Bug report : Cones/Cylinders and light smoothing
by Gareth Fouche · in Constructor · 04/16/2007 (2:40 am) · 1 replies
Hi.
Curvy things have been giving me hassles this weekend. I have tried to make a tower with a conical roof, but it is proving difficult. (All tested with clean 1.5.1 build)
First, the cone tool seems to create missing brushes sometimes, if you create one with a highish (>12) number of sides. It also seems dependant on the height, in this screenshot, I created a cone with 14 sides, it was fine until I stretched it upward, then some of the sides dissapeared. You can see this happening dynamically, while in the preconstruct stage of your brush, by dragging around the height, before hitting 'make'.
Second, the cone tool gives me hassles when I try to CSV subtract something from it. I'm making a tower. So I create the brush, then hollow it, it seems fine, although the brushes it creates are thin triangular things, I don't know if that makes a difference. Anyway, I need a door into my tower, right? So I subtract a cube from the tower (the cube spans a few of the sides). Now I get wonky missing faces, kinda like the cone (sorry, I forgot to take a screenshot, I can if it would help?). I'm not sure this issue isn't just because my cylinder has many sides (around 16), but I want it to look smooth, so....
The third issue is with the new smoothing. I'm getting some wierd shadow artifacts. I created a bunch of cylinders to test, of various sizes and side counts, even the ones with only a few sides (8) had this issue :
Notice the wierd block of dark shadow on both cylinders?
Finally, smooth shading seems to only sorta work for me. Here are two pictures, showing a cylinder from 2 sides. On the one side, smooth shading, on the other, ugly facets (the cylinder in question is the one being shadowed by the one in front of it) :
Any ideas? I have played with settings, they change the shadows a bit, but nothing really seems to help the issues I'm talking about, especially since I don't know what the settings mean, and whether making them higher is better or worse. (Light_smoothing_scale does what?)
Thanks,
Gareth
Curvy things have been giving me hassles this weekend. I have tried to make a tower with a conical roof, but it is proving difficult. (All tested with clean 1.5.1 build)
First, the cone tool seems to create missing brushes sometimes, if you create one with a highish (>12) number of sides. It also seems dependant on the height, in this screenshot, I created a cone with 14 sides, it was fine until I stretched it upward, then some of the sides dissapeared. You can see this happening dynamically, while in the preconstruct stage of your brush, by dragging around the height, before hitting 'make'.
Second, the cone tool gives me hassles when I try to CSV subtract something from it. I'm making a tower. So I create the brush, then hollow it, it seems fine, although the brushes it creates are thin triangular things, I don't know if that makes a difference. Anyway, I need a door into my tower, right? So I subtract a cube from the tower (the cube spans a few of the sides). Now I get wonky missing faces, kinda like the cone (sorry, I forgot to take a screenshot, I can if it would help?). I'm not sure this issue isn't just because my cylinder has many sides (around 16), but I want it to look smooth, so....
The third issue is with the new smoothing. I'm getting some wierd shadow artifacts. I created a bunch of cylinders to test, of various sizes and side counts, even the ones with only a few sides (8) had this issue :
Notice the wierd block of dark shadow on both cylinders?
Finally, smooth shading seems to only sorta work for me. Here are two pictures, showing a cylinder from 2 sides. On the one side, smooth shading, on the other, ugly facets (the cylinder in question is the one being shadowed by the one in front of it) :
Any ideas? I have played with settings, they change the shadows a bit, but nothing really seems to help the issues I'm talking about, especially since I don't know what the settings mean, and whether making them higher is better or worse. (Light_smoothing_scale does what?)
Thanks,
Gareth
Torque Owner Peter Vieira
NOTE. I also found that if you use a cone with 8 sides or less and when you translate the single top vert,up. It tends give me a face error (face turns red).?. Which leads to missing faces.
I never use the subtract tool (my personal opinion). It tends to create undesired edges. If I was going to create a door inside a cylinder. I would create a door brush for measurement and use the knife or slice tool on the cylinder. I just do it that way so I have conrtol over where my edges are placed.
I have nothing to add to this issue. I haven't played around with smoothing, yet. Maybe someone has an answer for this problem.
I hope this helps you out.
NOTE. Just keep in mind. This is my personal opinion on these problems, someone out there my disagree my techniques.