Question on a 3D model I have...

[Dani Girl]

I have a 3d model of a gun that I have, with lots of "parts" to it of course.

The model has shapes within shapes, to give it its form from the outside, however Pepakura is also unfolding those shapes within shapes. How can I make it so that the model is "solid" even if it has "shapes" within shapes.


to give you and idea:


Gun barrel is a cylinder within a "cube" shape. The cylinder however, is modeled through the cube, so Pepakura picks up the entire length of the cylinder and "unfolds" that, despite it being in a cube.

The cube, then is unfolded with solid faces all around, meaning that I would have to "cut" the face manually, to get the cylinder through.

What do I need to do, to close up any shapes inside where it'll be hidden?

I'm not sure if I'm describing this correctly...

 

[bevbor]

Well, that is what I am doing in such case:

1. Convert crossing bodies to solid bodies (close them to have only one-sided surfaces)
2. Join those solid bodies together
3. Optional - Convert resulting body back to surface body
4. (Prepare model for export to OBJ and) Unfold it.

That's all.

If you cannot convert bodies to solids, joining bodies together can be substituted by mutual cut and then knitting together resulting surface bodies.

Questions anymore?

 

[Ral Partha]

In SketchUp, I highlight one of the surfaces and then use the "Intersect with Model" feature. This joins the surfaces where they intersect and then I go in and delete the extra edges and surfaces inside the model. Not quite as elegant as the one described by bevbor but you get what you pay for (and in the case of SU, not much).

 

[bevbor]

Something you can learn from there:

 

[Ral Partha]

Something you can learn from there:

Yeah, that's what I do to the models found in the 3D Warehouse to make them pep-ready.

 

[ForgedReclaimer]

Seeing intersecting geometry in Pepakura models drives my crazy, i don't even look twice into pep models with these.

I think a tutorial should be made for majority model programs like Blender, Max, SketchUp and others used by pep builders as i have seen this quit often, mostly in weapons.

I don't have a clue how to do it in sketch up lol

 

[Dani Girl]

I'm using MetasequoiaLE to just to get the model into a format that Pepakura recognizes (it doesn't recognize the original file).

The last time I used a 3d Software was Maya 2.0 and Lightwave 3d 1.0 and that was only to do the tutorial from the learning books (Salty the seal anyone?)

Yes, I'm dated.

Is there a simple "Select all" type of thing I can do to join bodies together?

 

[Dani Girl]

Anyone have any ideas how to do this in Metasequoia? Or even 3D Studio Max (i rather do it in the former) - Need help to get this done cause I have to have this gun done by end of April.

 

[bevbor]

Well,
after 20 minutes of games with Metasequoia I've got two primitives,
perfectly joined into one object, and even checked
it in Pep designer for unfoldability It really works.

BUT!!!

It seems like Boolean Operations Plug-in for Metasequoia exists only in Japanese language!

Look:

It does it's work pretty good, but you need to learn those buttons by method of "Scientific poke"

 

[Dani Girl]

Okay the boolean plugin is only for paid version of metasequoia, which I don't have.

also it seems to only work for two obj (in the object panel)

My entire gun in the program only shows up as 1 obj in the Object viewer, yet I can select different faces for the model.

The gun is exported from an older version of 3D MAX (it has the extension of .max) and I took it into 3d Studio Max 2010 ,exported it out as an OBJ file, which I assume that it just combined all the faces together to create one obj.

How can I do this from the max version instead? I can't find any terms that I recognize from the menus (no booleans, no solid bodies etc)




BTW: A good link that discusses Boolean and Metasequoia subtracting and adding:
http://cutfoldpaste.blogspot.com/2011/01/metasequoias-boolean-plugin.html



IN FACT A good place for Pepakura people who are using Metasequoia for their modeling needs :
http://cutfoldpaste.blogspot.com/


bookmark!

 

[rundown]

You can do it for free in blender, just select the 2 objects, hit W and there are your bolean tools

 

[Dani Girl]

Tried it in Blender but it doesn't like my OBJ file that I exported. No matter what I do, the models get corrupted in Blender.

 

[Ral Partha]

Tried it in Blender but it doesn't like my OBJ file that I exported. No matter what I do, the models get corrupted in Blender.

Funny but I'm getting the same thing. Almost all of the models that I export to OBJ in Blender get corrupted.

 

[Boba Fett]

Funny but I'm getting the same thing. Almost all of the models that I export to OBJ in Blender get corrupted.

strange... never had a problem importing or exporting a model from blender. The only time is when I use the "A" command to select all objects, and then export. It gets the light and camera, and screws it up. I recommend deleting the camera/light or just selecting the part when exporting. Otherwise, I'm not sure. ????

 

[Dani Girl]

I'm only importing the gun, there is no light or camera object