Cheetah3D 7.0 - Early Adopters Beta Test

Import Children

Quick question. Where has the Import Children under Tools gone? I tried to find it before using Bridge but can't locate it. Tried Merge but that didn't work. Any help will be appreciated.

johnoeffinger said:

Quick question. Where has the Import Children under Tools gone? I tried to find it before using Bridge but can't locate it. Tried Merge but that didn't work. Any help will be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Merge is the new "Import Children".
What exactly are your steps then? (You just need to shift-select to collect what you want to merge - works with parametric objects also and will maintain material assignments.)

Cheers
Frank

frank beckmann said:

Merge is the new "Import Children".
What exactly are your steps then? (You just need to shift-select to collect what you want to merge - works with parametric objects also and will maintain material assignments.)

Cheers
Frank

Click to expand...

Thanks for quick reply Frank...I am doing something wrong but not sure what.
1. Create two boxes
2. Make both boxes editable
3. Shift-Select both boxes and select Merge from tools menu. Also, in another attempt dragged Box.1 onto Box and then Shift-Selected both boxes.
4. Verified the remaining object of two boxes operates as object by moving it
5. Selected Point Mode
6. Tools/Polygon/Bridge
7. Clicked a point on one box and then a point on the opposite box and no bridge.

Thoughts? Thanks...John

johnoeffinger said:

Thanks for quick reply Frank...I am doing something wrong but not sure what.
1. Create two boxes
2. Make both boxes editable
3. Shift-Select both boxes and select Merge from tools menu. Also, in another attempt dragged Box.1 onto Box and then Shift-Selected both boxes.
4. Verified the remaining object of two boxes operates as object by moving it
5. Selected Point Mode
6. Tools/Polygon/Bridge
7. Clicked a point on one box and then a point on the opposite box and no bridge.

Thoughts? Thanks...John

Click to expand...

1. In the same spot?
2. no need for making editable
3. shift select and call "Merge" - done.

Are you accidentally mix "Merge" with a Boolean Addition Operation? Just asking.

Cheers
Frank

PS: I stay here till we solved your issue!

frank beckmann said:

1. In the same spot?
2. no need for making editable
3. shift select and call "Merge" - done.

Are you accidentally mix "Merge" with a Boolean Addition Operation? Just asking.

Cheers
Frank

PS: I stay here till we solved your issue!

Click to expand...

Thanks Frank.
1. created two boxes near each other
2. Shift-Selected both boxes
3. Selected Merge - both boxes became one object of two boxes slightly separated in distance from each other.
4. Enabled Point Mode and points appeared on the corners of both boxes
5. Selected Tools/Polygon/Bridge
6. Selected a point on box a and a point on box b to bridge with, same result.

Not mixing Merge with a Boolean Addition Operation.

Really appreciate your help!

johnoeffinger said:

Thanks Frank.
5. Selected Tools/Polygon/Bridge
6. Selected a point on box a and a point on box b to bridge with, same result.

Click to expand...

Bridge just work with openings; see Cheetah3d Help

Cheers
Frank

frank beckmann said:

Bridge just work with openings; see Cheetah3d Help

Cheers
Frank

Click to expand...

Ahhh, thanks so much Frank...I'm a visual learner and seeing the Help image made the difference. I was following a You Tube video. Once I went back and deleted a side from each box, Bridge worked perfectly. Thanks again. Really appreciate your patience in helping me understand what was happening!

Glad we got it fixed. Didn´t realized Bridge-tool was your goal.

Cheers
Frank

frank beckmann said:

Glad we got it fixed. Didn´t realized Bridge-tool was your goal.

Cheers
Frank

Click to expand...

I was having difficulty in using Bridge to connect a Spline (handle) to a Mug in the Mug Exercise in Tonio's book last night. I'm still not sure what the issue was in that attempt, but I think I know. When I couldn't Bridge between the end of the Spline and the Mug opening, I looked on YouTube and saw a video on using the bridge to connect the two boxes. That's how I got side tracked in trying to understand how the tool works.

Your help in understanding the Bridge tool made the difference. Also made me realize that I'm glad I have V6 available and can go back and look at the Help screens - duh Best...John

johnoeffinger said:

I was having difficulty in using Bridge to connect a Spline (handle) to a Mug in the Mug Exercise in Tonio's book last night. I'm still not sure what the issue was in that attempt, but I think I know. When I couldn't Bridge between the end of the Spline and the Mug opening, I looked on YouTube and saw a video on using the bridge to connect the two boxes. That's how I got side tracked in trying to understand how the tool works.

Your help in understanding the Bridge tool made the difference. Also made me realize that I'm glad I have V6 available and can go back and look at the Help screens - duh Best...John

Click to expand...

Chances are if you were having trouble bridging then the two meshes weren't merged. In essence you're taking the cup shape and the handle mesh, merging them, and then bridging the ends of the handles to holes you make in the cup.

(I just found every mention of "Import Children" in the book and added an explanation of Merge and left the old instructions for users of older versions — merging meshes was a huge source of confusion in C3D before v7 — which is why there are four blow-by-blow explanations of how to do it in the book.)

podperson said:

Chances are if you were having trouble bridging then the two meshes weren't merged. In essence you're taking the cup shape and the handle mesh, merging them, and then bridging the ends of the handles to holes you make in the cup.

(I just found every mention of "Import Children" in the book and added an explanation of Merge and left the old instructions for users of older versions — merging meshes was a huge source of confusion in C3D before v7 — which is why there are four blow-by-blow explanations of how to do it in the book.)

Click to expand...

You are correct. I haven't had time to re-create using Merge since I have been at day job but will do that later today. I think because I didn't understand Merge with the Shift-Click was my issue.

Awesome on the "Import Children" :smile: and the 4 explanations. Love the book. I had to set this aside for other reasons but looking forward to diving back in.

Update: Took a few minutes and re-did the spline and mug and wallah...worked perfectly. Thanks Folks!

Falcon renderer

Three basic Falcon questions:

1 When I set the camera background color for Silver, or load a background image, why does Falcon render it black?

2 If I save the G-buffer, where is it saved and how would I use it?

I posted a question about the G-buffer a month ago and Frank said "You'll benefit from graphic buffers when it comes to compositing." I still have no idea what that means. Can anyone explain that or provide an example?

3 Any tips on using the new Dielectric material Absorption and Density nodes, especially to approximate volumetric shading? Are these features useful for more accurate water or caustics? Maybe it's time to start a Falcon-specific Decorated Pig thread.

1. Most likely you have a Skylight with Background enabled in your scene. Turn that off and you´ll see the Camera Background color.
3. What´s wrong with having a good play with the new properties?

Beyond glass

Thanks again Frank for the rapid response.

1 Correct. The V7 Skylight has new settings.

2 I would still invite anyone to explain the G-buffer.

3 The Help/Cheetah 3D samples/Version7(Beta)/GlassAbsorption.jas example (attached)is a good example for the basic absorption and density properties. It’s a better glass, but I was hoping to do more. I have tried out the new dielectric material with Falcon, and wondered how it might be combined with other nodes to create more realistic smoke, laser beams, clouds, glows, etc. My initial trial-and-error attempts were unrewarding.

In the years since the new (2009) material system was introduced, advanced users’ contributions to the Decorated Pig thread have been invaluable in providing visual examples with attached downloadable c3dmat files. I have tried literally thousands of variations to understand how the various nodes work (especially the math ones). Many of the Decorated Pig materials are so massively complex, with many nodes and settings, that they elude my comprehension. I was hoping version 7 would include ready-to-use volumetric materials, but in their absence the new dielectric seems like it might be the basis of Falcon-rendered (quasi-? pseudo-?) volumetric materials. I would love to see what advanced users can devise.

No volumetrics yet.
Regarding Skylight. Background is the new Geometry property.

Cheers
Frank

It happens to the best of us

Two minutes. You're slowing down.

Joel said:

Two minutes. You're slowing down.

Click to expand...

Oh well - my days are numbered.

Cheers
Frank

G-buffers are essentially the next step beyond alpha channels, embedding extra information into a bitmap (the possibilities are pretty much limitless) and allowing a compositor to (for example) know how deep in a scene a given pixel is so that things can move in front of or behind it (or cast shadows on it).

If you're not using C3D for special effects work or making a short film using separately rendered segments (e.g. rendering a character and background separately to save time), you probably don't care.

About Ghosted and Blueprint

Hi,

Ghosted and Blueprint should work well together.
Except their behavior sound strange to me. Maybe I do it wrong ?

The Blueprint Opacity does not seems to include transparency ?
The Ghost effect is still too strong to view the Blueprint behind. An opacity slider for the Ghost effect would be great !

Thanks

I think you want to ghost the mesh, not the blue print.