Student bridge contest

rdcast · 13 Jun 2009, 18:39

My file is 15MB, 3D wharhouse limit is 10MB. What must I do to submit a file larher than the 10MB limit?

Gaieus · 13 Jun 2009, 18:49

Decrease the file size. Use components wherever possible for repetitive elements, use smaller textures (crop/resize/compress images)... What's that makes your file so big?

rdcast · 13 Jun 2009, 18:59

this is a small bridge with gothic detail with no photos of the actual bridge. How do you compress?

Gaieus · 13 Jun 2009, 19:15

If it's a small bridge, no matter how Gothic your details are, if you use components for it (as I'm pretty sure that with a Gothic thing there are repetitive elements there like arches, vaults and such) it should be much smaller.

I have a file with 6 Gothic churches/monasteries/cathedral (with ribbed vaulting inside, tracery windows and such plus town walls, dummy houses and all) and it's less than half of the size of yours.

Now if you haven't used components extensively during your work, it is really hard to compress file size without remodelling parts of it (or re-using existing parts as components).

Have a look at the vaulting structure of this Gothic church (this was just made as an example for exactly for issues like yours so we are lucky to have a Gothic thing as an example). It is made of one single component; a half vault. If you select all, explode and save, the file size will grow to somewhere between 7-8 times bigger.

Gothic1.skp

rdcast · 13 Jun 2009, 19:26

should I convert a repeditive item into a component to be duplicated where needed? These components then can be compressed? If so how would I compress the components?

remus · 13 Jun 2009, 19:59

Once youve converted the repetitive geometry in to component SU does the compression for you, as by using a component you are basically telling SU "This stuff is all the same, so you only need to remember it once."

rdcast · 13 Jun 2009, 20:04

thank you.

Gaieus · 14 Jun 2009, 11:28

But also, it is not just something annoying you need to do to keep file size low but once you edit an instance of the same component in a model, all other instances will instantly change a well (pun intended). This means that should you decide to change anything afterwards, you don't need to go through all your model again but do a minor change here and all the model will "update".