Model Building

[Aquila Kytori]

13 hours ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

Also, I still don't understand why the STL file has so many issues with it's geometry. along some of the cut edges. 

Probably because Solidworks is cutting with the equivelant to Blenders Bollean tool/modifier.

[IvyTechEngineer]

Thanks, Aquila for the feedback. I have shied away from Blender Addons but will check the loop tool addon.

[IvyTechEngineer]

Hello

I have another project for my students that uses AutoCAD to possibly draw a house in Second Life. There are several challenges with this assignment.  Converting feet and inches to meters can be an issue for some students. We can do that but I am sure some students will have problems or forget. Maybe we can upload a common dimensioned floorplan and students can build the house on top of the floorplan image? 

A 3D model of the house will give students a better appreciation of the design. I would assume I could scale the image to 2K and even use it in Blender to create a model. That could be fun but I want to start with the SL build first. Any suggestions?

Thanks

IvyTech 

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

A 3D model of the house will give students a better appreciation of the design.

Yes, that's potentially a great use for Second Life. I assume you want your students to be able to walk around inside the house to get a feel of how it works and that causes a few problems.

SL avatars tend to be considerably bigger than RL humans so you want to make special avatars to match RL scale.

The default camera position far behind and above the avatar won't work inside an RL scale building and even a modern "game style" camera position is too far off to really give the level of immersion you need. So you want to go into mouselook.

Both these issues can be solved when you're aware of them but there's a third one, walking speed. In SL it's about twice as fast as in RL. Try to move around in your RL house at a brisk jogging speed and you see the problem. A don't know any solution to this unfortunately. The CtrAltStudio viewer, which was specially made for VR headsets, solved it by continuosly starting and stopping the movements but I don't think any current viewer has any similar function.

[IvyTechEngineer]

It took a little bit of effort but uploading the floor plan seems like a good idea ...

[Aquila Kytori]

I'm not expecting you to do this but just letting you know that if necessary you can walk around your build in Blender.

In Object mode > View > Navigation > Walk Navigation   (Right mouse click this option and Add to Quick Favourites).

Adding to Quick favourites makes it easier to switch to this walk about navigation mode.

Now when ever you want to go walk about, in Object mode hit the Q key to open your Quick favourites menu and choose this Walk Navigation mode.

In this mode  cross hairs will replace the mouse cursor.  Position the cross hairs at the place you want to start your walk and hit the space bar.  Use the arrow keys and mouse to move around the build.

Left or Right click to return to the normal navigation again.

 

Some Walk options can be set in Preferences.

 

Oh and make sure the ground plane is very big because if for whatever reason you fall off its a very very long way down..........

[IvyTechEngineer]

Hey thanks for your efforts on the house, it is very cool. I have already created an STL file from Solidworks and the tris are only 370.in Blender. We are using AutoCAD this semester and I wanted to try my hand at drawing in SL. Do you have refence material on converting the floorplan into a 3D model? I need to do some more work in Blender to be able to draw a floorplan but maybe that will be the next thing I do. I was wondering if there is an object snap feature in SL. I am sure some of my walls are not exactly in the right location. I only use the SL Viewer and not Firestorm. 

Ivy

[Porky Gorky]

On 9/30/2021 at 11:33 PM, arton Rotaru said:

For more complex meshes it's often best to create a second texture just for the Lowest LOD. In 3ds Max I project the texture of the hi LOD onto an imposter model. In this case this would be just a bottomless cube. With leaving some room for the imposter UVs in the original UV layout it's even possible to have those 2 textures just as one, which is preferable indeed.

Hi @arton Rotaru  I realise you posted this comment two and half years ago but I see both you and the thread are still active so I am not sure this is officially necroposting. Anyway…

Please can you go into more detail on this process using 3DS Max? 

I am unsure exactly what texture is being projected? Are we talking about rendered images of the final model on alpha backgrounds, one for each side? Also not sure what you mean by projected.

When you say imposter model, these are the polygons that make up the lowest LOD i assume and do these polys need to be hidden in all the higher LOD models?

What % of the UV space would you use for the imposter UV’s on for example a chair with a single texture at 1024x1024?

Thanks alot for any info you can provide, it seems like an excellent idea, I'm just not sure of the best method to achieve it.

Thanks.

Edit: Here is arton's answer if anyone is interested.

Edited February 17 by Porky Gorky
Link to the answer

[IvyTechEngineer]

Hello

I would like to add some AutoCAD parts that my students have drawn. There is a way to convert and scale them in Solidworks and Blender that works well. In Blender I wanted to add the base material and then add text to the object that is the student's name and maybe the name of the part. 

The first model has only 200 tris but when I add text the tris jump to 718. Since the text is actually geometry I assume this is not the best way to add text on the object. Maybe it would be better to just create an image use a uvmap to put the student name where I want? I did that and it looks ok but had to edit the uvmap to get it to align in the right place. Comments?

[IvyTechEngineer]

OBTW, when I upload the model to SL the texture needs to be separately uploaded?

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

4 hours ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

OBTW, when I upload the model to SL the texture needs to be separately uploaded?

Generally, yes.

[Aquila Kytori]

3 hours ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

OBTW, when I upload the model to SL the texture needs to be separately uploaded?

Yes ........ but instead of having to upload a separate image texture for each of the student's names it may be more interesting for you to create a texture consisting of all the students names on a single texture ? Then use the Vertical and Horizontal offsets in the SL build floater to select which name appears on each model.

In the example below I set out 20 "Student Names" in two vertical columns of 10 names on a 1000px² . 10 names per column makes it very easy to use the vertical offset up/down arrows to select a name from the list.

 

In Blender create a little single sided Label Object and UV unwrap and map it carefully to the first name in the list of names :

 

Next Duplicate this Label Object. This new duplicate Label object will be later joined to the students model:

 

Hide the original Label object.

Select the duplicate label object and the students model then use Ctrl + J  to join them to be a single object.

Next, in edit mode reposition the name label approx. 1mm above the surface of the students model. If necessary resize the label as required.

 

Repeat the above for each of the students models.

No need to mess about with the UV's to select the correct name for the label in Blender, that will be done when rezzed inworld.

The model should now have 2 (at least) materials assigned to it. One for the model and one for the label.

 

When rezzed inworld edit the model and with the Select face enabled in the SL build floater select the Label face and apply the List of Student Names texture to this face.

Set the Alpha Mode to Alpha Masking and Mask Cutoff to something above zero.

Now all that is left to do is change the Vertical Offset using the up/down arrows to select the correct name for the label.

For names in the second column set the Horizontal Offset to 0.5 :

 

 

[IvyTechEngineer]

Thanks Aquila, I will give it a try.