I have been trying to make Clone trooper pepekura files for a while. I've been using a high-rez model off of url="http://www.scifi3d.com/list.asp?intGenreID=10&intCatID=13"]www.Scifi3d.com[/url]. The poly count starts out around 60K for just the helmet. I've been using 3ds max. I've been able to reduce the ploy count by removing mesh smooth off of each of the parts. I have also been using the edit poly/verticies/ weld (by threshold) to reduce the polycount. Depending on the settings I'm using I can get the model down to 400 to 1000. That's still large, but manageable. Non-helmet pieces are really easy though. I took one of the shoulders and it came out at 27 polygons.
My big problem is that I can't figure out how to attach the parts of the helmet together. The helmet is broken into 5 pieces: head, 2 ears, fin and visor. I can't figure out how to get the model to act like a single mesh. I've tried boolean/union and edit poly/attach. For some reason it always acts like multiple pieces. Anyone know how to attach those and preferrably get rid of all the geometry inside the helmet? I've tried many different methods of boolean/subtract and union. The results always seem to miss a few verticies they should have hit.
I also wasn't sure of the ethical standpoint of posting PEP files derived from someone else's 3D model. The terms of use of the scifi3d site seem to make it clear that I can use those models and make new works out of them. I believe that I'm supposed to credit the original creator though. Not entirely sure how I would do that in PEP.
Andy
My big problem is that I can't figure out how to attach the parts of the helmet together. The helmet is broken into 5 pieces: head, 2 ears, fin and visor. I can't figure out how to get the model to act like a single mesh. I've tried boolean/union and edit poly/attach. For some reason it always acts like multiple pieces. Anyone know how to attach those and preferrably get rid of all the geometry inside the helmet? I've tried many different methods of boolean/subtract and union. The results always seem to miss a few verticies they should have hit.
I also wasn't sure of the ethical standpoint of posting PEP files derived from someone else's 3D model. The terms of use of the scifi3d site seem to make it clear that I can use those models and make new works out of them. I believe that I'm supposed to credit the original creator though. Not entirely sure how I would do that in PEP.
Andy