Quick Pepakura Simplification: Red Line Blue Line

[Sgt Whoopass]

So on a bunch of the files i have they have red and blue lines for the valley and mountain folds and i was wondering how to color them myself so i could simplify it. anyone know how? i looked around on the program and im comin up with nothing. :confused

 

[Josiahmann]

well i think it all depends if you have the designer or viewer. but im not sure. ive never done it.

 

[ShadoKat]

It is easy to do, but you do need Designer to save your work... there is a "line color" button. When you click the button, check only the mountain or valley box, select a color, hit ok, and drag-select your entire layout. I may have the order of operations wrong, I am at work and don't have Pepakura available to confirm. I use this method a lot. Hope this helps.

 

[Sumofl]

Or you could do it the manual way...

Alot of stickies have you take a ruler and 2 different pens and highlight valley and mountains.

 

[Sgt Whoopass]

thanks bro. i cant save cause i didn't buy the program but ill give that a try.

 

[becks]

You can, but remember that using the ruler and pen method serves two purposes. One, like your idea, it gives you a clear color differentiation between the valley and the mountain folders. More importantly, at least from my experience is the actual act of running the pen on the folds works to wear the paper a bit before you ever fold it, thus giving you cleaner folds overall.

 

[ShadoKat]

You can, but remember that using the ruler and pen method serves two purposes. One, like your idea, it gives you a clear color differentiation between the valley and the mountain folders. More importantly, at least from my experience is the actual act of running the pen on the folds works to wear the paper a bit before you ever fold it, thus giving you cleaner folds overall.

I used to do it that way, but I find that using pens are not as good for scoring as other things. Seam rippers or x-acto blades, for example.

 

[ventrue]

But with anything sharp you can easily cut off whole sections of a piece. And even if you don't, you still lose some stability by scratching the surface, because those scratches are a spot where your model will easily rip when force is applied.

In my opinion, a medium ball pen is the best thing to use. Medium, because this gives you a nice "prefold" and a good compromise between precision (i.e. hitting the line) and room for corrections (i.e. having a slightly rounded fold instead of a perfect, sharp one). It also retains most if the paper's bending resistance in the fold, which might be helpful depending on your glueing-style. You simply have to draw those lines on a surface that is a little elastic (a cutting mat is good, a wooden desk or cardboard isn't) and apply enough pressure, so that the lines clearly press through. You can best do that before cutting out the pieces. With that method, you don't have to do any folding at all, just turn over the flaps and you're done.

By the way, even when colouring the lines manually, I'd still change the line type for valley folds to dotted. With the default settings, short folds usually look identical.

Let me illustrate that a bit:

Front with lines drawn:


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