6.0 Revision 4 Available

I just upgraded to rev4 myself. havent tried it yet though.
Bjorn, in case you didnt get what Richard is saying, as well as upgrading the version of 3DC, you also have to uninstall the lp/pro upgrade then download and install the lp/pro upgrade again from your help tab. It is version specific, so the one that worked with version 6.3 wont work with 6.4. andnbsp;

LOL, Richard…I just discovered the *real* subdivision surface system…

All along I was using the Divide Smooth operator with adjustable parameters, and I thought THAT was the andquot;autosmoothingandquot;. Oops. Color me stupid.

When I read that little andquot;nobody uses itandquot; bit you wrote, I was a little confused because I thought I was using it and I remembered saying something about it to you. So I went and actually looked at the Object Properties panel. Boy, did I ever feel sheepish.

I was blocking out the bodies using extruded cubes with scaled faces, doing eyeball guesstimates on proportions, then using Divide Smooth and coming very close every time.

Doh. Hehe…I can’t believe I misunderstood the subdivision surface feature.

-Mel

Hi All,

3DC 6.0 Revision 4 is now available.

Fixed in Revision 4:

1) Shifting points after dividing an edge no longer causes an error.

2) Deleteing objects from complex object libraries no longer produces an error.

3) Auto Smoothing (sub-division surfaces) has been fixed. It didn’t seem to work very well at all. But, nobody seemed to notice. Which likely means no-one is using them. <!– s:( –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt="" title="Sad" /><!– s:( –>

4) The Shift tool now shows the object translucent so the position of the origin (axis point) can be set properly.

5) Rotational keyframes can now be copied using the timeline.

6) A fix has been provided that allows 3DS files with invalid floating point data to be imported.

Versions 6.0 and 5.7a can be installed on the same system. You will not be able to open your 6.0 models in 5.7a, but you can export your 6.0 models to the directx format (x) and import them into 5.7a.

If you are wondering where the auto-smoothing/auto-mirroring are they are on the Object Properties window.

Richard
PS Here is the list of changes in 6.0:

What’s New in 3DC 6.0

Objects can now behave as subdivision surfaces where the object is
automatically smoothed in real time as changes are being made.

o) Real Time Mirroring (3DC Pro only)

Objects can now be automatically mirrored in real time.

o) In-place Operations

Many operations can now have their parameters adjusted without
opening pop-up windows.

o) Additional Keyboard Shortcuts

New keyboard shortcuts allow for temporary overrides of the
current modeling constraints and the current modeling coordinates mode.

o) Custom Operation Defaults

Operations now support User defined parameters defaults.

o) Enhanced Primitives Parameters

The parameters for primitives can now be adjusted without the need
to open a pop-up window

o) Custom Primitive Defaults

Primitives now support user-defined parameter defaults.

o) Custom Material Defaults

The material palette now supports user-defined defaults.

o) Enhanced Smooth Operation

The Smooth operation has new options to permit multiple smoothing
levels and tension.

The smooth operation also now retains material information and is
up to thirty times faster than in previous releases.

o) Enhanced Divide Operation

The Divide operation now retains material information when applied
to whole objects and is up to thirty times faster than in previous
releases.

o) User-Defined Default Creasing

A default creasing factor can now be specified for objects. This
creasing factor is used by operations to re-crease the object
whenever the operation can not retain creasing.

o) New Scripting methods (3DC Pro/LP only)

The Object class now includes two new methods GetCreaseFactor and
SetCreaseFactor. These methods are used to support default creasing.

Well… I don’t blame you. I did sort of andquot;hideandquot; it. <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>

Hopefully now you can find the rest of its bugs. I hope there aren’t any because it is darned complicated and hard to fix.

Richard

Richard,Hi

I have used the subdivision surfacing, though it took me
awhile to find. I enquired for some info on this forum and
was put on the right tracks… andnbsp; ( Thanks Alan! )but I didn’t notice any bugs

a bit giddy, if you would call that a bug?

Also, when I install rev.4, will I have to insall another up-grade? It’s just that when i installed rev.3 and then up-graded – 3DC Pro6’s version is 6.03,but the up-grade is version 6.02. Is this or should this be the case?

By the way this is a cool forum and thanks to the team for -what I think myself is- a great and becoming even better 3D Modeling Package!!

do I have anything I would like to see added in future releases? I do, but I’ll not BUG you guys about these just yet.
Any way great work and thanks again.
andnbsp;
Jay. Bye!

Yes, if you install 6.0 rev 4 you’ll need to install the latest LP/Pro Upgrade (downloaded from the Help menu of rev 4).

And the suggestions forum for 6.x is open now if you want to make your suggestions there.

Richard

Crashes consistently under following conditions:

When Render Shadows button is pressed and there is an object in the scene, an unrecoverable error #-2147417848 occurs, followed by an invalid page fault in MSVBVM60.DLL.

I’ve reproduced it three times so far.

Other errors that I have not been able to reproduce consistently, but which do happen with some frequency:

Right-clicking on a light or object in the Hierarchy pane sometimes crashes 3DC with an unrecoverable error and invalid page fault in MSVBVM60.DLL.

For the record, my system specs:

Win98SE
1GHz Celeron
128MB RAM
40GB HDD
Apollo PLE133T onboard graphics chipset (based on Trident Blade 3D)

-Mel

Addendum:

Uncommitted subdivision surface objects, when you try to render them in the viewport with the POVRay button, cause 3DC to hang. Closing it causes it to crash with unrecoverable error #-2005531887, followed by the same invalid page fault in MSVBVM60.DLL.

Aside from that, subdivision surfaces work quite nicely. I modeled a wasp’s body from an extruded and shaped cube before 3DC crashed on the viewport render mentioned above. I didn’t, however, commit the shape to its final state before attempting a POVRay render.

-Mel

Addendum part deux:

Consistent bug: Crashes with fatal error in D3DRM.DLL when attempting to use the Bridge operation on merged objects that are not in physical contact. (Ex, 3 cubes arranged in a triangular fashion…error occurs when trying to bridge a couple faces of two cubes together). I replicated this twice in a row.

Could not replicate consistently, but happened more than once: Crash on using Merge Faces plugin immediately after using Equalize operation to flatten one side of a cylinder.

Not a major bug: Performing certain operations on objects with Autosmoothing enabled makes the object disappear. However, the control cages are still visible *and* the object can be brought back into view by reapplying the current Autosmooth settings in Object Properties.

-Mel

Hi there —

I just tried the update to r4 from r3, and 3DC will not boot up properly anymore.

The error message I get is: (during the andquot;Loading…andquot; phase) :'(

Run-time error ‘-2147221503 (80040001)’:
Unable to Configure DirectX. Please ensure that the most recent version of DirectX is installed, and that your Video Card drivers are up to date.

My system is currently using DirectX 9 (Win XP Home sp1/sp2), Abit Siluro GeForce 2 MX400/64Mb. nVidia drivers 28.32.

Any ideas? I have not encountered any problems before. I am going to try reverting back to release 3.

Thanks,
Cal.

[SOLVED: See next post]

SOLVED!

I realized afterwards that I should have andquot;uninstalledandquot; r3 first. :

Maybe I should leave my post here just in case someone is as careless as me and gets the same problem. andnbsp;

Cal.

Mel/Alan

I can’t get it to crash either.

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][font size=’-1′]quote:[/font][HR]Not a major bug: Performing certain operations on objects with Autosmoothing enabled makes the object disappear. However, the control cages are still visible *and* the object can be brought back into view by reapplying the current Autosmooth settings in Object Properties.[HR][/BLOCKQUOTE]

If you can remember, I would really like to know what operations result in this.

Richard

Alan/Richard, regarding not getting it to crash:

Yeah, I was pretty much thinking it had to do with the low-horsepower budget onboard video on this machine. But I posted it anyway just to be sure. Fortunately, most of the features that bring this machine to its knees aren’t ones I use very often anyway.

Richard, regarding what operations make the subdivided surfaces hide:

I went back and tried to accurately replicate it again, and it wasn’t the operations…it just happened at a moment when I was adjusting the parameters of a particular operation. What really makes it happen is if you click on a previous operation layer. Like, if you drop a cube into the scene, run some BS operations on it until you have a few layers…then for instance, click on the andquot;Cube Primitiveandquot; layer. Shazam, it’s gone. Just opening Object Properties and clicking OK refreshes it though.

-Mel

P.S. Richard, the Suggestions forum is still invisible.

(Edit: Actually, it’s not. I see the Suggestions and 6.x forums now. I need glasses.)

Mel,

I’ve been trying out your problems and I can’t get 3dc to crash andnbsp;??? (andquot;touch woodandquot;)

I can get the shadows to work with no problems.
Uncommitted subdivision surface objects render ok
I can also bridge faces of cubes with no problem. (I even found that by using world coordinates I don’t get the twisted faces that I sometimes get when using standard coordinates <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –> )
not tried the plugins yet (downloading them now….)

I have just upgraded to winxp (over the last weekend)
gforce 4 mx420 with 6.13.10.4072 drivers
amd athlon 900
448meg ram

I also forgot to mention that when I use the Compact All command on a scene full of subdivision surfaces, there’s a major redraw problem in the scene afterwards. What happens is some objects disappear, others revert to Smoothing Level 0, and so on. Saving the scene and then reloading it seems to solve the problem.

-Mel