working in sections is probably the best option. i deleted all the bones from the current model, just to see if that was the issue, but saw no difference in performance. by the way, is there a way to delete all the bones at once? seems like i can only do it 1 at at time.

i don’t mind working in wireframe, it’s just that sometimes it’s really tough to see what’s going on that way.

nerrazzi- i’ve even tried ‘1’ flat shaded, but no improvement.

the thing that’s most puzzling is the ‘building texture maps’ bit. as i said there are no materials, colors or decals on this thing. i recall reading something about the ‘.ava’ file that may be related to this issue, but i can’t remember the details.

anyway, thank you all, and if anyone has more thoughts on the matter, i’m listening.

doug reichert

#8

isn’t the Ctrl key used to effect decendents. I think you hold it down when deleting. Or you might have to drag the whole skeleton out.

BTW why are you using 8 when you can use 8.5 which had a whole bunch of useful updates.

www.animationpitstop.com keeps old update versions around on his site.

i think you can get up to 8.5l before the cd changed.

jason

#9

I’m getting deja vu all over again, I think I mentioned before there’s a bug in 8.0 where wireframe acts like shaded, remember to press 8 frequently while modelling to make sure the model (All open windows with it in use) are in “true” wireframe mode or else it will recalculate all that nonsense every time you make a change.

CAN you use 8.5 with the old CD? I don’t think so, that’s why I’m still on 8.0 after all…

#10

i’ve tried the 8.5 installer a couple times and it won’t run on my 8.0 cd.

kind of stinks, since i’ve read a lot of positive things about 8.5, and i’d like to try it.

doug reichert

#11

I read all sorts of arcane wizardry and keyboard shortcuts or tricks whenI used to lurk the main list but the easiest I ever found was to copy all the model cp’s or mesh (whichever you prefer to think about) and then copy and paste (ordinary) into a new .mdl file.

You can then save over the original file name or save under a different name.

re 8 or 8.5 - which year did you buy? If you bought after (April?) AM would have sent you a free upgrade CD to 8.5. Alternatively, you could always check ebay

#12

oy vey! i can’t remember what i had for lunch yesterday, much less what month i purchased am! i do recall being informed that there would be a charge to uprgade to 8.5 which i deemed un-righteous at the time. penny wise, pound foolish, i suppose.

anyway, copy and paste seems like a reasonable solution. i do it all the time in cinema 4d. reconnecting everything would be the only tedious bit. too bad there’s no ‘merge points’ command. or is there?

doug reichert

#13

Sorry Doug!
“copy paste” would be a complete or partial mesh (if you are working on parts of a model as per your first questions) you wouldn’t go through the whole re-connect spline palava…

now, “merge” applies only to Polygon or spline to poly boolean operation. the nature of the AMBeast is coonspatches where the user requires “at-cp” control.

finally, so what did you have for lunch today then???:wavey:

#14

right, so say i want to rework the flow of the splines through a face, i would cut and paste the cp’s of the head and maybe neck, rework, and then copy and paste back into the original model. i need to try this and see what happens with the ends of the splines where they are cut… what kind of mess it makes. guess it just has to be dealt with one cp at a time.

re: lunch
uh… um… hmmm…

#15

not as bad as you’re making this sound, really it isn’t…:scream: :scream:

OK, don’t copy only the complex area, make sure your join area is relatively simple -
to rework a hand copy back to the wrist.
to rework a face copy back to the neck.

Why? you’ll have a simpler set of hanging splines to re-attach. Most people will simplify geometry towards these areas so that you may only have 4 to 9 cp’s depending upon how heavy your splinage is.
[EDIT]- also as you will find, facial splines may do interesting things as they become neck shaping splines or back-of-head splines and you may make changes you need to be aware of later![/EDIT]
The one thing is to make sure you delete the spline ring (not the cp’s) where you will re-attach so you have hanging splines ready to re-attach back to your original mesh.

If not lunch… what was breakfast this morning then…?

Now to copy this text before submitting incase CG-Talk times me out again!

#16

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