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Copying components making copies of their materials.


AHTOH

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 Hello there.

 As I copy-transform (move, rotate e.t.c) custom created component FormZ creates copies of assigned materials. It looks OK until I save close and open my file. So, before I close it there are no copies of material. After I close and than open my file I see 30 copies of material. Delete them and save and than open does not solve the problem. Materials copies reappear again.

 I assume this is a bug.

 You may download the file here.

Best,

Anton.

 

post-46-0-18864900-1459933825_thumb.png

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Hi Anton,

 

Thanks for posting your file.  This problem is occurring because the embedded component has different Material Parameters than exists in the main file.  Therefore the "defined" material is being reloaded when the file is reopened.  However, instead of reloading the material each time an instance of the component is loaded, that should probably only happen once, so thanks for your report, we will get this corrected.

 

We have adjusted the materials for the "pin" component and the project so they are exactly the same, and now when we reopen the file, the material is no longer duplicated.  We will email this back to you in case it is helpful.

 

As we have noted to VLAD repeatedly, the Resolution of these objects will need to be highly controlled -- and the very minimum number of (preferably Facetted) polygons will need to be used to prevent overloading the computer and its graphics / GPU.  Do you really need this many polygons?

 

post-5-0-82624700-1459957991_thumb.jpg

 

We note that this Pin has a Display Resolution of 67% which makes about 4000 faces for each pin.  If you set that to 0%, then it will cut the number of polygons by 75%, which is very important since there are both a lot of pins, and there will be a lot of these domes.

 

And there is a very small hold down the center of this component - which makes for extra geometry on the interior -- so this "defect" should be fixed in the spirit of "good geometry" and optimizing the polygons:

 

post-5-0-28341700-1459957992_thumb.jpg

 

Does that help?

 

(Thanks again for your report, we will see what we can do to improve on this.)

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Hi Anton,

 

 

As we have noted to VLAD repeatedly, the Resolution of these objects will need to be highly controlled -- and the very minimum number of (preferably Facetted) polygons will need to be used to prevent overloading the computer and its graphics / GPU.  Do you really need this many polygons?

 

 

 

And there is a very small hold down the center of this component - which makes for extra geometry on the interior -- so this "defect" should be fixed in the spirit of "good geometry" and optimizing the polygons:

 

Hello Tech.

Thank`s for the prompt reply. I will double check the components in order to fix material and the geometry. Thank you for the hint. As for the this: it is really confusing for me which one I suppose to fix — is it the one inside of my dedicated component library or embedded one within the file. Or both which does not make any sense. Please clarify.

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Yes, this is what I did this time. I added 100% same Thea material and checked "Automatically update Shaded" and than I found that despite this fact Thea Plugin makes Shaded material with various settings ergo various materials. I`m going to report this to Solid Iris.

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Hi Anton,

 

Yes, this did look like it was compounded by a beta plugin.   Remember that if you are beta testing, you should test without the plugin to see if there is a beta issue (or not) so you can report to the appropriate parties.  ;)

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 Hello again.

 Yes I understand that. However Vlad, who I`m working with works with bare FormZ and experiencing nearly the same troubles with components. I thought he does not have a clue about 3D and FormZ in particular. But it is not so though.

 Now I edited component in order to fix all the issues you indicated and upon updating a component FormZ crashed as usual. And than I opened my file and found that all those "Pin" instances are gone. However when I tried to remove this Pin component from library FormZ asked me if I want to explode instances of this component. Neither on screen nor in Objects Palette they are not present.

 File is here

Anton.

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Anton,

 

There are no instances in this file, but there are two components, one of which has a duplicate nested component inside of it, and both of which have the original problems we described.  Your file is also almost 50 Mb, whereas the fixed file we sent back to you was 14.  We don't know what you are doing, and we can't tell from the files you have posted, but if you try the file we fixed for you, does that work better for you?

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Anton,

 

There are no instances in this file, but there are two components, one of which has a duplicate nested component inside of it, and both of which have the original problems we described.  Your file is also almost 50 Mb, whereas the fixed file we sent back to you was 14.  We don't know what you are doing, and we can't tell from the files you have posted, but if you try the file we fixed for you, does that work better for you?

Yes. The file you sent works well. Appreciate your help. Can`t understand what did I do to loose my components though. I was editing my component and export it to external library. I changed component`s material in order to have the same material as the other parts. Than I purged unused materials in main file.Than FormZ was idling and crashed in 30 seconds or so. After reopening the file I found that there are no Pin instances in it. I just can`t get what I did wrong and what I was suppose to do.

 Is there any idea how to make next FormZ build not to make users experience such a trouble? Since v.7 FormZ became a fluent tool for creative people, not techy guys only as all those old time 3D apps. So for last 3 years I can freely operate and understand it much easier than previous 15 years. However this component thing is still bumpy with so many hidden rules as it was in old days. I don`t have user experience I expect in 2016.

Anton.

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I agree Anton about the components being such an important factor that has to be improved, to at least the level of the old symbols.

Sometimes just moving a component invokes a dialog asking if I want to update the component or brake the link, that shouldn't happen when just moving.

To be honest the behaviour of components is erratic, so I only use them for planting billboards facing the camera and not for repetitive parts of buildings anymore as they have caused me problems such as moving to different positions or piling on top of one another when opening the file the next day.

Back in the days of symbols I was a lot more confident using them.

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I agree Anton about the components being such an important factor that has to be improved, to at least the level of the old symbols.

Sometimes just moving a component invokes a dialog asking if I want to update the component or brake the link, that shouldn't happen when just moving.

To be honest the behaviour of components is erratic, so I only use them for planting billboards facing the camera and not for repetitive parts of buildings anymore as they have caused me problems such as moving to different positions or piling on top of one another when opening the file the next day.

Back in the days of symbols I was a lot more confident using them.

 Des,

Thank you for support. 

There are issues that should not continue for years regardless user demands. Feels like AutoDesSys does not listen users careful enough. Say non English letters, Drafting, proper NURBS, physics are the things I ask for years.

I love the way support is trying to solve our problems. However what I see in overall is retarded approach with the whole thing. Can`t argue FormZ became more fluent in some parts: sculpting is awesome, simple drawing is really nice too, I like rounding features. But talking anything more complex (say NURBS, meshes, SubD) it is far behind from competitors with comparable pricing. No wonder we are waiting modern renderer for years. 

 And the stability is another issue to me. I have 15-20 crashes a day with any kind of operations or even idle.  I feel like I`ll have to look around to chose another tool to work with if nothing is going to change in a year.

Best,

Anton.

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Hi Anton,

 

Sorry you are having trouble.  15 crashes per day is a crazy amount and obviously something is going wrong there.  If we understand correctly, you are helping a "new user" with a super complex file that has ~100 times more geometry than necessary, with lots of poorly constructed imported geometry, and the combination of these two is overloading the CPU, GPU, and causing problems in general for the system, as well as for formZ.  In addition to that (if we understand correctly) you are also working with one or more Beta rendering plugins loaded, which is probably not advisable when working with such files, or when you are already having other issues.  You have submitted a number of reports in the past, most of which should be fixed, and we are working on the more recent ones.  We truly appreciate your reports, and are working hard to make formZ as robust and capable as possible.

 

You are correct that we should add support for Cyrillic characters in the near future, but we are not sure what "physics" functionality you are hoping for.  (Feel free to post a separate thread about that in the Suggestions section of our forum if you have not done so already -- but this may be beyond the "short term" scope of formZ improvements, as we have a lot of other features that are currently in the pipeline.)  Thanks again for your reports and suggestions, we truly appreciate them.

 

Des,

 

The latest update does include some major improvements for Components, but the issues you note above should have been fixed awhile ago (before this last update). If you have any issues that you can still reproduce, please send us an email with the details and we will get these taken care of ASAP.

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Hello Tech.

Thank you for your kind reply.

As the matter of fact this is not exactly what you suggest. Working with THAT bloated file and the crashes is not count. I am working hard to simplify parts of it first. Than I'm going to start put things together with great caution. In order my work was not disrupted by beta software it is mostly off my plugins dolder. I add it (beta plugin)there in the very end of my work upon finilisation of every pease.

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Just to clarify, I'm specifically talking about components and I'm not for bashing FormZ as it's my livelihood, just constructive criticism. Lets keep to the topic of this thread.

 

In fact (I've said this here recently) this version is the most stable I've used, not crashes to Anton's extent at all, I go for days and days without any problems. I'm actually very happy with FormZ 8.5.3.

 

Like envdesign, I'm of the opinion that it's confidence in components that we need restored. Imho, it's the re-use of already created libraries that is the essence of 3d modelling especially in architecture..

I used to have tons of libraries which I used over and over again in the symbols days, using the different levels of the symbols (low, medium, high) as I needed to allow me to build large models with no lag, then before render turn the symbols to high resolution. 

 


Tech, if you like I can upload a file with all of it's parts, materials and send you a link to download it to try out for a while.I know you prefer to receive only parts of a model which might exhibit odd behaviour, but if I get any problems during a project, it/they usually come when the file is getting big, so I think there's no point sending a cut down version.
 
Des
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Hello Tech.

Today I already have two crashes within half an hour. Working with the file you sent me by the way.

Also I can`t get a clue about this component thing. You remade pins and exploded them as they are not the components any more? So why we are talking about components here as even you don`t use it?

 When I edited a component "Pin" and decided to export it to common component library in order to use it with other files I got a message "Component Pin already exists in this location". And it is there as I imported a previous version. But there is no chance to delete it as it is not selectable. When I export my component from Embedded library with another name (I have to add "Proper" than "More Proper" Most Proper, Properiest, Propeller, Proper as the God e.t.c to component name) and than I get two components. One of them has a name with "Pin" another one is not selectable. And I decide to use that component. And guess what? YES! FormZ crashes. I sent you the Crash ReportAs it does usual when something strange is going on. Sometimes I have a chance to save.

And as Des wrote it happens usually not when you draw a cube, but the time I am in the middle of the complex project from the real world.

Anton.

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Hi Des,

 

Glad things are working great for you in general.  Yes, please send a file if you feel that its analysis will reveal any issues.  Please also include any notes of "what types of things" are causing these issues so we can better direct our testing with your file(s).

 

Hi Anton,

 

We are not sure what to say.  We really want to help, but we are not following what you say, or reproducing what you report.

 

The file we sent to you DOES have the Pin as a Component.  If you want to Edit this Component, right click on it from the Component Manager and choose Open:

 

post-5-0-53793400-1460121748_thumb.jpg

 

Make any desired modifications, save, and close the Component and it will be updated in the project.

 

With all the problems you are having, perhaps you have a corrupted installation, preferences, or system?  To see if that is the issue, Quit formZ and Delete your Applications: formZ 8 folder, and your USER: Library: Preference: autodessys folder.  Then download the full installation package and install once more.  Does that work any better for you?

 

If you are still getting the crazy number of crashes per day, then perhaps you should consider backing up your system, reformatting, and reinstalling (without the Migration Assistant -- as this may "migrate" problems if they exist in the previous system).

 

Hope that helps, and if you do have any further issues, any specific steps that you can send and we can follow will help us help you.  Again, we really do want to help, and hopefully getting a clean installation will get things going properly for you.

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Hello Tech.

You where right. Solution was more obvious than I expected. I reinstalled FormZ and trashed Autodessys folder from prefs  and a file I was opening for 20 minutes opened in two. Components behave in proper way. Hope overall stability is going to improve too. Thank`s a lot.

Anton.

 

 

With all the problems you are having, perhaps you have a corrupted installation, preferences, or system?  To see if that is the issue, Quit formZ and Delete your Applications: formZ 8 folder, and your USER: Library: Preference: autodessys folder.  Then download the full installation package and install once more.  Does that work any better for you?

 

 

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Hi Anton,

 

Great, glad that helped!  

 

It is possible that permissions issues could have caused some problems.  If you haven't done so recently, you may want to run Applications: Utilities: Disk Utility, choose your Hard Drive, and click Repair Disk Permissions.  (It is a good idea to do that every month or two as preventive maintenance.)

 

Also, if you have missing image map files and you had previously set a Custom File Search path to a very large directory of files and folders, that could take extra time searching for the missing files when you open or render the file...

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Thank`s Tech.

I am aware of Mac OS maintenance. Also it is pretty fresh. I reinstalled it with HD reformatting just 3 weeks ago. I doubt there are any permissions issues. 

Some weird thing just happened: i removed some parts from rather big file (260 Megs) in order to split it to smaller ones and work further on separate parts. After saving the remains it became 1,5 Gigs. I have no clue how this could happen even in theory as it denies matter saving principle :-). The part I cut off is another 560 Megs! Could this be another Components issue? Not saying FormZ crashed after reopening this file while idling.

Best,

Anton.

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Hello Tech.

I have to admit — you where right. All the issues are caused by Thea beta incompatibility with FormZ components system. 

Thank you for your time and patience.

Regards 

Anton.

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Hi Anton,

 

Great, glad things are working better for you now!!

 

Of course, you reported the Thea  issues to Blue Iris, right?

Sure thing! Except for Solid Iris  :D

Finally I realized that Thea instancing could work good for me. So this file is only 50 megs:

 

post-46-0-95959600-1460485568_thumb.jpg

 

 

Best,

Anton.

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