Computer Power required

[Berzerker]

I recently made a 3D drawing of an object from and old drawing idea I had and I normally use my laptop for comfort. After making the solid I went to subtracting the areas to make it like I wanted, "NEEDLESS" to say  that my laptop was not up to par to finish subtracting  and render the object. The more I subtracted the slower the time between selecting and removing became. So as anyone one would think "let's move the drawing to a better computer" I loaded it onto my Alienware and still it wouldn't load the drawing. The little wait symbol just kept spinning round and round. I'm guessing there are too many faces to load as these are knurls on a roller. Not saying my Alienware wasn't set up to do gaming cause it will but I was smart enough to make sure it had the power to run programs as well when I ordered it.

It's an i7 quad core 4820k, 16GB of ram and a Nvidia Geforce 680 w/4GB memory so I assume there's enough power there and if this isn't I'm stumped.

Is there something I can do to get AutoCad to load the drawing a setting or something. This is only one of these (?) there are 18 in the machine!

[Cad64]

Can you provide the drawing for us to look at? Your computer sounds a lot like mine, similar specs.

 

Typically, when I build 3D models, I only create what's necessary. For something like knurls on a roller, I wouldn't physically model the knurl. I would create a smooth cylinder and then apply a knurled texture with a bump map to give the illusion of depth. Unless you absolutely need the actual knurls on the rollers, I wouldn't bother with modeling them.

[Berzerker]

Now that's something I haven't looked into or ever done (Bump map).  In my old age software learning addiction I have been studying Unreal engine on the side and  -------> kinda<------ know what you mean. In that program you can give the illusion of a texture that isn't really physically there same thing right? I just wanted to see what it looked like in the drawing with the hard chrome material applied but couldn't get to it just being in the drawing, much less 18 of them.

It will not allow me to upload the drawing. It says it's too big and I believe there are only two objects in the drawing.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Berzerker

[Berzerker]

I also noticed in my looking up on this there are a lot of programs for this, which ones are good for bump map learning and free. I've already installed blender but haven't got around to using it or know if it will do bump mapping (?) I downloaded blender because of unreal engine.

[Cad64]

27 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

In my old age software learning addiction I have been studying Unreal engine on the side and  -------> kinda<------ know what you mean. In that program you can give the illusion of a texture that isn't really physically there same thing right?

 

Yes, same thing except in Unreal you would use a Normal map which provides a better result than simple bump maps. Autocad doesn't allow you to use Normal maps though, so you have to use Bump maps.

 

If the Autocad file size is too large with only two objects in the drawing then I would say the knurl is definitely a problem.

[Cad64]

1 minute ago, Berzerker said:

I also noticed in my looking up on this there are a lot of programs for this, which ones are good for bump map learning and free. I've already installed blender but haven't got around to using it or know if it will do bump mapping (?) I downloaded blender because of unreal engine.

 

Blender is the best free option, in terms of 3D modeling programs. I don't use it, but I have played around with it and it's pretty impressive. For a free program, it can do most if not all the things you can do in programs that cost thousands of dollars.

[Berzerker]

Thanks Cad64. I wish I could afford Maya so I could get what use to be called Stingray "I believe". AutoDesk bought the rights to Stingray and incorporated into Maya is how I think it went. I know GTA5 was made with AutoCad's software and if you've ever played it the visual effects are awesome.

Can't even find an old version of Stingray.

 

[Cad64]

Yes, 3D Studio Max and Maya are extremely expensive, much like all Autodesk software. I used Studio Max for a long time at work before moving to a program called Modo, which is a wonderful modeling program. It was pretty cheap when I bought it almost 10 years ago. I got it on sale for about $750. Now it costs about $1,900. Still a lot less than Autodesk's programs, but not cheap.

 

I've never used Maya, but from what I've heard, it has the steepest learning curve of any 3D program. I know that Maya is used a lot in the gaming industry and Studio Max is used a lot in the Arch-Vis industry, which is why I used it. I don't know anything about Stingray.

[Cad64]

2 hours ago, Berzerker said:

It will not allow me to upload the drawing. It says it's too big and I believe there are only two objects in the drawing.

 

If the file is too big to upload here, you could put it on Dropbox and post a link to the file. I might not be able to open it either, since my system is very similar to yours, but someone else might be able to take a look and see if there's something wrong with the file or if it's just the knurls that are causing the issue.

[Berzerker]

I'm finding it hard to find a good tutorial on bump maps. First one I could hardly hear the guy, second one he says: I'm not going to get into all of what you need to click, third one was one of those that want to play loud music with no explanations just texts that only appears for a few seconds and none of them talk about depth. I did learn it's all about grayscale and white is indented and black is raised. None of them start for scratch, they all add a bump map they made in advance.

The ones I hate the most are the ones with only music playing loudly in my ears.

[Cad64]

Yeah, a lot of what you find on Youtube is garbage, and those tutorials where they play loud music are really annoying. The grayscale is actually the opposite of what you said though. Black recedes and White protrudes. In the image below you can see how the pyramids would rise up from the black.

 

Here's a pretty good tutorial for making bump maps in Photoshop.

https://www.rendernode.com/creating-bump-maps-in-photoshop/

[Berzerker]

WOW! Cad64 that's almost what I would need except it would be in a straight line pattern like this.

They're .281 square and .125 tall (Roughly) and a 1/32 flat on the top.

[Cad64]

3 minutes ago, Berzerker said:

WOW! Cad64 that's almost what I would need except it would be in a straight line pattern like this.

They're .281 square and .125 tall (Roughly) and a 1/32 flat on the top.

 

I just did a quick internet image search and found that one. Type "knurl pattern bump map" into your favorite search engine and check the image results.

 

[Berzerker]

I can't upload to dropbox my internet upload speed is too slow. Why I didn't  just type that in I have no idea I just went to learning automatically (?) But if I'm going to continue to pursue UE I might need to know so I can create my own if I need to anyways. From what I could tell it looked pretty interesting.

I was still searching while typing this and found a tutorial on bump maps and creating them in UE. I can kill two birds with one stone.

 

Thanks Cad64

[Berzerker]

Cad64 once said you couldn't mess up Drawing1. My reply was "If it can be broke, I'll break it".

Opened a new Drawing, renamed it and made two layers, One for one line weight and another for another. Upon going to name my second layer I noticed there is no Defpoints just Layer0. When I changed the line weight on the second layer it changed every line in the drawing to that line weight no matter what layer it was on (?). Now not only that I went to my Drawings file folder and found this:

 

My Bylayer selection in line weight drop down is also grayed out. I can not select it.

 

I think I got it straightened out.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Berzerker

[Cad64]

The Defpoints layer won't exist until you add some dimensions to your drawing. When you first open a blank drawing, the only existing layer will be layer 0. So that's not a problem.

 

I don't use lineweights, so I'm not sure what's happening with that?

[Berzerker]

I'm trying to make a bump map from scratch but as I said not to many tutorials out there that start from scratch. The video you posted did explain some of what I needed but he started with a picture of wood. Maybe I'm putting to much into this? I'm so use to having snap and ortho I can't function in PaintShop with out it so I can't make one there. Maybe I shouldn't care so much but I want the knurls exactly .281 base X .125 high with that 1/32" flat on the top. I found a square knurl pattern like you posted going in the right direction so now I'm reading up on how to apply it to an object in a drawing. If I make it I don't know if I need to make just one knurl and that's enough to do the job or not? Most tutorials I see have a row of them. The AutoCad tutorials say you apply the bump map when your making the material but I haven't got around to depth and size. The drawing I posted of the knurls would be great if I could only figure where it knows depth or if that matters.

[Cad64]

A bump map is just a fake representation of depth. It's basically a black & white version of your color texture that the program uses to trick your eye into thinking there is detail where there isn't any. The bump map doesn't generate height, like a displacement map, so worrying about the .125 height isn't worth your time because there won't be any height. I also wouldn't worry about trying to get that exact .281 base width either. Just apply the bump map to your model and then adjust the scaling until it looks somewhat correct.

 

Here's that map I posted yesterday. I took it into Photoshop, rotated it and cropped it so it will tile correctly. Maybe you can use it, maybe not?

[Berzerker]

Thanks Cad64.

[ammobake]

I've done this in autocad for architectural wall panels one time.  The client wanted picture panoramas of alaska scenes on some of the 36x24 panels kind of like mosaics in the main entry of a welcome center on a military base..  I was able to make it work in Autocad and have done similar things in solidworks with wood textures for specific assembly parts.

It made for some pretty neato renderings. 

 

I did cheat a little bit though to make it pretty.

 

I was once told that the difference between a science and an art is how good you are at hiding your mistakes.  In the case of Autocad that sometimes means whatever is the easiest path to achieve a desired outcome.

 

-ChriS