Can't you place some screen-text 'on screen' on a layer that is 'on' in all scene-tans used in the animation ? Copy/paste the required text into the Text object. OR make a single Style that has the text as a watermark and use that Style for every scene-tab - surely you are not 'changing styles' between scenes ?

Another workaround I have used is to group the face, so that I guess it then replaces the stray edge, and then it will Pushpull. But,it is always frustrating when your flow is interrupted. The cntrl/alt key worked fine, but drawing the line as Sonder suggested sounds like a great idea as well. Thanks again

You must put all the components in one global component. In this case, the origin will be the inner 0,0,0 of the global component and this one can be move anywhere.

THANK YOU! i never thaught this would be so easy! i´ve bought artisan a few weeks ago and i just start playing around with it... much to learn I´m gonna watch the tutorial videos right now

Hi folks. Even with thicker roofs, walls, etc, the bleeding through problem will be present if you zoom out noticeably. This is a limitation of Open-GL. When the difference between two separate surfaces becomes too small, relative to the distance between the camera and these surfaces, Open-GL cannot discriminate between the two and show both. Just ideas.

@alan fraser said: You could maybe build-in a few blemishes, but for an overall granular texture it might be better to investigate methods of physically abrading/distressing the finished surface. Okay thanks! I think I probably will have to go that route. Thanks again all for the help!!

Wow, incredible speed and wisdom in forum response. Thank you so much for the advise. Tony

Indeed it is only working time but you cannot install both versions at the same time as they overwrite each other.

You can try FilterForge http://www.filterforge.com/filters/ In the "Building" section there are a bunch of 512 X 512 seamless tile you can probably use.... FilterForge has a 15 or 30 day demo version... full features (I think it is the pro version) where you can create any of the textures from their free filter library and even experiment on your own versions if you'd like. It's a great program. It even works inside of photoshop to add effect to photos. I tried the Demo and was won over right away, I purchased the mid level version at a 60% off sale (if you like it and are short on cash, check back at the site often, as they have frequent 50-60% off sales) There is also Spiral Graphic's "Genetica" http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/products.htm Which has a free version (very limited) of Genetica... there is also the free wood texture tile maker "Wood Workshop" which is pretty cool. I prefer FilterForge to Genetica, but both are very good. This page has a decent tarmac texture: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/5935.html I've never really found a good sidewalk texture filter, but I'm actually working on one... maybe one day I'll perfect it and add it to the FilterForge collection. BTW- I'm not sure what FilterForge's policy is about the images/texture you might download/copy/paste/drag-drop from the screen, but I'm pretty sure that Genetica's is that you may use them in a project, just not redistribute them. You should check into it if you go that route. PS- Both Genetica and FilterForge have versions capable of making bump maps (FilterForge even has a filter that will turn most images into a bump map... but you need Photoshop for that).

Indeed there is a big difference between (unexploded) image entities and faces textured with an image material. Not every renderer can render image entities and even if one can, it is still better to explode it as image entities may take forever to antialias (see Twilight for instance).

Thats great Mike, thanks very much for the input. Will take a look at the links. Thanks again.

Redinhawaii Your example needs NO Plugins at all to punch a simple hole through an object! Make sure that the 'punching-face' is in the same 'context' as the object that's to be punched, and therefore it is 'on' the 'front' face of the object. Then just PushPull the 'punching-face' though the block to make the desired hole, stopping the extrusion on the back-face by a pick or by 'sensing' the inference to the back face-plane [z-fighting]. If the back-face of the block is NOT parallel with the front-face [although it does look like it is is your example!] then make the extrusion so it stops beyond the back-face, then select the new faces made in the extrusion and use 'intersect' [context-menu] to cut that extrusion at the plane of the back-face; then erase the unwanted parts or the extrusion. Done. NO PLUGINS NEEDED AT ALL. You can do everything you have asked about... manually AND more easily than with a 'tool'... [This was a heart-felt message from Plugin Developer ! Please learn the basics...]

@unknownuser said: Thank you TIG. Now it works fine. But what are the lot of lines in the second and third picture you posted and how can it happen, that one texture is showing wrong? Did I done something bad? When you export a SKP it's likely that many of the faces will have more than three sides. Many third-party applications that will be importing the exported data expect it to be 'triangulated'. Many, like renderers, do not show the edges so this triangulation is unseen in their output. If you re-import the OBJ file back into a SKP it will include all of the additional lines needed to triangulate the faces. These can be removed manually or if part of a mesh 'smoothed' or erased as coplanar-edges... Because of the expectation of triangular faces by such apps the OBJexporter [and many other similar tools] triangulate the faces in the SKP as they are exported. In your case you have only a few faces, but there are thousands of edges. Therefore to make a face out of triangles requires a lot of lines adding to the geometry - not an issue when used in a renderer but when used back into a SKP it needs 'fixing'... An OBJ file [and several other exporter file formats] can only include texture data that is UVmapped in '2d' - positioned/rotated/scaled etc - this is because it can use just 3 UVmapping values. However, a texture in a SKP can be sheared/skewed etc in '3d' so that it is 'distorted' - and then its UVmapping has 4 values to describe how it is 'twisted' ! BUT the OBJ file format cannot include for this, so instead we have to spot the 'distortion' and make an extra 'distorted image' file and then define that for that face's texture, with a basic UVmapping set [this is because the 'distortion' is in the texture's file itself, rather than how it is changed by the face's UVmapping data in the OBJ file]. So how we detect the texture's 'distortion' becomes critical... Your 'problem texture' probably resulted when you adjusted it to align along that face - you must have added a slight 'shear/skew' to it in '3d', rather than the usual '2d' 'flat' mapping used for rotations etc. Thus the v1.9 exporter considered that texture to be 'distorted' and therefore it then exported a virtually identical image-file to use just for that face. Its UVmapping then failed as there was no appreciable 'real' distortion to compensate for. When I recoded the distortion-checker in v2.0 I reduced its "sensitivity" - so now when it sees that 'problem texture' it regards it as NOT being distorted... and therefore it uses the usual base-image file and the required distortion-free UVmapping that works just fine... I think I now have a reasonable compromise between making a distorted image-file - needed IF the image has been 'intentionally' skewed/sheared etc - and the alternative of using the base-image even when very slight [unintentional] distortions are detected [and which are so slight that the UVmapping can be assumed to be '2d' not '3d' anyway]

Thanks for the reply.... Glad I'm not the only one with this prob...

@neodimium said: Yes ROGER, I feel atraction... if you by ferrous mean girls. Hahaha Interestingly Im playing with two neodimium rings right now! Anyway... Everyone call me Neo (from my real name Neno), but Neo is toooo short. This is neodymium at work. I inserted it into the head of my cane. In the US it works great as all wall corners and window frames have ferrous metal beading to make the plastering of wall board (gypsum board) fast and efficient. [image: SsqR_magnetic_cane.jpg] In Thailand it did not work as well because of different building methods, but I was still able to find a place to hang my cane. [image: sMVn_Cane_Fan_sm.jpg]

I wonder what will happen with the use of a third dimension... Nice little DUH?!

@edyuyu said: Hi Mac1, thanks a lot for your help. i seem to have trouble opening Sketch Mac1A. could you please resend it? I understand the procedure and it would be applicable, for tapering the model, i mean. The trouble is the tapering has to be specific in terms of dimension, from 5m to 3m. I saw that yours was approximately right in the 1B file you sent. but i need it to be exact. I just can't seem to work it! also, how do I render a face as a wireframe? thanks Update for you: Remember the cutting plane in that original mac1B model was too small to cut the total extent of your model. Therefore when you make that plane bigger the high side cut gets higher and the lower gets lower. Based on you model extent the cutting plane angle must be arctan (2/d) where 2 is you height differential and d is distance between those two points. Instead of trig you can set construction points or ref lines and then rotate the plane untill it goes those two. I would use trig since it is so easy. Note make sure you make the plane a group else you will get a sticky geometry issue. May quick check indicates the present plane is 7.595 degs but you need 6.874 degs. You have 590 vertices in that curve and that is WAY too many and makes setting accurate point difficult Update 19 Feb 2012: Update 20 Feb 2012: Re-looked at the issue of problem getting the 5 and 3 m elevation values. The problem is the asymmetric surface will have those values occurring ~1 or at ~ most two places in the model. You can set either one very accurately, but you have to find where the fore mention points occur by inspecting you model to ID the verticals. You can use the text tool to find the max extents of the model to ID those points. I have not found a work flow that yields the 3m exact for a 5 m exact. The best I have done is [*][b]3.01390892m now ( 3.009330837m)with an angle of [*]6.76116898 degs now (6.776825767 degs)cutting plane slope and a ( point separation => L )value of 664.163112". These numbers change because I failed trig 101,. The angle should be now Asin( d/L) not Atan(d/L) There are some very good modelers commenting to your post and hope they find what I am doing wrong. This maybe be a 32bit single float precision issue. [/b]

This is what our beloved SU (pro) companion, LayOut draws as a lozenge. [image: yRxm_lozenge.png]