CMP to SUR Conversion Tests

Thanks Gisteron!

BBalazs - Yep, Mavrodaphne - BlackDaphne. Yes it is very sweet, a great festival wine but not well-liked for table wine because it is heavy (strong).

In Cyprus we have a sweet sherry-type wine called Commandaria, which is also heavy and a great festival wine.

It is called that because it was first brewed by the invading Lusignans in their fortress, called the Commanderie - HeadQuarters.

Yes, you certainly write much text

Well, I don’t know what to say other than thank you And yes it is really hard to learn all this expressions. German has indeed more words you can use as English has and thus you often have to express yourself in an unusual way. I don’t speak French, though. Could offer some Latin, but that’s it

Back to the topic:
I am at the point where I can predict, how the tree is generated. I think I also have an idea, what the ms sur exporter does. I now have to find a way, how to implement the correct tree generation.

Concerning the triangle counterpart thing: Simply put, it is the triangle which face points in the opposite direction. That means, the order of the points is the opposite (in 3D graphics, clockwise or counterclockwise determines the orientation).

If I got it working correctly I will try to explain more.

[offtopic]
if it is about expression possiblities, the german is pretty liberal and open to rhetorics. nevertheless, the english has about three times the amount of words due to the history of the language. many of them are unused or used only in certain circumstances but even there we see, the english has massively more levels of speach than most european languages such as spanish, french and german. latin has a few words but therefore it has nearly unlimited possibilities in sentense constellation and depending on which words you use they can have absolutely different meanings and i mean here only what i read by Caesar, not the complicated stuff of Cicero, Catullus and Seneca.
[/offtopic]

hm, what about creating shapes with double sided faces, would that solve any concavity problems?

StarTrader wrote:
I have been waiting for this sur-tool since last year

Sorry, but I do not understand what are you waiting for, StarTrader?

As far as I know, the SUR Builder is “feature complete” now. It needs some cleanup in the user interface, and maybe some memory tuning, but those are the only things on my list.

If you want something else, then make it clear. Use screen shots instead of long and convoluted text posts. Leave out the nonsense that detracts from your message… a little humor is fine, but put the silly stuff into separate posts if you want people to be able to understand you.

Here is a tip that I learned many years ago from a professional editor:

Every word, that does not improve the clarity of your main message, detracts from it.

Where can I download the latest version of SUR Builder?

Forsaken wrote:
Where can I download the latest version of SUR Builder?

Page 17 of this thread

I will put the next version on the Forge so that it will be easier to find.

Thank you sir!

You are welcome, Forsaken.

I keep reading what I can find about SURs and I pick up little bits here and there, but I still find them to be half mysterious.

Also, there seem to be multiple schools of thought about what the builder should create.

If the SUR Builder needs more work (aside from the user interface) then my largest obstacle is in understanding exactly what might improve it. That is where I need help from those of you who use it.

If I could release the source then I would – this project could benefit from community review.

BW:

I thought you are working on resolving the problems with asymmetric sur generation with some models? e.g. the Klingon destroyer I posted earlier?

These are unusable surs, and we have seen them with several different symmetrical models, both small and large. I have rebuilt one of the models completely a couple of times but still get asymmetric surs for it - the ship has forward-swept wings, the left wing’s sur connects the left wing forward tip directly to the nose of the ship. The right wing’s sur is correct. So the ship looks like the Phantom of the Opera or Dracula from above, with its left wing holding a cape up to its nose!

So sur builder is not finished.

I will try to define that model’s problems more accurately for you and will post it up if I can find what in the model is causing the asymmetry in sur builder.

And yes I have been waiting for the darned thing since LS first revealed he was working on it, it is a very important utility for almost every FL modder.

I appreciate this is a spare-time project for anyone who takes it on.

But it’s many months of “just round the corner” for me and some others.

My verbal diarrhoea is a) to be explicit in describing my findings or queries, b) to clarify something for others, and c) to cover my frustrations with lack of progress and then with LS unexpectedly throwing in the bloody towel before the sur builder is finished.

I don’t think you would like my alternative-thoughts posts much.

So my digressions, are trying to keep some humour and at the same time indirectly egg you on to complete the darned thing without upsetting anyone too much.

If the builder’s problems will not be fixed, I am not criticising you for that, on the contrary I appreciate your abilities and your involvement and your efforts very much, and I fully understand that you may not know enough to fix the builder to where it is reliably producing good surs for more models.

• but I need to know so I don’t wait here any more for something that will not come, and I will go back to my old tedious frustrating manual methods.

At times like this I feel like that donkey, led along with a carrot on a string in front of his nose that is tied to a stick that is tied to the saddle on his back. No ROFL and no smiley for this one.

StarTrader wrote:

If the builder’s problems will not be fixed…

What problems?

I am not being facetious here… I really do not have any clearly defined problems to address (other than UI).

My understanding of the discussion that we had about the builder occasionally creating bad SURs was that the models were flawed.

If the SUR Builder handles the majority of models correctly, and only one or two need to be done by another method, then that is a good track record for an automatic tool, don’t you think?

If I do not understand correctly, then explain it to me again. Use screen shots, sketches, and/or listings, as appropriate. I will do my best to help you, but you need to explain what you want, in a way that I can understand.

Damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!

(or something like that)

StarTrader wrote:

I have rebuilt one of the models completely a couple of times but still get asymmetric surs for it - the ship has forward-swept wings, the left wing’s sur connects the left wing forward tip directly to the nose of the ship. The right wing’s sur is correct.

So the ship looks like the Phantom of the Opera or Dracula from above, with its left wing holding a cape up to its nose!

I will try to define that model’s problems more accurately for you and will post it up if I can find what in the model is causing the asymmetry in sur builder.

OK? Couple of days.

Well if it’s just that I would be interested in the code snippet that creates the tree of the Bitsection, so that I can compare it with my approach. Would that be possible?

StarTrader wrote:
Couple of days.

OK, Cool.

The goal of the SUR Builder is to quickly create decent SURs for most of your models. If you have an oddball model that requires a hand-crafted SUR, then that is outside the scope of the Builder. Why hold up development of your mod just for one model?

All other reports are either that the Builder works as expected, or the model was bad to begin with.

My understanding is that there are at least three other workable techniques:

• Resize vanilla SUR
• SUR-splice
• Hand-made SUR in a modeling program

If there is more to it, then teach me.

Oi!

Hold on a mo LS, stop running away - the sur builder is connecting vertices of two entirely separate cmp groups!!

That’s what is causing this problem on several of my models, not only one or two, and large and small ships alike. I am trying to investigate if it can be prevented by regrouping the model.

I have focussed on one model and completely regrouped the ship twice, and it still fails, producing the “Phantom of the Opera” sur! The left wing and nose are in separate cmp groups and sur builder is still connecting them. It should not do so, am I right?

I will post the model once I know it is not a model problem.

• I ain’t harassing, just want to get the builder to be better. As I said I appreciate BW’s work, I always do of anyone who puts so much effort into a spare-time no-earner project.

• No I don’t want your source code, but others who want to develop new releases or sur utilities or exporters will, or they will be starting from scratch every time, am I right?

And you will agree that the sur builder is the most problematic to create, so far? No-one has helped anyone else in this until now, hence we have 2 sur export plugins that don’t work reliably, and sur builder may be easily improvable once we define the problem better…

At least I am trying, and it’s not only for my own benefit.

I could give up, but it’s in everyone’s interest if I can find the cause - if it’s a group naming problem, then it could be an easy fix in the builder. If it’s the way the groups are structured, it will be good for everyone to know so they can fix their models.

So don’t get on my case so darned fast! Walking away is easy, don’t tempt me more.

Eeee-bloody-yaw!

It’s OK, no probs.

Just hang around a bit to help if needed bud.

I hope to find a way to regroup or rename the cmp groups that helps sur builder to make a good sur for the same ship, If I’m not successful then I’ll pass the model to BW, so you guys can try to find it. I’ve done the obvious - fuselage, left wing, right wing, fin - but as I said the sur is the same, bridging the left wing to the fuselage nose.

I’ll try to get the diagnosis completed asap.

Thanks.

If it’s reading a vertice from another component then it sounds like that vertice has been welded wrong, either in MS3D or by the CMP exporter.

has anyone tried out yet, how it behaves with duplicated model parts via the cons nodes?

Hi guys, here’s the diagnosis and findings…

I do have a problem with the sur built by the sur builder for the Goran, my test ship that had the “Phantom of the Opera” look.

It’s not making all of the sur parts for all of the Goran’s cmp groups, just as with Bbalazs’ terrain model.

The initial problem that I had was most likely due to some unwelded vertices and open cmp groups that I found on the ship model.

That is not happening now, I fixed those by removing all unnecessary model parts and regrouping until I have only 6 distinct and simple, welded cmp groups:- hull, left wing, left wing tip, right wing, right wing tip, and fin.

Then I ran sur builder and there are two problems in the generated sur file (I tried altering the Sort selections and Duplicate radius values and remaking the sur but the problem remains)…

1. The “right wing tip” sur part is missing entirely.
2. On the fin sur part, the front vertex at the base of the fin is missed, so the sur sweeps back to the next 2 vertces and the front part of the base of the “real” fin is exposed.

I attach a zip file with the ship model .cmp, the generated sur, and the ms3d model with both the ship groups and the imported sur parts using adoxa’s sur importer, and the sur importer log too.

Look closely at the fin with the fin sur part selected and you will see the problem with that.

Hope this helps to find the cause of these problems.

Thanks guys.