Unsorted Questions

[Yoji]

Time to continue my attempts at centralized threads.

Anyway, I've come across an anomaly in my attempt at the Vaygr Battlecruiser. It seems the flaps have become colored, like the pixels on the edge of neighboring faces somehow bled onto the flaps.


Believe it or not, these are flaps

Has anyone else encountered this, or am I just crazy?

[conand81]

Nah, you're certainly not crazy, it's an option in Pepakura Designer under "Flap Configuration..." that needs to be turned off, namely "Color flaps with neighboring face color"... for simplicity I'll attach a screenshot as well:
Flap Configuration screenshot

Also, in the viewer you have the exact same button, only difference is that it does not open a dialog with you, it simply toggles the flap-coloring on and off.

[Yoji]

conand81 said:

Nah, you're certainly not crazy, it's an option in Pepakura Designer under "Flap Configuration..." that needs to be turned off, namely "Color flaps with neighboring face color"...

Huh, odd option... What's it's purpose?

Oh yeah, I've also been meaning to ask about importing textures from Sketchup to Pepakura. Is it even possible? Every time I try, the model is imported in blank white.

[yessmasster]

auris does print colored flaps - it makes the model look nicer, as there are no white lines visible from not precise glueing

[conand81]

yoji said:

Huh, odd option... What's it's purpose?

What he said. *points at yessmasster*

yoji said:

Oh yeah, I've also been meaning to ask about importing textures from Sketchup to Pepakura. Is it even possible? Every time I try, the model is imported in blank white.

SketchUp? Never tried it, so basically, I think you're on your own. But seeing that this seems to happen almost every time you import a model into pepakura I can give you a few possibly helpful hints.

I don't really know why the silly program(pepakura) refuses to find the textures for everyones models, but I guess it have something to do with relative paths... I could speculate further on the matter, but that would turn into a whole paper.

So, anyhow, after you've imported the model and it's white, I think it can be because of three reasons; one, pepakura can't find the textures where it thinks they are, relative pathing in the original model file probably f**ks it up; two, there are no UV-coordinates for the model, at least not readable for pepakura, so it can't paint the textures on the model because he don't know where to start painting; three, the textures are not in an readable format, pepakura only handles BMP and JPG pictures, any other won't show up on the model when imported.

All three problems are solvable as long as the model show up normal in the 3D-software. Problem one is pretty easy, take the textures and reapply them in pepakura through the "3DModelWindow->Texture Configuration..." dialog.
Also, you can identify which of the two first problems you have here, in "Texture Configuration..." that is(I assume you can identify the third one by yourself). If there's a list of textures but all texture-previews there are white you have problem one(also prob. three manifests in this way, but you should've already ruled that one out by now), the textures were not found, and you have to reapply them manually.
I'm not sure how problem two manifests, mainly since I don't think it's really possible, if pepakura can't read the UV-coordinates I don't think it can read the file to begin with, but I'm speculating here, and I have a few ideas of what could happen. Problem two would probably manifest itself in the "Texture Configuration..." either by not having any textures listed at all Or having textures with present previews that are not showing up on the model Or even after you've reapplied the textures and gets previews they don't show up on the model... and the solution to prob. two? Save in another, for pepakura readable, format or use another 3D-software.
Problem three is obviously solved by converting the textures to one of the two desired formats.

Hope that was readable, I have not proof-read it; also, hope it helped.

[Yoji]

I'm beginning work on a Low-Orbit Planetary Bombardment Platform, better known as the Planet Killer. But I've run into a problem right at the start.

If you've seen the .pdo, you know the joints aren't quite... well, much of joints. They don't really have any hollows, cups, indentations or anything to allow attachment of the arms or knuckles to the body. I suppose this is actually good as it'll let me do anything, but I'd like some ideas first.

So the question is: How should I assemble the arms? Try and make them articulate somehow? Break out the brads and drinking straws? Fix them in place permanently with some surgical cuts?

[Yoji]

Well, I've got a full set of ink, so I think I'm feeling ready to attempt one of the EVE models I found some months ago. My choices are the Heron, Apocalypse, and Rifter, all of which are pretty damned big and complex (the Apocalypse has 21 pages). I thought I'd ask which one you guys would like to see first before I started one.

[conand81]

I'm gonna give you my personal opinion on all three of the ships, with some basic info on them, and let you decide from that:

The Rifter is mean looking, was one of my favorite frigates when I played, but I never flew one myself though, didn't play the right bloodline and didn't bother to get the right skills... but I liked it's "concept" compared to the other bloodlines top-of-the-line-frigates, the rifter disregarded every other aspect and aimed for speed and firepower. XD

The Apocalypse is arguably the most powerful ship in the battleship(BS)-class and is rather epic-looking. Don't know how it holds up against the other BSs nowadays with all balance-mods, was a while since I play, but back then it was respectfully feared if you encountered one in the low-security systems. Plenty of armor to hammer away at and a ridiculous amount of gun-hard-points and the most bountiful power-core of all BSs to boast, a rather daunting combination for the opposing force.

The Heron... what can I say, one of the few Caldari ships that I actually like, most of the others are just plain FUBAR. A nice 'covert-ops' frigate with a powerful computer to boast good sensors, jammers 'n stuff like that. Not really excelling in any other aspect that I can remember, possibly its shields, but that's Caldari's "thing", shields, lots of goddamn Shields!