Phantom "shadows" on a Hexagon surface

OrcaSoul

I am making a simple log cabin - following Geekatplay's Vampire House tutorial.

When I created and place the roof panels, I am seeing some kind of "phantom" surface on the roof & sides, that rotates if I move the model around...

Is this something I should worry about, or just a fluke in the display?

Roygee

What you are seeing there are actual shadows. In the fourth group of icons from the right on the bottom of your viewport is a ball labelled "Shadows and ambient occlusion". That should be off by default. I suggest you turn it off - it really eats up resources.

Can't figure out why you have shadows on top of the roof - unless you have something above it which is not in the viewport?

OrcaSoul

Roygee said:

What you are seeing there are actual shadows. In the fourth group of icons from the right on the bottom of your viewport is a ball labelled "Shadows and ambient occlusion". That should be off by default. I suggest you turn it off - it really eats up resources.

Can't figure out why you have shadows on top of the roof - unless you have something above it which is not in the viewport?

Thanks - that worked!

No, there should be nothing other than the log cabin in the display...

Also, I've been trying to remove the lines inside the logs - they are the lines that show up when you make the original cylinder, maybe they are "cuts"? See the image...

I need to get rid of them because when I try to tilt the ends to match the pitch of the roof the entire end of the log - enclosed in the pink lines - bends...even when I have carefully selected ONLY the ends, which are sealed. In the tutorial the lines are gone, so just the end tilts...

I'm sure it is a very basic procedure, I just haven't found the tutorial that shows it!

The tuts are great, if you can follow what he is doing - but in many cases I have to stop and backtrack the video to see what buttons he selects...and the hot keys never display! My 72 year old eyes just don't work that fast...LOL!

Roygee

I think I follow what you are getting at - the transverse lines are sections. When you first create a cylinder, you will see in the properties panel options for Pts/sec and Sections - the default is 8 for each. The Pts/sec refers to the vertical edges - the more you have, the "rounder" the cylinder will be. The Sections refer to the number of horizontal cuts. If you don't need the cylinder to be sectioned off, set that to 2 - the lowest it will go.

To get rid of the sections at this stage would not serve much purpose, except to make the model lower poly, but won't achieve what you are wanting, as I understand it. If you really want to, select one edge of each of the section cuts, loop and hit the backspace key. You then get a dialogue asking whether you want to dissolve vertices - hit "Stray only". You will have to do this one cylinder at a time.

To get the ends of the log to match the slope of the roof, you need to be in transparent mode, with one of the other selection modes active (the pic shows you are in object selection mode, which selects the whole cylinder) . Select the end of the cylinder and rotate to match the slope of the roof.

I am rather surprised that someone shows this method in a tutorial, because it will distort the cylinder ends and you will have to scale and move to get it back into shape. An easier method would be to simply select the verts (points) which protrude and scale them inwards.

Is it possible to post a link to the tutorial - I am interested in what further advice is given :)

Wee Dangerous John

Hi Roygee, here's a link to the cabin tutorial by vladimir chopine -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6BJYgZY6Ek#t=581

OrcaSoul

Roygee said:

I think I follow what you are getting at - the transverse lines are sections. When you first create a cylinder, you will see in the properties panel options for Pts/sec and Sections - the default is 8 for each. The Pts/sec refers to the vertical edges - the more you have, the "rounder" the cylinder will be. The Sections refer to the number of horizontal cuts. If you don't need the cylinder to be sectioned off, set that to 2 - the lowest it will go.

OK, I should have been clearer - I am referring to the vertical lines that divide each log.

These appear when the cylinder is created, but at some point disappear.

patience55

OrcaSoul said:

Roygee said:

I think I follow what you are getting at - the transverse lines are sections. When you first create a cylinder, you will see in the properties panel options for Pts/sec and Sections - the default is 8 for each. The Pts/sec refers to the vertical edges - the more you have, the "rounder" the cylinder will be. The Sections refer to the number of horizontal cuts. If you don't need the cylinder to be sectioned off, set that to 2 - the lowest it will go.
OK, I should have been clearer - I am referring to the vertical lines that divide each log.

These appear when the cylinder is created, but at some point disappear.

Select/loop each unwanted section line and hit the backspace key. In this case, select "all".
I would recommend keeping one in the centre. And after you've tilted the ends, loop that line and extract one line in abit. If you don't when smoothing is applied it will look like a pencil stick.

edit: just watched the first video, the lines disappeared because those walls were no longer selected. They only show when the appropriate group is selected.

OrcaSoul

Wee Dangerous John said:

Hi Roygee, here's a link to the cabin tutorial by vladimir chopine -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6BJYgZY6Ek#t=581

That's one part of the series, thanks.
The specific part is at http://www.geekatplay.com/mv.php - go to 12:33 to see the sequence where he starts the process.
I do notice that the vertical lines are still in the log he is working with - but not on the wall below it. And he is able to select the end face and tilt it to match the roof - without distorting the end of the log.

That's the action I can't seem to duplicate, tilting with out the distortion...

OrcaSoul

Patience55 said:

OrcaSoul said:

Roygee said:

I think I follow what you are getting at - the transverse lines are sections. When you first create a cylinder, you will see in the properties panel options for Pts/sec and Sections - the default is 8 for each. The Pts/sec refers to the vertical edges - the more you have, the "rounder" the cylinder will be. The Sections refer to the number of horizontal cuts. If you don't need the cylinder to be sectioned off, set that to 2 - the lowest it will go.

OK, I should have been clearer - I am referring to the vertical lines that divide each log.

These appear when the cylinder is created, but at some point disappear.

Select/loop each unwanted section line and hit the backspace key. In this case, select "all".
I would recommend keeping one in the centre. And after you've tilted the ends, loop that line and extract one line in abit. If you don't when smoothing is applied it will look like a pencil stick.

edit: just watched the first video, the lines disappeared because those walls were no longer selected. They only show when the appropriate group is selected.
I was able to select the edge, loop it to go around the log, and backspace did indeed remove it - thanks, I missed the use of backspace to do that. I'm really new to this and I may have seen it someplace but it slipped away.

I then did the tilt to match the roof and it looks good!

As far as disappearing when not selected, that isn't happening...

So thanks again.

Roygee

OK - I get it :)

If you look along the line of the group of icons I referred to in my post, you'll see various display options. He has his set to "smoothed solid" - in this display mode, it shows the geometry when selected, but not when not selected. which is why the lines appear and disappear as he works.You have yours set to "smooth solid and edges", which displays the geometry whether selected or not. This has no effect whatsoever on the modelling process - it is merely a display.

If you look very closely, when he rotates the ends of the log, they do deform, but this is minimized by making a very short extrusion and then hidden in the roof mesh.

Good luck with the rest of the project - it can be daunting when trying to follow a tut where no every move and click is not explained.:)

I have never personally tried to re-create directly from a tut - I study them for hints, methods, principles and innovation.

Bye the way, I'm pretty much the same age as you and only started this 10 years ago - be interesting to take a survey of the ages of Hexagon users. I'll bet the majority are of an advanced age, coming from times when instant gratification wasn't an issue and DIY was a virtue:)

OrcaSoul

Roygee said:

OK - I get it :)

If you look along the line of the group of icons I referred to in my post, you'll see various display options. He has his set to "smoothed solid" - in this display mode, it shows the geometry when selected, but not when not selected. which is why the lines appear and disappear as he works.You have yours set to "smooth solid and edges", which displays the geometry whether selected or not. This has no effect whatsoever on the modelling process - it is merely a display.

I see that now - works like a charm!

If you look very closely, when he rotates the ends of the log, they do deform, but this is minimized by making a very short extrusion and then hidden in the roof mesh.

It took me a couple of start & stops to see that in the video - but I do see that now. Is it impossible to maintain the parallel lines in a move like this? Here, when viewed at a distance, it won't be a significant issue - but I can see where it might be in a close up. What I need to do is stop being a perfectionist and be willing to accept things that don't matter in the final image...that goes back to my career programing for engineers...LOL!

Good luck with the rest of the project - it can be daunting when trying to follow a tut where no every move and click is not explained.:)

Indeed...part of the problem seems to be that much of the "action" takes place off screen as hot keys...sometimes he mentions it, sometimes not. It's all part of the steep learning curve - and I will say that I know more now than when I started two weeks ago...

I have never personally tried to re-create directly from a tut - I study them for hints, methods, principles and innovation.

In my study of Vue I found the tuts to be a lot clearer - they seemed to be aimed at the raw beginner like me...I am doing this cabin because I need one for some Vue scenes, without the "Vampire" theme, and it's the only one I have found that shows a "log cabin" process...once I get the ends of the roof done I'll watch how he adds the windows and doors - most of which I have worked out from another tut...

I have found that - in Vue - I can collect images from the web and then try to create them in Vue, still working on clouds, but the rest seems to be pretty much intuitive. Unlike Hexagon, which seems to use different thinking processes.

But hey, if it were easy why would I want to learn it?...LOL!

Bye the way, I'm pretty much the same age as you and only started this 10 years ago - be interesting to take a survey of the ages of Hexagon users. I'll bet the majority are of an advanced age, coming from times when instant gratification wasn't an issue and DIY was a virtue:)

Interesting POV - and I can see how that works. I tried to get my 28 year old grandson interested in this - he is very much into game play - but he just isn't attracted by actually making things like this. Maybe if I buy him a 3D printer he might get the bug...LOL...

And I will admit that my initial "reason" for getting into this was to design patterns for the wood bowls I turn - create the shape in Hexagon, then move it to Vue and use the image controls like Populate to decorate it. I want to do some intricate piercing patterns that I can combine with airbrush to add some "AWE!" to the bowls - similar to the ones at http://www.centerforartinwood.org/exhibitions/shadow-of-the-turning-2013/ - but with a Celtic. Not to his level, perhaps (dream I) but at least be able to correct problems on the screen before using that to make the pattern on the wood...And I am hoping that I can use the Vue model to create a 2d pattern that I can print and use to transfer it to the wood...

OrcaSoul

Thanks to the help of everyone I finally created the basic log cabin model. It does need some doors and windows, a front porch, and wood textures to look more real, but I want to show a friend how it looks in a basic Vue scene with some trees and mountains in the background.

So, I exported it as a wavefront OBJ file, then tried to import it into Vue - and it tells me that Vue is "unable to read file logcabin_roof.obj".

Everything I read tells me that is the correct format...so what am I missing?

Roygee

Sorry, can't help with the View import - I did try the free version some time ago and got completely confused :)

The file name looks right - do you perhaps have another rendering app you could test it with? If not, you can post the .hxn file somewhere like 4shared for me to take a look at - promise I won't pinch it :)

Nicely done, btw.

About the deformation when rotating the ends of the cylinder - I don't know any method of preventing that - but it can be fixed by some judicious scaling.

Here's a pic of a log cabin I did for a Bryce challenge - I ran out of time and never completed it. The cabin is made using a totally different method than shown in the tut, so I could have space between the logs for the caulking. Each wall is a single object.

OrcaSoul

Roygee said:

Sorry, can't help with the View import - I did try the free version some time ago and got completely confused :)

The file name looks right - do you perhaps have another rendering app you could test it with? If not, you can post the .hxn file somewhere like 4shared for me to take a look at - promise I won't pinch it :)

I tried to import it in DAZ, that works.

I'll look at sending the file tomorrow...

Nicely done, btw.

Thanks. It's my first, so of course it's a keeper!

About the deformation when rotating the ends of the cylinder - I don't know any method of preventing that - but it can be fixed by some judicious scaling.

Here's a pic of a log cabin I did for a Bryce challenge - I ran out of time and never completed it. The cabin is made using a totally different method than shown in the tut, so I could have space between the logs for the caulking. Each wall is a single object.

Thanks - that's somewhat the same as mine. And being able to add caulking is a great idea...maybe next time.