Shape Counter Limit
24 messages in this thread
Anyone,
Here's the first of many. When trying to add another shape on a refined path in
the lofter, I get "Shape Counter At Limit". I went into 3DS.SET and doubled the
Shape-Max from 500-1000, and it let me put in one more shape. Then, the same
error. I cannot optimize because the shapes on the path are disimilar. Am I
even looking in the right place for the answer to this?
BTW, the project I'm doing is using a lot of boolean sculping. I've been
following the thread about all the trouble people are having with that. So,
this is probably the first of a zillion, "what do I do know" questions. <g>
Thanks, Terry
>> Shape Counter At Limit" <<
Terry, that's not the error message I get when I have too many vertices in the
shape, so SHAPE-MAX won't help.
How many shapes and verticies do you have in the shaper?
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F000DMGJHG^MG`HGA1EEED
Ted,
I don't know how many shapes and verticies I had at the time. The message
appeared in the lofter as I was trying to refine the path. I have started the
project over now, and haven't seen the error again.
Here's another question, if you've got a minute. I am trying to assign
reflective properties to non-spherical objects. Basically I see two things.
When I assign these to an object that was lofted from a quad with rounded
corners, I just get the reflections from the rounded corner areas. This happens
if I use spherical or cylindrical mapping. There is another object that was
lofted from a multiple sided shape with all curved lines. When I apply a chrome
material to it, only the edge that was paralell to the path will have the
material on it. The flat sides (the ends, which would be open if I didn't cap
ends) just have a dull mud color on them. I'm sure there must be an easy fix
for this that I'm over looking in the books.
Anyway, I appreciate the response to the shape counter thing.
Thanks, Terry
Terry
Using Automatic Flat Reflections is the only way to get reflections from a
non-curved surface. Review the R4 tutorial on page 12-30 and apply the method
to your flat faces.
Good luck with the project.
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHGAC38F9
Ted,
Thanks for the reply. I'm going to try the procedure on page 12-30 again. I'm
assuming that I need to detach the selected faces and change the mapping type
to planar before applying the material? That could be tricky on some of these
objects. Anyone got a cheap used electron microscope for sale?
Thanks, Terry
Terry
You don't nessarily need to detach the faces, just be sure to assign the flat
refl material to those faces last.
As an aid to selectiing the correct faces you could select as many non-flat
faces as you can and Display/Hide those first.
Good luck
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHGCF0E3E
Ted,
Thanks. I went back and reviewed the tutorial and made the little cage over
chrome vase. I think I've got the reflections down pretty good now. But, in the
process took a step backwards. Now, I have trouble with the material itself.
I'm using Tim Wilsons "Humanoid Gold" on the practice render. How ever I light
the object, the flat faces will have no specular highlights. They will also
appear a very dull brown as opposed to the bright, polished look the rounded
corners have. I tried detaching the faces, going to planer type on the mapping
(if mapping is even neccessary for this) and applying the material, same thing.
If I render real close, it looks as if the flat face is recessed into the
object. Looking at the mesh, this is not the case. Also, if I render a view
that has a large curved surface facing me, it will appear polished. If I change
the view to where this same side is seen at an angle, it takes on that dull
brown color. In all the views there is a very defined line between the curved
faces and the flat, with the two different looking colors on either side. I am
not rendering a camera view, or altering the lighting, just changing and
rendering the user view.
I'm pretty confused at this point. I know I could use a different material and
get the look I want on all surfaces. I just hate to start compromising this
early in the game just because it gets tough.
Any ideas on what's happening with the material? Any idea what I'm talking
about? <g>
Thanks, Terry
One thing to keep in mind is that the Auto Reflections must have something to
reflect. I often put flat panels behind my camera with a strong light and face
normals pointing toward the object. This gives the surface something to reflect
back.
Reflection maps don't require mapping.
I'm not sure if it will help, but try using a camera and dollying way back
with a telephoto lens (200mm or larger) and try adjusting the perspective to
flatten the scene more if necessary. It's often hard to judge where you are in
space with a user view. Don't forget Lights/Spot/Place Hilite, either.
If the problems persist and you aren't under a severe deadline, email the prj
file to me after Siggraph and I'll see what I can do to help. Are you going to
Siggraph?
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHI696DEB
Ted,
I thought about having something for the object to reflect, so I just built a
cage around it for that purpose. I like your idea about having something behind
camera better though. I did however, forget about Lights/spot/place highlite. I
will try experimenting with that next session.
Thanks for the offer to look it over for me. Very generous, but I wouldn't want
to impose that much. I thought about Siggraph, but decided not to go. Just
being a few weeks into the learning curve with all this new gear, I hate to
break the momentum. I'm staring eyeball to eyeball with a bookshelf full of
tutorials, and the first one to blink dies.
Thanks again for all the help, ideas, and offers. Terry
Terry,
>> I'm staring eyeball to eyeball with a bookshelf full of tutorials, and the
first one to blink dies.
GGGGGGG!
John
>Just being a few weeks into the learning curve with all this new gear, I hate
to break the momentum. I'm staring eyeball to eyeball with a bookshelf full of
tutorials, and the first one to blink dies.<
I have the same problem, 5' stack of manuals to go through. Kinda tough when
renders can take a while. I have the same problem with reflections on a flat
surface, everything looks great when moving.
I have the 3DSR3 and R4 SIGGRAPH tapes and there is plenty of stuff to study.
I'm thinking about looking at some more 3DS books.
Tim,
>>Kinda tough when renders can take a while<<
I've been pretty fortunate so far in that area. I went from a 486/33 with 8MB
Ram to a dual Pentium 100 with 128MB Ram. I'm rendering in 30 seconds things
that would have taken 4 hours on the 486. <g> From what I can tell, when 3DS
goes NT, then I should be able to take some advantage of the dual processor and
get even more speed. And, I guess the 32 bit enviroment will help too.
>>I have the 3DSR3 and R4 SigGraph tapes<<
What are those? I have the Digimation series tapes. I had the tapes a few weeks
before I got 3DS, so they gave me a good jumpstart. I am looking for a few
books myself right now. One called "Tips and Tricks" and another, "Special
Effects". If you know off hand, where I could order them, I would appreciate
the info. The bookstores around here are pretty useless, but that's what you
trade off I guess when you move to a "Hooterville" type town. <g>
If you don't already have these, "3D Studio Applied" with the R4 suppliment is
pretty good, and "Inside 3D Studio" is good to have around for reference.
Terry
Terry,
I think I know what you're talking about with the reflection problems.
If you put a Reflection map on a flat object, you don't get much in the way of
excitement. It always ends up looking pretty flat. I ran into this problem
earlier this year when I modelled a factory interior with lots of I-beams. The
client wanted them all to look shiny and new.
I put REFMAP.GIF on them at around 50% with high shininess, to no avail. Then I
hit on the idea of giving them a little bit of bumpiness to pick up the shine.
I put CEMENT.CEL as a bump map at around 5% and put cylindrical mapping on each
I-beam. I used six omni lights at low settings and played around with their
positions. After some trial and error I got some very chromey-looking I-beams.
I suggest you at least try using CEMENT.CEL on your object. You probably don't
want bumps on your object, but in my case the object didn't really look all
that bumpy, it just looked shiny and new.
You can also draw your own reflection map in a paint program. Start with a
black screen and draw white streaks on it. You can also try gold streaks if
that's what you're after. A little experimentation is in order. I suggest you
make a bunch of reflection maps with varying amounts of black and white,
streaks and blobs etc. Make five or six and save them to different names. Then
go to 3DS and make a material for each reflection map. Make six copies of your
object and assign the materials, and render them all in one view. This will
give you an idea of what direction to take.
There are no magic answers, just sweat and persistence. <g>
Michele
Ted,
I got the look I was after, thanks to you and Alan. I appreciate the time you
took to offer your help. The object behind the camera was a big help, one I
would not have thought of. Using different camera and lighting configurations
to test render is helping out in more ways than one.
Thanks a lot, Terry
Glad it worked for you, Terry.
I'm just back from Siggraph, interesting things to come!<g>
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHG4DBFB2
Ted,
It is working fine, thanks again. Interesting things to come indeed. The future
looks pretty exciting and challenging at the same time. It don't get much
better. From what I gather reading some of the messages here, Siggraph will be
in my neck of the woods next year (I'm about 50 miles from New Orleans). I
won't miss that one.
Terry
Terry, in addition TedB's advice, let me tell you af another approach.
Because (spherical) reflection maps depend on the face normals' ability to
sample the RefMap, flat faces often look dull compared to their curved
counterparts. The flat face's single, perpendicular normal just doesn't sample
much of the map so often the effect isn't very "shiny" looking.
To get around this, make another, much "busier" refmap (I often use granite.cel
as a basis for this) with the same basic color scheme as your original one.
Apply this new map to the flat faces only, and you should start getting the
shiny look you want.
Hope this helps,
-Alan
PS -My appologies to everyone who has had to read this tip too often!<g>
Alan,
Thanks, I knew I had read this before somewhere. I searched on your name in the
files of threads I have, and found your answer to someone else. By keeping the
same color scheme, do you mean use the same material, and just change the
reflection map at the bottom to granite.cel?
Btw, sorry, I was looking at morphs last night, and I'm afraid I wrecked your
Chevy up pretty good.
Terry
PS -My apologies to everyone for being another newbie to *ask* for this tip too
often. <g>
What I mean, Terry, is to take the "busier" map, granite.cel in this case,
bring it into a paint program and try to match it, color-wise, to the original
map. This is so the reflection on the object itself looks as consistant as
possible between curved and flat faces.
Let's say you were using a blue sky/cloud shot for your Refmap. I would add
blue values to granite.cel so it is not so different from the original.
Another way to approach this is to take your original Refmap into a paint
package and "busy it up" by cutting the more detailed parts and
pasting/repeating them over less detailed areas of the image. This ensures a
consistant color and luminance value for your overall reflected effect. I've
had *very* good results using this technique.
Sometimes, you may find that just using the busier map for the RefMap on the
entire object works out well.
The bottom line is that, the more detail in your Refmap, the more "highlights"
you are going to see on flat faces.
Good luck,
-Alan
Alan,
I tried it, and it worked like a charm. I know now what the missing piece of
the puzzle was. I see that I did not have a real clear picture of how these
elements in the materials editor work together. Thanks to your last, I think I
now do. Anyway, I've got the look I was going for and can now predict what I
will see as I change things around in the materials editor.
Thanks Alan, I appreciate the help, Terry
>PS -My appologies to everyone who has had to read this tip too often!<g><
Some of still have to learn, thanks much.
That's good to hear, Tim.
Thanks for letting me know,
-Alan
Terry,
Shape Max is a variable for the 2D Shaper, not the Lofter. I think the 3DS.SET
file entry you want to look at is MOD-MAX.
;Maximum number of shapes in memory in the 3D Lofter.
; Range is 1-500, default is 32
MOD-MAX = 32
-Brian
Brian,
Thanks a lot Brian, I will look at that.
Terry