I've found a strange problem causing the MSTS exporter to not create one of the object files.

Create a simple cube and export to MSTS. A .s and .sd file will be created as expected.

Now add a chamfer to one of the edges...and then re-export. The .s file is not updated.

Optimising the object seems to sort the problem out.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Amabilis Support,

The problem seems to be with 3DC not MSTS..I was just about to post this, you beat me to it.

It appears to be a MAJOR bug with the chamfer operation which occurs with all versions of 3DC.

If you check the face count after you apply the chamfer op to one edge of a cube it reads 8, when it should read 7, an extra face is added but I can't find it on the cube.

It gets worse...see the attached pic.
A basic cube extruded twice, the face count before the chamfer is 14, after the chamfer on one edge it should read 17 but it jumps to around 147.
An extra 130 faces are added as arrowed.
If you select one of these faces and delete it nothing appears to happen but if you check the face count it is reduced by one.
If you select these problem faces with the group selection tool you can delete them all.

I've been putting a figure pack together for the download section and used the chamfer op quite a lot. Most of the figures have a face count of around 1200 to 1500 faces however after using the chamfer op a few times this jumped to 3500. It's taken me a full week to trace the problem and re-build around a dozen figures.

If anyone has used the chamfer op on any of their models I would strongly suggest taking another look at them, check the face count and also any faces in the area where the chamfer op was used. Try selecting and deleting these faces if you find one that appears not to delete, you got a problem.
All you can do is to keep selecting and deleting till you reach the last face...takes forever.

Bazza

Chamfer.jpg (71 Kb, 28 downloads)

quote:

Originally posted by Bazza:
It appears to be a MAJOR bug with the chamfer operation which occurs with all versions of 3DC.

...

If anyone has used the chamfer op on any of their models I would strongly suggest taking another look at them, check the face count and also any faces in the area where the chamfer op was used. Try selecting and deleting these faces if you find one that appears not to delete, you got a problem.
All you can do is to keep selecting and deleting till you reach the last face...takes forever.

Bazza

Thanks for this very important finding.
Hopefully, I started my train model with 6.5 and I used chamfer for its complex roof shape. I don't have the problem for this part of the model.
I'll check all objects made afterwards.

The post is about 3DC v7 but it occurs with 6.6 too.

I hope there will quickly be a new 6.6 version and a new 7.x version to correct this (I agrees, it's a major bug).

(Edit: I have the problem in the lower part of the main body ; I remember taht it was created with 6.6)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DOM107,

It seems to occur with all versions including 6.5. It's difficult to spot, sometimes only one or two faces are added depending on the edge that has been chamfered, but more often than not, if you've used the chamfer op a lot you can have thousands of these extra faces overlayed on top of each other.
Often these extra faces are created inside the model and you need to view it from the inside looking out to find them.
I only realised what the problem was when I tried to convert one of the files to .b3d format. The converter I put together also re-calculates the normals and it kept throwing up an 'out of range' error.

With 6.5 it doen't happen all the time which makes things even more confusing but with 6.6 onwards it's a major problem with all chamfer ops.

Don't know if it's possible to write a script that could find these 'illegal' faces and remove them. If not we are going to spend a lot of time checking over all models that used the chamfer op. Could take months, the only good news is that any textures applied aren't destroyed as you delete each face.

Bazza

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bazza,

quote:

Originally posted by Bazza:
Don't know if it's possible to write a script that could find these 'illegal' faces and remove them.
Bazza

I hope Richard will be able to write something like this. The script is intersting if the risk of breaking the structure remains very very low.

Another point : the testing procedure for new versions should be improved (counting triangles is important; checking a listing of the object structure, not just visually).

Have you tried running the WeldToRange plugin with a value of 0.001 (default or 1mm) ?

That and/or an Optimize operation should get rid of the extra faces.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
Have you tried running the WeldToRange plugin with a value of 0.001 (default or 1mm) ?

That and/or an Optimize operation should get rid of the extra faces.

I tried to weld points for each corner of the triangles shown by Bazza : there is a single point at each corner.
The optimize operation doesn't change anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
Have you tried running the WeldToRange plugin with a value of 0.001 (default or 1mm) ?

That and/or an Optimize operation should get rid of the extra faces.

I tried just about everything I could think of including the above, spent a full day at it. The extra faces are all attached to the same points. The consolidate op helped but also changed the geometry on the whole model so that was no good.
I had used the chamfer op on the heads of my figures quite a lot around the nose, mouth,eyes and ears. In the end all I could do was to use the group selection tool and delete all the offending faces and the rebuild these areas on each head. Took two days.

But two of the figures had been unwrapped so couldn't use the delete trick...instead I just kept selecting each face and deleting till I arrived at the last face, another full evening selecting and deleting faces. You got to laugh about it really otherwise you could end up in a mental asylum.

Bazza

Yes, it sounds like something is really wrong somewhere. I'll have a look.

quote:

Originally posted by DOM107:
I hope Richard will be able to write something like this.

Will it be available or shall I start deleting manually the additional faces?

Bazza, Thanks for all of the investigating.

I have this resolved in the new Beta

There is a way to fix this automatically in the new beta so there is no need to manually delete faces.