Aircraft shadows..............

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day all, I've got a problem with an aircraft shadow. At most viewing angles it's fine but at a certain angle the wing shadows break into slivers.See attached pic.Anyone any idea as to what might be causing this? I should point out that the problem only appears to be happening with the wing shadow. The rest of the aircraft is fine. I've redone the shadow acm several times but the problem won't go away.Cheers,Roger

[Guest danieletona]

Hi Roger,I believe that some polygons of the model Shadow are inverted.Dan

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Dan,OK ..?????????..... That explains the warning I get in the Fly! editor. It didn't appear to make any difference to the model texturing so in my ignorance I just carried on regardless :-)I'll go back into the *.scn model in Truespace and see what I can do about finding and fixing any inverted faces.Thank you for your help.Cheers,Roger

[Guest CaptainJ]

Hi roger,If this doesn't help you may also try to reduce the poly count on the shadow model ie. removing all interior stuff like seats etc. That's a trick I got from Vin Scimone. The shadow model needs to be very low poly otherwise these kind of things happens.Take care,btw nice looking Beaver! ;)

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Dan,hhmmm..... couldn't figure out how to tell which faces were inverted. Didn't matter that much because the invert face icon remains greyed out no matter how I tried selecting faces. Couldn't find anything in the help files re inverting faces. There is a button for inverting all faces of an OBJECT but I reasoned that this wouldn't be of help as there would still be inverted faces as this would make the wrong faces correct but also the good faces wrong. As a last resort I made a completely new wing just for the shadow model only but still the problem remains so I have doubts about the inverted faces being my problem UNLESS does the visible model have any effect on the shadow?? Jarno has suggested that maybe the shadow model is overloaded with too many polys, That could be a problem as my aircraft shadow models are much larger than the standard TRI ones. I'll give it a try and see if I can reduce the nubber of polys in the shadow model. Thanks for all your help. Hows the MD500 coming along?Cheers,Roger I

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Jarno,Great to see you still lurking the forum. How's maintaining the big jets treating you?? It's a totally different world to GA. :-)Thanks for replying. I have removed quite a few objects from the shadow model but it is still quite large. I'll experiment with the poly reduction tool in Truespace and see what that does. I did try building a completly new wing for the shadow model but that didn't help matters. The break up of the shadow only occurs over a viewing angle of about 10 degrees. Outside of that range the shadow behaves quite normally. It's just frustrating.I'll report back on how things work out.Cheers,Roger

[Guest danieletona]

Hi Roger,the model shadow doesn't interfere with the model "normal" and vice versa.For the model shadow only uses the external wrap.The image suggests (to my opinion) that there are some inverted polygons (faces). Can you select a polygon (face) only?>Hows the MD500 coming along?We are working to the panel. There is still so much job to do (also on the model 3D)Dan

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Dan, < The image suggests (to my opinion) that there are some inverted polygons (faces). >When I first read this in your original post I thought "of course, that's logical" and I thought all my problems were solved.However, after deleting the wings from the shadow model, and making a completely new set of wings, the problem still remains. It's just possible that Truespace may be the culprit here. The way I make wings is to make the left wing first, then copy the left wing and rename it right wing and finally mirror image the right wing. Some faces may get inverted during the "mirror process".BUT!! I've made two previous aircraft (Jabiru and Grumman) making wings the same way and haven't seen this problem arise before so I don't think there is a problem with Truespace.Sure - no sweat!but the invert face button doesn't work (greyed out - not active)and how can I tell which faces to invert? I can't figure out how to get the face normals to display on screen. This could be a limitation of Truespace but more likely a limitation of my feeble brain to 3d modelling.I've just been into Truespace and have found a way activating the flip face button. - leave it with me for a while. Before making an complete idiot of myself on the forum I'd like to have a bit more of a tinker with Truespace.I'll get back to you if I get stumped - so rest assured I'll be posting again soon :-lol Cheers,Roger

[Guest danieletona]

Ok Roger,I await your news. I hope very positive.Dan