snow

I found recently something really useful with InDesign: Immediately after you lunch the app press "Ctrl + Alt + Shift". A dialogue will pop up asking if you want to reset preferences. formZ ABSOLUTELY NEEDS this. resetting preferences isn't a fix... it's basically a workflow at this point and any and all workflow shortcuts are welcome

Is this possible? If not can it be added? I believe rhino is currently using this functionality--you export a textured model as FBX the image files are not separately exported, but they are unpacked when imported into the next software. I ask because Windows 3D viewer needs to have the textures embedded to view files properly. If they are linked files the model only shows up as a single shade.

this doesn't make sense to me... in theory if you work on a file (any file/format) for 2 days or 200 days, if the file size stays the same then read/write speeds (and if everything else on the computer is unchanged) should remain constant? right? or do you think this is specific to formZ and there's an optimization issue with saves/re-writes?

yes use the polygon tool and changed the # of segments to 4

Are you talking about the autogrid? You can lock the grid to the various default planes which will prevent the autogrid from appearing.

this is a common workflow in many other modeling and rendering applications (sketchup, rhino, c4d, 3ds). if formZ implemented this it would help immensely.

is there a file you can post?

I just tested a progressive jpg in sketchup and it loads without an issue. same with rhino.

I have "Keep Texture" enabled in the project settings. All my textures are present in formZ, but they don't show up when exporting to FBX for render. Now I have to re-link a couple dozen textures in formZ because even though they show up in the project, when I click to "load texture" in the Material Parameters it goes to the default texture. I would think if I move the file from computer to computer with "Keep Textures" enabled it would, you know, keep textures with the file.

Bump. I copied a project folder from work PC onto a flash drive, which was then copied to my Mac at home. Search paths are directed right to this folder on my home desktop. Linked files show all textures with a green check. My file shows no textures at all. Looks like I'm going into the office early tomorrow...

Me: "One more crash and I'm done with this program!" Also me: "Ah, another project that needs to be finished in an unrealistic amount of time... *opens formZ*"

I come across this issue fairly often. the object in question was created using Reshape and Offset Outline. In the front view, Slice the 3/4" tube with the lines (Heal enabled), then try to delete one of the resulting objects. The objects have turned into surfaces instead of solids. My workaround was to create an ambiguous object and boolean difference the objects. It's not a huge issue, but an issue that should be fixed, nonetheless. slice.fmz

change "smooth" to facetted in the drop down and also change the radial button from "parametric" to "facetted" sketchup doesn't play well with smooth geometry.

Yes, that works too. But the (non) issue is that the slicing lines shouldn't have to connect. I'd like to see less bugs, not more workarounds.

is anyone else having this problem? Working from a server I have this problem a few times a week. There isn't any specific set of functions, or in a specific file, it's any file after routine functions. Copying my projects locally is not a viable workaround because that breaks linked textures that I need to export to render... and I often need to work on projects from two different locations. formZ is a very fast modeler, but that efficiently doesn't matter when I'm constantly losing 15, 20, 30+ minutes of work in my projects. sigh.

I never thought about that, but yes, it is set to Unlimited. Ill change it to 12 (and maybe increase later) to see if that resolves the issue. thanks, Des!

I'm working locally on a project and I'm still having the same problem. I just restarted my machine. hopefully that will help for a while... 🙄

I have not tried a full program re-install. I might give that a try when I have some time and I'm connected to a different network. Thanks.

Yes this was checked. The overall problem is that the formZ file was no longer linked to my texture maps even though they showed up in the model. If they aren't linked they won't export... at least that's the problem I'm having.

I also want to take a moment to say that it's not necessary to export two copies of every texture in the project. please fix!

Brilliant! thank you Justin!

With a clear mind this morning, I thought to try "Save A Copy As..." to save all the textures with the .fmz file. I did this saving directly onto a flash drive to open on another machine but only the .fmz is saved. I assume the "Save Textures" option just bakes them WITH the .fmz file, which is not helpful in my case. I think formZ needs to have a "Package" option where the formZ file is saved with a folder of textures and re-links them. I believe this would solve this exporting problem when moving to different locations. And an ability to automatically re-link textures in a given directly after one file is re-linked would be more than welcome.

re-linking textures one by one. there MUST be another way...

Ahh yes, the ol' cheesegrater mac. What a gem! Hopefully we will see a preview of the 2019 Mac Pro at WWDC. I'm hoping for a bigger jump in their entire pro lineup. I'm still holding on to a Late 2013 MacBook Pro because I refuse to own one with a touch bar *eye roll*

hidden line is still awful and I was thinking "there must be a better way..." there is. and it's so easy I feel like a dunce that it took me 5+ years to figure it out. 1. Have a white background and turn off grid and axes. 2. Create a white material and set the reflection to constant. 3. Turn on Antialiasing in Shaded Options Done. Instant Hidden Line that is at least 100,000x faster than the real hidden line and with MUCH better results in regards to text (i didn't do a benchmark test on this, so please don't quote me). I'm literally never using the hidden line again and i am so happy about this so i needed to share.