Nice ending, well done

If you zoom out far enough to see the whole island and filter out all but the garages, the ones that you have not yet visited will be slightly opaque/lighter.

Which car are you trying to import? Do you want me to PM you the .blend file?

Quote from Hyperactive :

Would someone teach me how to use I-deas? If there was a program I have ever hated as much as I-deas... I thought Catia was quite easy to learn. Compared to I-deas Catias was self-explanatory, like comparing notepad versus installing linux 10 years ago... (mumble)

I use I-Deas too Yes its not quite as easy to use, but that's only the interface. EDS I-Deas (formerly SDRC I-Deas) will not be worth learning in its current form, as it has been merged into Unigraphics and has been re-branded as I-Deas 'NX' and looks a whole lot more easier to use.

Come on....what's there not to love about this interface
(pair of Jag XK8 seats shown)

edit:

Quote from tristancliffe :

Don't bother with Ideas unless your job/company specifically wants you to know it - it's not widely used enough (as far as I can tell) to bother with...

Ford are still using I-deas and now that it's been merged with Unigraphics it's worthwhile learning even if its just to learn your way around the interface.

Last edited by robps, Wed 14 Mar 2007, 12:57.

He was my course tutor small world sometimes

http://www.deviantart.com/devi ... sigma%3A24h+age_scale%3A5

Not for a few years, but yes I did go to Cov Uni until 2003. I studied Engineering CAD(HND) and Engineering Design(BSc) - Is Ian Dunn still a lecturer there?

Nothing wrong with CATIA (Unless its V4). CATIA V5 even with the most basic of modules can export out to *.stl files which I know Blender can import so I assume 3D Studio can as well.

I use CATIA V5 on a daily basis

Did you read the Warning text?

Quote from Bogey Jammer :

WARNINGS:

• This tutorial was written under 2.42a version of Blender, .obj importation within Blender 2.43 crashes, so the current best solution to import .obj file is to keep a 2.42a Blender installation for importing .obj files. 2.42a and 2.43 installed on the same computer work fine, there's no conflict if they don't share the same directories. I'll will adapt the 2.42a obj importation script to be usable with 2.43. Of course an ultimate solution consist to write only one script which import cmx files directly into Blender and use its interface...

It sounds like you're using Blender 2.43.

Quote from hyphy_racer :

Hey i got the script to export the .blend as xml. but how do i load it in the renderer i tried to edit the ini file thing cant rember the whole name but all i got was a cream colored blank

You might be better off making sure that you have downloaded http://www2.indigorenderer.com ... orum/viewtopic.php?t=1269 (Indigo 0.7 test 5) along with http://www2.indigorenderer.com ... orum/viewtopic.php?t=1302 - a better exporter script that will run indigo for you. With this script you edit the material inside the exporter window, you need to give each material a name in blender.

Loads of things wrong with it, but I only realised when I had left it rendering for 8 hours over night, oh well - nothing a bit of soft focusing can't hide

Rendered using MLT in Kerkythea (Kerkythea.net) via Blender.

Well you can install blender 2.42 into a separate folder - as long as you tell it to use the install folder for the script location, you can import using 2.42, save the imported obj as a .blend and load it up in 2.43.

I was using 2.42 when I imported the obj files. I've since installed 2.43 where I get the same errors as you do.

You can still get 2.42 from here.
http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.42/

For the most part, no. But, it gives you control on what parts of the mesh are defined as edges and which part can be smoothed - also, its easier to fix specific areas where blender's 'set smooth' causes rendering issues, such as the area between the rear lights and rear wheel arch on the FXR.

IOR was being messed up with or without double vertexes being removed.

When I extruded the faces of the glass mesh, to give the glass some thickness, blender was set to smooth everything. When Indigo rendered the glass with all of its smoothing turned on it looks like it messes up (looks like http://www.robrps.ukshells.co.uk/im1172137139.png)

What I needed to do was to tell blender that the certain edges need to be sharp. Like you've mentioned, crease only works with SubSurf objects and not meshes. With meshes you can add the EdgeSplit modifier which from what I can tell acts a bit like the 'auto smooth' button, but the auto smooth does not get exported out to Indigo.

Does that make any sense? A lot of this is down to me not understanding how blender works.

This is my render 1hr in, with double vertexs remove on everything, and EgdeSplit used on everything
http://www.robrps.ukshells.co.uk/im1172160511.png

Last edited by robps, Thu 22 Feb 2007, 17:18. Reason : added current render

Thanks, but adding a crease wasn't working. It would partly work if I add the crease (value +1.0) and then extruded the mesh - but only on the original faces, the extruded faces were still smoothed and the appeared to be un-creasable . Probably a newbie error though.

I did find another solution though. I extruded the glass meshes as before, checked the normals were pointing outwards, and then (with the glass object selected) went into the 'Modifiers' panel (F9 - editing) and added the 'EdgeSplit' modifier. Now they render with correct IOR. Just need to sort out the lighting now...

This is what it was looking like
http://www.robrps.ukshells.co.uk/im1172137139.png
and now it looks like
http://www.robrps.ukshells.co.uk/im1172147551.png
http://www.robrps.ukshells.co.uk/im1172148507.png
(only quick indigo renders)

Since I've removed them already, do you happen to know how to get the hard edges back?

This is mine currently, having a horrible time getting the glass to look right (so in this shot I tried increasing the number of polys on some of the glass and turned off smoothing).

Using Indigo 0.7 beta 5, probably shouldn't have used an environment map, but never mind

Select all, press 'W' key and then 'Remove Doubles'?

Also, there is quite a nice rendering engine call Indigo, which works very well with Blender. http://www.indigorenderer.com/
Look in the forums for test versions of the blender scripts.

Great stuff, bookmarked for future reference.

I don't know what to suggest. I'm running Vista with AMD X2 3800 with 2Gb Ram and a single ATI X1950 XT. I run x4 AA and x8 AF and on AS3 with 20 drivers it only dips below 60 when I'm at the back of the grid, most of the race its above 90fps (140fps max with no visible cars)

Aero will automatically disable the window/taskbar transparency when run in fullscreen. I also don't run the sidebar. A few weeks ago I was running 2 Nvidia 7600GS in SLi but when I switch to Vista there was no driver support to run SLi but even then I was getting higher fps than you (40 at back of grid)

The only problem gaming in Vista so far has been a few indie games that refuse to run.

Quote from TiJay :

I have Sunrise Extreme and Nations. Both are very good fun, so I'll be picking up TM United when it comes out over here

Buy it online?
http://tmu.gamesplanet.com/cam ... aire=9&jeu=Trackmania

Quote from Quint999 :

...
Is it ok that although I’ve paid my £24 the same as everyone else, yet now your I’m obliged to spend countless hours battling for points in cars I don’t want to drive at the mercy of your rules, admins, personal grudges just so I can get back to i.e. GTRS.
...

If you take SamH's above example of daisychaining Birder's servers, then you would be able to drive GTRs on the [CD] servers.

Looks Like CATIA V5 to me