3D Modeling For Pepakura (Basic 3D Knowledge Required)

Crimmson · Dec 16, 2013

Actually, if you convert the model to a .stl and run it through NetFabb's online service, it should automatically delete all the internal crap you don't need.
http://cloud.netfabb.com/[/QUOTE]

Serin, thank you very much for this link. it has saved me a lot of time already getting a file ready for mesh welding

Serin · Dec 16, 2013

Any time Crimmson

It doesn't always work that way(being that is a cut down version of their full set of algorithms), but it tends to help a lot for getting edges closed and nuking the internal uselessness.

Carnet · Jan 24, 2015

Hi all. This is my first post here, been lurking and reading between this site and rpf for a few months. I have made significant progress with both blender and pepakura designer. I have had good success, but every once and a while I run into a problem with my models and I am not sure I understand what is going on. The last time it happened I was able to fix it, and I thought I had it figured out, but I have run into it again on a new model that I am working on and all of the changes I make to try and fix it do not do anything. I don't understand why it is happening. Maybe someone can shed some light on it for me.

Here is a picture of the problem. The face is bleeding out past the edge of the model. I have gone over this section of the model and I can't see what is causing it, everything looks right...but I also don't fully understand why it is happening, so if I did, I am sure that I could fix it.

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Crimmson · Jan 24, 2015

Carnet said:
Hi all. This is my first post here, been lurking and reading between this site and rpf for a few months. I have made significant progress with both blender and pepakura designer. I have had good success, but every once and a while I run into a problem with my models and I am not sure I understand what is going on. The last time it happened I was able to fix it, and I thought I had it figured out, but I have run into it again on a new model that I am working on and all of the changes I make to try and fix it do not do anything. I don't understand why it is happening. Maybe someone can shed some light on it for me.

Here is a picture of the problem. The face is bleeding out past the edge of the model. I have gone over this section of the model and I can't see what is causing it, everything looks right...but I also don't fully understand why it is happening, so if I did, I am sure that I could fix it.

can you take a picture of the other side and one further away as well also one more to the left. also one of the wire frame at the same spot. to me it looks(just from the pic) you might have a a face that is connected to a different vertice other than the immediate one(if that is what you want)

Carnet · Jan 25, 2015

Crimmson said:
can you take a picture of the other side and one further away as well also one more to the left. also one of the wire frame at the same spot. to me it looks(just from the pic) you might have a a face that is connected to a different vertice other than the immediate one(if that is what you want)

I understand why you want to see more, but at this point I'd rather not show the whole piece.

But I think you are right. I did get it fixed...I ended up just adding a few extra edges with the knife tool, and it anchored the face to the correct edge.

hobbitdude13 · May 23, 2015

Hey guys, I've decided to star messing around with modeling and picked some armor pieces to start with. I want to thank KingRahl for his excellent series of videos on 3d modeling for a 3d printer, and robogenesis for this first piece that he pepped out.

This is the basic .obj that I exported out from pepakura. Rather low-poly, but it has to be for the pepakura to work.

I followed KingRahls method to a point. as opposed to subdividing the whole model with the boolean modifier, I highlighted and seperated ONLY the face groups that I wanted to smooth.
After subdividing those face groups, I had to go in with the edge loop tool (thanks again KingRahl) to clean up the edges from the curved gaps that formed.

Final result:

I am going to continue to mess with it to make it 3D printable, if anyone sees or has any ideas that I look like I need to use, please feel free to criticize and inform. Thanks!

Chernobyl · May 23, 2015

Not bad at all. Aside from cleaning up those gaps, it's a great bash at high-detail work. Keep practising!

hobbitdude13 · Jul 2, 2015

Ok so I have gone back in and think I've found a slicker way of doing this. (I've also ordered my 3D printer)

I am using Flying Squirrels pep helmet file as a jumping-off point.

I got to thinking about what my goal was, which is to smooth the part of the model that usually are sanded down, but leave the hard angles intact. I tried to find a way to 'lock' the faces and vertices and have the subsurf modifier leave them alone. What I stumbled on in my Googling is to select every 'hard' angle that I want to preserve, and "crease" it to a value of 1. Before, I was dividing the model into each face I wanted smooth, which resulted in one object for each face. When I crease the edges, I am not splitting or otherwise dividing the object in any way. Once that is done, the subsurf modifier is unable to alter any edge that is creased.

As you can see, the left side has been smoothed by the subsurf modifier, while the edges I designated as creased remain unchanged.

Here you can see where the angle 'indent' is intact, but the back top of the helmet got smoothed out and greatly improved. I'm going to tinker with it a bit more to see what I can do. BUT the best bit, really my favorite bit, is that since it remains as one object, the model stretches to the crease, and no gaps form as a result like at the corners with the hand plate. Just wanted to pass it along, and once my printer arrives and I get it calibrated and a few test prints ran off, I can start chunking this model and printing the helmet and other pieces. I hope.

Crimmson · Jul 2, 2015

hobbitdude13 said:
Ok so I have gone back in and think I've found a slicker way of doing this. (I've also ordered my 3D printer)

I am using Flying Squirrels pep helmet file as a jumping-off point.

I got to thinking about what my goal was, which is to smooth the part of the model that usually are sanded down, but leave the hard angles intact. I tried to find a way to 'lock' the faces and vertices and have the subsurf modifier leave them alone. What I stumbled on in my Googling is to select every 'hard' angle that I want to preserve, and "crease" it to a value of 1. Before, I was dividing the model into each face I wanted smooth, which resulted in one object for each face. When I crease the edges, I am not splitting or otherwise dividing the object in any way. Once that is done, the subsurf modifier is unable to alter any edge that is creased.

View attachment 14095

As you can see, the left side has been smoothed by the subsurf modifier, while the edges I designated as creased remain unchanged.

View attachment 14096

Here you can see where the angle 'indent' is intact, but the back top of the helmet got smoothed out and greatly improved. I'm going to tinker with it a bit more to see what I can do. BUT the best bit, really my favorite bit, is that since it remains as one object, the model stretches to the crease, and no gaps form as a result like at the corners with the hand plate. Just wanted to pass it along, and once my printer arrives and I get it calibrated and a few test prints ran off, I can start chunking this model and printing the helmet and other pieces. I hope.

Looking good. Great find and thank you for sharing. Now that i buttered you up where can i find the crease select. Basically under which menu?

hobbitdude13 · Jul 2, 2015

Crimmson said:
Looking good. Great find and thank you for sharing. Now that i buttered you up where can i find the crease select. Basically under which menu?

Once you've selected the edge you want to 'freeze', you can set the crease one of 2 ways. You can hit "N" and under the transform tab you can set the crease value to 1.00. OR, you can hit ctrl-e and about 3 or 4 places down from the top of that menu you'll see a "set edge crease" option that allows you to use your cursor to set the crease manually. It has to be a value of 1 for the results I posted. I like this way because the subsurf modifier is such a good tool but also its always applied over the whole model. Let me know if it works Crimmson.

Crimmson · Jul 2, 2015

hobbitdude13 said:
Once you've selected the edge you want to 'freeze', you can set the crease one of 2 ways. You can hit "N" and under the transform tab you can set the crease value to 1.00. OR, you can hit ctrl-e and about 3 or 4 places down from the top of that menu you'll see a "set edge crease" option that allows you to use your cursor to set the crease manually. It has to be a value of 1 for the results I posted. I like this way because the subsurf modifier is such a good tool but also its always applied over the whole model. Let me know if it works Crimmson.

you have no idea how much this helps. thank you. I barely learnt how to use Boolean yesterday and now this. I really appreciate this.

hobbitdude13 · Jul 2, 2015

Crimmson said:
you have no idea how much this helps. thank you. I barely learnt how to use Boolean yesterday and now this. I really appreciate this.

Believe me, I'm glad I found it too. I am trying to make the MKVI armor into some sort of printable form, without having to remodel the whole thing from scratch. This is a more precise method than subdividing over the entire model, because edge loops, for me anyway, always have some squirrelly path that doesn't always go where you want it to go. This I hope will allow refining of smooth areas but keeps what hard edged details you want to leave alone.

Edit:

Here the way the circles turned out looks really good to me. The toe cap also, the hard 'indent' is preserved. I've only subsurf'ed about 4 times over, as any more and my poor graphics card starts to stutter.

SavedbyGraceG12 · Oct 25, 2015

Was wondering if any one was familar with DazStudio? I've just loaded the halo5 undersuit obj. file. I got the diffuse map, and the normal map applied, but I'm not sure where to apply the control map. Is there another name for a control map?

Gunthar1895 · Nov 13, 2015

hay everyone I know it has probably been asked before but is anyone working on the prototype suit from halo legends. just queries

DRH84325 · Jun 11, 2016

Hey, I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I could use some help. I've got some OBJ files of halo armor, but when I load it into pepakura it makes a print-out for the whole armor set. This is a problem because I can't size the individual parts (like I can't size the forearm to my arm, because the whole armor is being treated as one object). Could someone walk me through or give me some resources on how to cut/paste the OBJ armor parts so they are in different files? Or do it for me maybe? I'm just really at a lost here. Thanks!

Chernobyl · Jun 11, 2016

DRH84325 said:
Hey, I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I could use some help. I've got some OBJ files of halo armor, but when I load it into pepakura it makes a print-out for the whole armor set. This is a problem because I can't size the individual parts (like I can't size the forearm to my arm, because the whole armor is being treated as one object). Could someone walk me through or give me some resources on how to cut/paste the OBJ armor parts so they are in different files? Or do it for me maybe? I'm just really at a lost here. Thanks!

Blender is a great, free tool that'll let you do this quickly and easily. Ten minutes in Google for some basic tutorials and you should be good to go.

SavedbyGraceG12 · Jul 11, 2016

DRH84325

Have you got it figured out. With trying to separate the armor yet, so that you can scale it individually?

bestellen · Jan 9, 2017

I queried this to Tama Software (the developers of Pepakura Viewer/Designer) who came back with the following info.

BeeBoy · Jan 13, 2018

Thankyou for the awesome guide rundown

3D Modeling For Pepakura (Basic 3D Knowledge Required)

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