Question on foam in pepakura designer

[Cypher]

I am working with Hugh's ODST files, the chest core to be specific, and I found that I needed to scale them in a way that Pepakura Designer could not handle. Not a huge issue, I pulled the .obj out, rescaled it how I needed and opened it back in designer. Here is where the issue is, when I unfold I get a lot of small parts as opposed to the large parts that Hugh had. I am going to do the core in foam so I can deal with the larger parts where paper would cause issues. Is there some setting I am missing that tells the program that I am doing foam? How did he get those larger pieces without designer pitching a fit? the one change I made to the setting was to hide nearly flat fold lines at 150%.

I decided after the fact that adding picture might help people understand what I am looking at.

There is Hugh's original

Here is mine


The frount of his has 8 pieces, mine has more than 20. Am I missing somthing or should I start again?

 

[Supre_]

I am actually going to start working on Hugh's ODST files aswell. Going to start with the helmet first I think. What thickness of foam will you use for the armour or does it just depend on the shape off the part ?

 

[CPO mendez]

By default, Pepakura unfolds onto one page, so everything is gonna be tiny as hell. However i've never heard of pepakura just refusing to handle scaling. try taking the X Y and Z parameters (in millimeters) of your newly scaled piece, and plugging them into the reopened file under the "change scale factor" tab. but you need to switch the X and Y parameters if you were using something like Maya, because the geniuses that designed pepakura went for "heigh/Width/Depth" instead of the UNIVERSAL XYZ axis!

anyway, rant over. hope that helped.

 

[Cypher]

I am actually going to start working on Hugh's ODST files aswell. Going to start with the helmet first I think. What thickness of foam will you use for the armour or does it just depend on the shape off the part ?

Really there are only a few parts I am doing out of foam, namely the Chest core, the neck piece and the bicep piece, the rest will be paper and fiberglass. I am using 1/2 inch foam for the core and 6mm for the neck and biceps.

By default, Pepakura unfolds onto one page, so everything is gonna be tiny as hell. However i've never heard of pepakura just refusing to handle scaling. try taking the X Y and Z parameters (in millimeters) of your newly scaled piece, and plugging them into the reopened file under the "change scale factor" tab. but you need to switch the X and Y parameters if you were using something like Maya, because the geniuses that designed pepakura went for "heigh/Width/Depth" instead of the UNIVERSAL XYZ axis!

anyway, rant over. hope that helped.

The issue I had is that pepakura lockes all axis togeather, you're right. so I pulled hugh's model out(using the export feture) and redid the scaling in sketchup. I really should have added pics to better explain my issues
This is the original unfold


This is mine


You can see how the frount of his has like 8 pieces where mine has more then 20. I am trying to get the part count down where the original one is. More cuts in foam is just more places to make a mistake.

 

[CPO mendez]

Really there are only a few parts I am doing out of foam, namely the Chest core, the neck piece and the bicep piece, the rest will be paper and fiberglass. I am using 1/2 inch foam for the core and 6mm for the neck and biceps.



The issue I had is that pepakura lockes all axis togeather, you're right. so I pulled hugh's model out(using the export feture) and redid the scaling in sketchup. I really should have added pics to better explain my issues
This is the original unfold
View attachment 29978

This is mine
View attachment 29979

You can see how the frount of his has like 8 pieces where mine has more then 20. I am trying to get the part count down where the original one is. More cuts in foam is just more places to make a mistake.

ooohhhh, alright. i get ya now. Once again, it's how pepakura does things by default. the fix is super easy. i don't have pepakura on my laptop, so i can't open it up and find the name of the tool, but it should be the second or third one from your normal select tool. it's the "merge/seperate" tool, i think. click on that, and when you hover your cursor over the edges of the pieces in the 2D menu, a red line will appear connecting it to the other edge. pick the edges you want to merge and click, and it'll stick the two edges together to create one piece. it also makes green lines along paths in solid pieces that it can cut. Be mindful of what you're merging though, because pepakura will create new cuts if the edge that you merge makes the 2D model "impossible" (i.e. if you had a sphere in pepakura, you couldn't join all the edges together in the 2D menu because a sphere can't exist in 2 dimensions). Pepakura has a reputation of going a bit goofy when it has to make new cuts, so CTRL-Z will become your friend very quickly.

 

[Cypher]

ooohhhh, alright. i get ya now. Once again, it's how pepakura does things by default. the fix is super easy. i don't have pepakura on my laptop, so i can't open it up and find the name of the tool, but it should be the second or third one from your normal select tool. it's the "merge/seperate" tool, i think. click on that, and when you hover your cursor over the edges of the pieces in the 2D menu, a red line will appear connecting it to the other edge. pick the edges you want to merge and click, and it'll stick the two edges together to create one piece. it also makes green lines along paths in solid pieces that it can cut. Be mindful of what you're merging though, because pepakura will create new cuts if the edge that you merge makes the 2D model "impossible" (i.e. if you had a sphere in pepakura, you couldn't join all the edges together in the 2D menu because a sphere can't exist in 2 dimensions). Pepakura has a reputation of going a bit goofy when it has to make new cuts, so CTRL-Z will become your friend very quickly.

Yeah this unfold was done almost completely manually at this point, you are talking about the divide/connect faces tool. this is the point where pep is telling me that it is impossible, even though Hugh managed it in his original. and mine is wider so the curve is spread over a greater distance, it should be easier to get the pieces to connect into one but it will not let me.

 

[CPO mendez]

Yeah this unfold was done almost completely manually at this point, you are talking about the divide/connect faces tool. this is the point where pep is telling me that it is impossible, even though Hugh managed it in his original. and mine is wider so the curve is spread over a greater distance, it should be easier to get the pieces to connect into one but it will not let me.

Well, i'm officially stumped. the only explanation i could possibly have would be that its a locked file, which means you can't edit it. maybe post this in the pepakura help thread? that'd be my advice

 

[Cypher]

Well, i'm officially stumped. the only explanation i could possibly have would be that its a locked file, which means you can't edit it. maybe post this in the pepakura help thread? that'd be my advice

Hey thanks for the help anyway man, I don't believe that I can post there just yet. Too much time lurking and reading rather than talking will do that.

 

[CPO mendez]

Hey thanks for the help anyway man, I don't believe that I can post there just yet. Too much time lurking and reading rather than talking will do that.

I just quoted your post with the pictures and posted it in the pepakura help thread for you. you can find it here. just keep monitoring the thread. i'm sure someone with more experience than me will be able to fix it easily.

 

[Cypher]

I just quoted your post with the pictures and posted it in the pepakura help thread for you. you can find it here. just keep monitoring the thread. i'm sure someone with more experience than me will be able to fix it easily.

Thanks man.