Better preview when fixing physics models?

[ValKalAstra]

Greetings!

A while ago, a friend of mine and myself decided to learn Blender and create our own home together. We've had some progress, some pitfalls and made use of a lot of tutorials over the months. However we've now hit a bit of a wall with the physics model. We've created our basic house and work on a simplified physics mesh. The uploader in Firestorm complains about mesh density or degenerate triangles and then shows us which edges seem to trip it up. Cool!

However the preview window is so small and fights our attempts to navigate, that we can't really see in more detail which edge it struggles with precisely, sending us on a wild goose chase. We've now looked over the physics mesh several times and... it's getting painful.

So - is there a better way to check and fix the physics model? Maybe inside Blender or is there a better preview window that allows us to navigate the view, so we can actually see what's causing the issue?

Thanks in advance, I don't really know how to better describe the problem. I'm usually the scripting gal

[Wulfie Reanimator]

When you click and hold onto the model to "grab" it, you can press ctrl/alt to change the angle of the preview.

[Aquila Kytori]

3 hours ago, ValKalAstra said:

However the preview window is so small

You can increase the size of the preview window by hovering you mouse over the window border until the little double headed arrows appear then click and drag outwards :

 

 

If you decrease the UI scaling in Preferences > User Interface > 2D Overlay > UI Scaling, its possible to increase the relative preview size a little more :

 

Perhaps your Physics model is just too complicated  as it is in the  example in my screenshots. 

In this example the red edges are indicating where there are long thin triangles in the mesh. These are the top faces of the skirting boards, (base boards).

Such details should not be included in Physics model at all. In this example the physics model would not include any of the base boards or door trims, just optimised walls, floors and ceilings.

3 Rules to follow when creating your physics model :

1.  Each mesh object has its own physics model.
2. The Bounding Box X,Y and Z dimensions of the physics model should match the BB dimensions of the visual model.
3. Keep it simple. REALLY SIMPLE.  Example: In the above screenshots each room's floor is made up of 4 or 8 triangles in the visual model. In the physics model it would be a single quad (2 triangles) to create the collision surface of all 4 rooms on each level. 

 

( window openings are not always necessary in the physics model also think about having the height of door openings higher in the physics model than in the visual model)

and don't forget to check for degenerate faces, "zero area faces" before exporting. In Edit mode > select All > Mesh > Clean up > Degenerate Dissolve. ( "Dissolve zero area faces and zero length edges" ).

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Aquila Kytori

[ValKalAstra]

Thank you to both of you, I had no idea you could pan and tilt the view that way and the help about dissolving degenerates and the UI scale is super helpful as well. Aye, the physics model is probably too complicated too. Back to the drawing board!