Buildings falling apart

Anthony · 30 Jan 2009, 14:40

I started to make a multi story building whilst trying to keep things nice and neat the first two stories were great but then on the third all of a sudden the wheels fell off and I ran into all sorts of problems like not being able to draw something as simple as a triangle on the floor and using push pull on it without selecting the entire surface, plus this floor being connected to the other stable floors seems to cause them to become unstable and I loose walls when I try to clean up unsightly and unnecessary lines that don't seem to have anything to do with the walls and floors I loose. My main question is what are the kinds of operations that could be causing these problems. as I said I was trying to keep things neat so that my overall file size is smaller.
One more question I read somewhere in this forum that you should only draw on 0 layer ( which I haven't been ) Why and can that cause problems of any kind.

tomsdesk · 30 Jan 2009, 15:12

Anthony, can you post the model so we can check it out...so many silly little things will cause such problems it's hard to guess. As for Layer 0, it's many a view management issue and shouldn't cause you grief unless part of what you're doing is turning layers on and off...?

remus · 30 Jan 2009, 15:40

Sounds like your building became skewed at some point (i.e. the walls arent straight any more.) This could explaing why your having trouble deleting those unnecessary lines and drawing the 3rd floor. As tom said, it would be helpful if you could post the model.

As for always drawing on layer0, if you dont it tends to be very hard to keep track of what geometry is where, so when you start turning of layers you tend to get bits of your model disappearing. Once this happens it can be very tedious to sort it out, thats why its generally good to keep it all on layer0. Its worth noting that this is only for loose geometry, once youve started grouping things it is actually good practice to move it all to separate layers.

Gaieus · 30 Jan 2009, 16:02

Hi Anthony,

I'm suspicious of these layers. Note that layers will never separate geometry in SU so you may be drawing things (like edges) where there is already other geometry on other (hidden?) layers but the whole thing is still connected and affects the overall model.

So just upload your model as Tom suggested so that we can have a look.

Anthony · 30 Jan 2009, 17:03

Thanks For getting back so quick guys. I went back and tried to cut out most of the infected aria and I'll start over unfortunately I lost the second floor. I think I know what caused the problem though. I made a door shape into a group then moved it around as I needed it however a couple of times I missed and grabbed other geometry its the only thing I can think of. there's only a small aria left infected now and I doubt that I will be able to find the cause. I've posted my progress Just to give you an idea but as I said I deleted the second floor so there's not much to see now. but you might like the fake mirror.By the way it's a space ship.

ship

Gaieus · 30 Jan 2009, 17:05

@anthony said:

...I've posted my progress Just to give you an idea...

You missed the attachment I guess.

Anthony · 30 Jan 2009, 17:45

Yep first time I've added an attachment I'm a very new newbie I've moved the layers around so I'm drawing on 0 Layer and it is better.
I have another ? though if you have say a rectangle with a line dividing it and one side is one colour and the other is white than you remove the line and it all turns white what has happened I am guessing that the different colour means that one was on a slightly different plane has SU compensated in some way or is there a hidden flaw that can turn up later to cause problems.

Gaieus · 30 Jan 2009, 18:25

Well,if you merge two faces by deleting the dividing line, either of the materials need to takeover the whole face - two different materials cannot occupy the same face (from the same side). There shouldn't be any problem with it later.

Anthony · 30 Jan 2009, 19:02

Yes I think I'm getting a handle on my problems I extruded two surfaces of different colours out a long way right next to each other and than had a real close look and there was a noticeable difference but the measure tool couldn't pick it up, not until I increased the size of the entire model considerably and even then it was only 0.01. I'll have to keep my eye open to problems and correct them early I've obviously been covering problems rather than fixing them and the problem is manifesting elsewhere. Thanks heaps for your time.