I have, in the past, done a scenes export animation and was appalled at the crappy resolution it produced.

In this case I will need some decent resolution as it will be used as a museum video display alongside the actual replica of the Silver Dart, from which the SU model is being developed, along with historic drawings and photos. I've seen some good quality animations on YT and wondered how.

On the assumption that each floor, except ground and top, are essentially the same, make 1 common floor with each common element (risers, pipes, the floor, exterior walls, etc.) as separate components. Define layers for each floor, and each common element, either by floor, or all on all floors. BUT make absolutely sure you create ALL your geometry on LAYER 0.

Example follows;

01 Ground Floor
02 2nd floor
.......
09 9th floor
10 Floors
11 Piping
12 Ext. Walls
13 Int. Walls
.....
etc.

Note that prefixing each layer numerically keeps them in a specific order, compared to an alphabetical sort.

Now being careful, assign these layers to the parts, a single component for the pipes (walls, etc) is assigned to layer "10 Pipes" etc.

Then all the components that make up a single common floor are grouped and that whole group replicated up for the other floors. Assign each floor group to its appropriate floor, i.e. "02 2nd floor".

This makes it easy to see just what you want.

To see everything, turn ON all layers.
To see just the 3rd floor and everything in it, turn ON only "03 3rd floor" and all of the walls, pipes and other stuff layers.
To see only the pipes on all floors, turn ON only "11 Piping" and all the floor layers.
To see only the pipes on the 5th floor, turn ON only "10 piping" and "05 5th floor".

This way you can be very selective as to what you want to see. The floor to floor risers do not need to be a single pice, but will seem that way when viewed together.

You can then make alterations to each floor, by adding grouped geometry around existing components, and assigning a unique layer, or making a specific floors component unique and altering that component. In the same fashion, you can create multiple layouts for each floor, each layout being grouped and assigned a specific layer.

I do this with all my models, as it gives great latitude to the visibility of the elements. If you are working on something, you turn on only what other elements/layers you need as reference.

Gaieus

Could you please point me to where I can learn to create an animation as depicted above?

I will need to do one early next year on my Silver Dart model for an aviation museum both here in Toronto and Hamilton. It needs to be an AVI/MOV/MPG file to be put on a DVD for a continuous show. I want to show how the craft was constructed while doing a walk-around, then place the camera at the pilots eye for a look around through the twigs and wires.

thanks.

Thanks, Dave.

@dave r said:

Looks like that worked for you.

For those who come along later looking to do a similar thing, I'll post this image to show that it can be done quite easily using an image as a material.

No need to trace the logo and go through those gymnastics. It took me longer to find a Curtiss logo and prepare it in PS than it did to apply it to the curved surface. It isn't the exact logo the OP was looking for but the idea is the same.

My problem with using a texture render is that I've never done that before, and I really don't have the time, nor patience these days to play. Same reason I have not upgraded to SU-8, and this time I want too (compared to V-7).

I would really like to know where you got an original Curtiss logo, not just you sending it to me. The logo on the Silver Dart replica tank was an artists rendition from an old photo, and I used a photo of that, at an angle no less, to trace and make my logo, trying to correct for parallax. It's "ok" but not great. It will do for this project.

I appreciate all the help posted here, and I will keep it for "next time".

Thanks guys. Consider this topic closed.

I looked at all the suggested options, but I could not wrap my head around them when it came to texturizing and scaling. Just seemed too complicated (or unexplained) for what I needed to do.

I ended up doing it the "hard way", as I figured, very similar to Charly's way.

First I traced the logo and made a component of the tracing. (I needed 2 sides) That alone took 2 hours.
Then I placed the logo comp beside the tank comp in its correct alignment, both sides.

Note: to make it quicker and avoid disaster, I Clipboarded the tank and logos, then placed them (shift-P) in a second SU to work on. I also changed the black tank to white to see what I was doing.

Then I extruded the comp into the tank.
I selected the tanks surface and Intersected with model.
Hiding the comp, the logo was imprinted on the tank, but with a few minor "tears". Fewer than I expected.
I fixed the tears and and hid all the logos outlines.
Then I painted the logo gold(ish) and the tank black, and done.

Another Clipboard of only the tank, and back in the main SU I deleted the old tank comp, then Shift-P to bring the logo'ed tank back into its correct position. All told, under an hour.

I attach a pic of the result. (Yes, I know the logo looks larger than the real thing, but I'm not gonna change it)

Charly2008, thanks. But that is a hard way to do it, and I've done it that way many times before. I don't use imported PNG's, but thick extruded 3D lettering. The main problem is when you intersect the 2 surfaces, the main (canvas) surface tends to breakup around tiny edges, or some do not intersect, creating a massive fix-it job. But it does work. It also works better if the lettering is a group. Then after the intersect, you just need to delete the group.
And many thanks for the work you did in answering this question.

Failing an answer to the way below, that is how I have to do it.

What I'm looking for; is a description of how to wrap an image around an irregular shape. In the old Google SU forum some time back, was how to put the Coca-Cola logo onto a coke bottle shape. It's quite elegant and does not involve a messy intersect/deletion/fix.

I am drawing a very detailed model of the Canadian Silver Dart, which first flew in 1909. I have access to original drawings and photos as well as access and many photos of the true replica that flew for the centennial last year.

The fuel tank (see photo) is a tapered cylinder with a fancy scripted "Curtis" on both sides.

I can create a flat text in either SU or some other app.

But how do I wrap it onto the tank?

I remember seeing this somewhere but can't find it (haven't looked that hard to be truthful).

If anyone's interested, I can post photos of the replica and my SU model, which is only the engine and auxiliaries so far.

As Mitcorb suggested, use the 3D text tool to create the text comp. I also use a very slight depth to prevent z-fighting the text with the surface it is on. I also edit the text and select all the outlines and make ALL of the lines hidden. Very important with small text viewed from a distance. If not, the lines will blot out the text. This also speeds up the display, pan & zoom. Also make sure you color the text different from the surface it rests on.

@john sayers said:

I find it annoying that the program always opens with the line tool instead of the select arrow.

When I first started using SU 3 years ago with V6.0 on my PC, that was the very first thing I complained about in a previous forum.
I was directed to a Ruby plugin fix.

But the select pointer SHOULD be the default startup pointer, not the line or any other construction tool.
It makes no sense otherwise.

@thomthom said:

You might very well find better performance with a newer SATA II drive. (In either case - 6,5 year old HD... hope you have backups...)

I need to do that too!

@thomthom said:

.skb? the autosave feature saves to an Autosave_<filename>.skp file - the .skb files are made when you do a manual save.
which feature are you talking about?

I always thought the SKB was the autosave version, but checking into the file structure I see the "Autosave" version as a separate file, as you noted above. My error.

But THAT (Autosave_<filename>.skp) is the file I refer to, not the manual backup (SKB) which is the previous version manually saved.

As for defragging, not in a while. Just lazy. However, the partition that SU saves to is large and is only about 20% used, so defragging would not speed things up by much in this case. But yeah, I gotta do it, just it takes well over an hour to do the whole drive (not exaggerating here).

@thomthom said:

@jgb said:

The problem: Big files take a long time to do timed auto-saves (I'm not referring to manual saves).
On my PC my biggest file (35mb) takes about 2 full minutes to auto save every 1/2 hour.
75% of my files are over 10mb, of those 1/2 are over 20mb.

10-35MB isn't really that big. I got files that goes up to 100-200MB.
2min to save a 10-35MB file sounds odd - never experienced that. Are you by any chance saving to a network location?

Well maybe, just maybe, I exaggerate a bit. I actually just timed it and it takes about 45 seconds on average. But when it happens while I am in a line draw or a pan, it is infuriating to be interrupted and put on hold for what FEELS like 2 or 3 minutes!!

My PC is about 6 1/2 years old with a 120gb IDE hard drive (big then! ), which probably accounts for its relative slowness compared to newer SATA based drives. But it has a fast Gigabyte board and Intel CPU with 1 gb RAM and a high end (then) ATI GPU with 512mb VRAM, so it performs pretty good with big SU files.

But still, saving a smaller file is faster than saving a bigger file in any system. Doing it as I described above results in a delay hit ONLY if recovery is required. Even today, if you need to recover from the backup file (.SKB), there is a delay in bringing it up compared to loading a .SKP file.

@gaieus said:

This place is the addendumto the help file.

Agreed, but it is just a little slower in finding things.
Much better explanations though.

@gaieus said:

There IS in the context menu. Make sure however NOT to pre-select multiple faces - just right click the ONE you want all the others oriented with.

OK, it worked. Thankyou.
I was selecting the whole surface, rather than a single face.

But why is that tool NOT in any help file? I searched under both Face and Orient. NO hits dealing with Orient Face.

I could swear there is a tool called "Orient Faces" in SU6.

Can't bloody find it now that I really need it.
Not in any toolbar, rt-click, dropdown or help.

Is this a fig-newton of my imagination, or is it hidden somewhere?

I have a very complex surface where almost all of the faces are in checkerboard front/reverse and I need it all 1 way.

The s/w behind scenes is a work-in-progress, with no progress.

You can only have 1 scene set, and it sits there at screen top. It is cumbersome to edit, and gives only a single timing scenario for the entire set.

What's needed is a scenes library/manager, where you can define any number of scene sets and call them up as desired, for edit or display.

You should be able to set a time-on-screen for each scene as well as a time for transition.

It does a nice smooth pan/zoom between transitions, but no fades. A few transition (2 or 3 tops) fades would be nice, maybe even a morphing transition.

As stated above by OTB Designworks layer management needs to be overhauled, with more control over handling new layers, and globally on layers within sub sets of scenes.

You also need a way to cycle a sub-set of scenes for testing or close review, rather than only the full play as is now.

There are probably several other enhancements that could be done, but I haven't played with scenes enough to define them yet.

I've harped on this before, but now I've thought it through and I have a way to do it.

The problem: Big files take a long time to do timed auto-saves (I'm not referring to manual saves).
On my PC my biggest file (35mb) takes about 2 full minutes to auto save every 1/2 hour.
75% of my files are over 10mb, of those 1/2 are over 20mb.
I fully realize the save time is largely controlled by the individual h/w in the O/S file support system, but SU is frozen during the save. Either of my 2 suggestions will either eliminate the freeze or bring it down to a very few seconds with even the largest files.

There are 2 solutions for SU-9.

1. Make use of PC's with dual/quad core to do the auto save (and the manual save) on the 2nd core in true background.
   This should be relatively easy to implement, requiring a sub-program running independently in background in core 2 monitoring the memory area of SU running in core 1. Auto saves would occur as now, on a user defined timed basis. This interval can now be just a few minutes between.
   This should eliminate any SU freeze time during a save.

2. Save ONLY the "UNDO" stack periodically till a manual save resets it. Here's how.

Keep in mind, the undo stack is actually a chronological list of all model changing operations.
The undo command simply reverses the changes back down to a previous state. So if you take a copy of the file from the initial load (or last save) and then apply the undo stack to it, or a "redo", you should end up with the same version as if no undo's were done.

The auto save remains event conditional on 3 points.
a) the user defined auto save interval is reached. (in my case, 30 minutes)
b) the undo stack runs to 100 (or whatever) operations. (SU6 is 100 steps, I've counted)
c) the undo stack exceeds a defined size. (a few mb)

The undo stack is still preserved in SU, but is modified with a pointer to keep tabs on where in the stack it last auto-saved to avoid double counting.

When SU first loads a model file, it creates an empty auto-save file on HD, in background.
When an auto-save is triggered (a,b or c) the undo stack is written out to disk, appended to the previous (this session only) auto-save file. This is very fast as the undo stack is relatively very small.

When a manual save is triggered, the save file is written out to a new file, and if the save is successful, the old file is deleted and the auto-save stack is zeroed out.

To recover a file (upto the last auto-save point) is simple.
Su loads the last saved file, then applies the saved undo stack (chronologically) to it, in effect a total "redo".

As is the case today, the recreated file is only as up to date as the last save or auto-save.
This way you can reduce the auto-save interval dramatically to a few minutes, preserving a greater amount of work in case of some crash or other event.

An alternate (optional) use of saving the undo stack is to preserve the detailed work history of the model over several versions, for audit use, training or documenting bugs. In this case, the undo stack file is preserved along with its base saved file, to be played back at some later date.

@jean lemire said:

Hi folks.

The only difference is that, on the PC, the DOT key on my numerical keypad will not generate the required comma that I use as the decimal separator while it works perfectly on my Mac. The funny part is that on both, the Mac and the PC, the DOT key on the numerical keypad generates the comma when I use Excel. Go figure !!!

Just ideas.

Simple, really. The Mac and Excel can be/are configured for either French or French Canadian keyboards. The Mac (I believe) has a universal config for all apps, while the PC is normally app specific. SU has no such config setting that I'm aware of. And I'm not sure if a North American version of Windows has such a universal setting, never tried to find it, coming from the left side of Montreal.

@unknownuser said:

@honoluludesktop said:

Apple is fashionable hardware, and apple dependent OS. MS is any pc OS, software, and virtual product oriented. Impossible to compare the two. Hmm......, and I can say that without bias>_<, really

i don't really get what you're saying.. apple basically uses the same hardware as everyone else..

Apple used to be very different in CPU and architecture. They went for the "snazzy" display capabilities over compute power from the get-go. Also Motorola chips were cheaper than INTEL.

When they realized a few years back that their choice was becoming a dead end for common USER WANTED/NEEDED software apps. (Read PC based) and the Apple world of apps developers were not going to catch up, as well as the price of "Apple only" components going up due to a closed, smaller demand pool, they bit the bullet and went INTEL INSIDE. They cleverly (their true forte) made a PC architecture behave like a Mac as well as a PC, the best of both worlds, but are still market hamstrung by the cost of doing so.

As for Linux/Unix becoming a true force for real world O/S, that can never really happen. You cannot design really good apps that depend on a "consistent" open source O/S, because Linux is not a consistent open source O/S. Windows and MacOS are closed for that reason. Linux/Unix have their real advantage in many areas that Win & Mac fail at or are sub-performing, as do other O/S's. Unless they ALL behave exactly the same way to any app, developers will chose the best O/S for the application and market potential. There is yet to be a truly universal app development language, so choices must be made, or dev.costs will be unreasonable.

Just look at SU as an example of an open source O/S, and the plethora of mostly useful Ruby scripts (apps) available. Some are very well written, others not so much. Some interfere with each other. Some deftly enhance certain SU features, but that enhancement is not transferred to other scripts that depend on that SU feature. That is life with open source S/W. Yes the same will happen with closed source, but the cross testing that goes on to approve an app is way more extensive than what open source can deliver. It is rare that any app will interfere with some other app.

And then, you have the problem with hardware drivers. Nuf said on that.

You pick your hardware and O/S and apps to do the job(s) you want to do.
A Mac may be more "universal" than a common PC, but you pay extra (in so many ways) for that.