Atomic Systems

I have progressed with the Remembrance tutorial to the point where I want to build the bunker using the plugin. There seems to be a bug here where the bunker is produced but is invisible. I can select it in the hierarchy but when I try to run the Optimise object operation, Canvas crashes with error 9.

<IMG width="473" height="299" SRC="http://www.atomic-album.com/showPic.php ... bunker.jpg">

I use V 7.0.2.2. Is this a known bug?

fG

I'll look into it - I though I fixed that one a while ago.

There were some major changes to the plugins between 6 and 7 which caused a lot of similar problems.

Wow, that was quick, do you live on this forum?

I worked around the problem by making the bunker manually, but I now discovered that the cab also has problems. The outside front and rear faces are sometimes disappearing, I made them again manually by copying and flipping the inside faces. But when I then did the Split Faces thing to make the textures fit, the split faces disappeared as well...

Apart from these niggles, your tutorial is brilliant! I am getting something together that actually looks a bit like a loco. It won't be as good as the one you made and uploaded, but it doesn't have to be - we've got that one already after all

Canvas can be a bit finicky compared to TSM, but I do see that it is way more powerful. I try not to think about the TSM way of doing things as I go along, so as not to confuse myself any more than necessary.

One other little thing, I am struggling with adjusting the textures using the operations adjust tool. For some reason the edit control doesn't appear after I apply the textures so I can't really fiddle with them. I must be doing something wrong?

Thanks,

fG

Unfortunately it's a weekday thing - I check the forums from work quite often. Weekends I get to check them about twice in total.

For disappearing faces - make sure the "remove duplicate faces" is unchecked when you right click on the optimize operation button, It can be a bit over enthusiastic.

I really need to re-do the cab/bunker plugin. I suspect I have version control problems, trying to maintain plugins for 2 other canvas versions.

In the mean time, it's good practice to manually build

I'll try and get it fixed this week (if not remind me next weekend)

Have a good read of all the tutorials, they all give different perspectives.

http://3dcanvasresource.wikispaces.com looks like becoming a useful site to link them together.

I think (hope) I've fixed the problem.

A new version is now in the plugin pack on my website

http://www31.brinkster.com/decapod

Get it quick before I run out of bandwidth.

I really must start paying for webspace....

decapod wrote:I think (hope) I've fixed the problem.

A new version is now in the plugin pack on my website

http://www31.brinkster.com/decapod

Get it quick before I run out of bandwidth.

I really must start paying for webspace....

Thank decapod, I've downloaded the files and will test them as soon as I can (at work atm). I'll let you know if it works.

If you have bandwith problems, can't you upload to the Amabilis website?

fG

Have tried the new cab builder and it works fine on my Canvas installation. The only (minor) niggle is that I have to set a negative number for the X roof overhang or it will be smaller than the cab, leaving a gap. This is not a problem once you know it, so thanks very much for the good service, decapod!

fG

Doh! - I thought I fixed that one... Next time

I'm not quite out of the woods yet - I can't select left-facing cab sides as polygons. That is, I can't select the outside of the left hand cab side, nor the inside of the right hand cab side. And I need to be able to do that so I can texture the inside differently from the outside

I am also struggling with making translucent cab windows. Transparent works fine, but I like to show glass. I have the correct tga file with grey windows instead of black in the alfa channel, but I don't know how to set the translucency in Canvas. If I set it to 2 for the entire cab I get horrible effects with bits missing etc.

fG

Hee! Hee! This is the fun bit!

I think this will sort it......

Texture the insides of the windows first...with a transparency of 1....then texture the outsides with a transparency of 2. The only problem is will be the inside-looking-out will be transparent....but the outside-looking-in will be translucent.....and with a bit of luck, everything inside will be visible!

If this works, you could try repeating with the transparency set to 2 for both inside and out. Depending on how the model is structured, it might work!


I've had fun over the past couple of evenings getting translucencies sorted out on the first of my Glasgow trams....and I've finally cracked it!

Doug

There is definitely a selection problem - Not sure why just yet, the faces are created the same way as all the others.

Does an optimize (without the face removal) work?

Strangely enough, optimising makes the left facing sides selectable but now the right-facing sides are unselectable!

fG

By the way, I've moved on from the Remembrance tutorial to a different model:

<IMG width="800" height="370" SRC="http://www.atomic-album.com/showPic.php ... withen.jpg">

'Trewithen', Manning Wardle no. 994 from the 2 ft 6 in St. Austell - Pentewan Railway. A design by John Fell, and not a particularly succesfull one. But it makes a nice little model (here in 2X scale).

fG