Struggling against Metasequoia...

[paperPino]

Hi everybody!
I'm struggling against the abnormal use of RAM (6 Gb) when material files are insert on Meta. Files are tiff (B/W, 1 bit, compressed or not), jpeg, and so on, no matter which kind they are. They are small (1-3 Mb, often less than 1 Mb). In addition, Meta is not able to visualize them on the 3d model, and file after file, after few files, RAM is almost completely full and Meta chashes. This happens both with Meta v.3 and v.4, in my home computer (windows 7, 64 bit) as well as in my office computer (windows XP).
I am now working on a new celestial globe model, so the geometry is very simple, like the other globes I designed in the past without problems.
I'm confused...

Thanks a lot for your help.

PINO

[Vermin_King]

I wish I could help, but software is generally beyond me

[codex34]

Are you running in software,directx, or opengl mode?
(near bottom of left toolbar)
How big are the images?
To me a 1 bit tif 3mb in size will be huge. 1024x1024 1 bit textures are 128kb
Metasequoia can change the default max texture size in the config toolbox for both opengl and directx - to a maximum of 4096x4096.
Might be good to turn off texture smoothing while your at it.
Metasequoia will use software for anything bigger, hence the memory drain.
Might also check your graphics card for antialiasing, big textures and antialiasing don't go well together.

One or more textures?
The only time metasequoia gives me problems with textures is when I convert files with lots of materials all with big textures (3000x3000), so I always try to merge as many materials as I can get away with.
Thing is if your using standard pepakura, you can only use 1024x1024 size textures anyway.

If you get no luck trying any of that, upload and pm me a sample file if you can.
(betting it's just your texture size though)

[eric_son]

Meta4 has a maximum texture size of 4096x4096. If you use anything bigger, Meta will compress the image, often producing bad results. Worse, if the image used is large enough, it sometimes causes Meta to behave the way you described it --- the image won't show up on the edit/display panel.
I happened to me a lot when I was using 8192x8192 textures. When I bumped down the textures to 4096x4096, everything went smooth.

I'm running Win8.1 x64 with 8GB ram.

RE: Pepakura
Codex34 is right about that. That's a really nasty limitation on standard pepakura. AND if you use anything bigger, Pepakura will resize your texture using the WORST possible algorithms. This almost always produces rough images.

[paperPino]

Thanks!
Concerning Pepakura, I have the high res. version. The problem with pepakura is that, with high-res texture it generates huge files and often it crashes. Pepakura staff told me that the only solution in this case is to divide the model into smaller parts (...).

Anyhow, I will follow your suggestions: I will reduce the files size (at present they are about 6000x4000, with 400 dpi). I have to check the final results because my prints should be rather large and I need good resolution.

Maybe the number of files (50) I have to map on the 3d model in order to have a complete virtual model is too huge for meta...
Can you suggest other 3d softwares (free or cheap) able to manage everything?

PINO

[paperPino]

W"hat about Anim8or ???

[eric_son]

paperPino;447044]
Anyhow, I will follow your suggestions: I will reduce the files size (at present they are about 6000x4000, with 400 dpi). I have to check the final results because my prints should be rather large and I need good resolution.
PINO[/QUOTE]

While you're working with Meta, you can restrict your texture to 4096x4096. Then, before you load it into Pepakura, shutdown Meta and replace the texture file with something bigger. (i.e. replace the bitmap file with a different bitmap file with larger dimension, but same filename)

Originally Posted by paperPino

Thanks!
Concerning Pepakura, I have the high res. version. The problem with pepakura is that, with high-res texture it generates huge files and often it crashes. Pepakura staff told me that the only solution in this case is to divide the model into smaller parts (...).

Since I don't have the hi-res plugin, I have to make do with having multiple 1024x1024 texture files. This makes it very difficult for me to align edges of the textures across multiple files. Plus as you have mentioned, the texture quality goes down as the size/scale of your model goes up.

What I'm doing right now is I stopped using Pepakura to produce the printouts. I just use Pepakura to unfold and generate the UV Info.
I then draw the textures on the unfolded parts, and use that one as a texture map for Meta. Then I use Meta to check how the texture looks like on the model. When satisfied, I resize the texture drawings to the desired scale, then print and build.

[codex34]

I guess the maximum texture size limit in meta 4 has been overlooked, it uses directx11 so theorectically it's hardware limited.

50!!!!! at 6000x4000!!!!
Most expensive sofware will struggle as well if your hardware isn't capable.

In order to create such a detailed model I would use 3 sets of textures, 600x400, 3000x2000, and the original 6000x4000.
The UV coordinates do not change if you resize the image, so all you want really is a model with accurate UV coordinates.
1) map the sphere with 50 600x400 textures to near enough positions.
2) change 9 of the texures to 3000x2000 in order to place the center texture more accurately.
3) swap between the low and medium textures until the model is finished.
4)save the final version with 600x400 textures.

You can swap the textures within pepakura for the larger ones.
If pepakura doesn't like changing all the textures at once, you could only use the 6000x4000 textures for each section and either edit them into one giant image or use them as single sections.

Your final output might be 1 pixel out because your UV mapping was made using 3000x2000 images, doubt you will notice.

Hope that helps.
Lovely model btw, well worth the effort and hassle to make.

[paperPino]

Thanks to everybody for your fundamental suggestions...
At the end (hopefully) of the story, meta is now working with original .tif texture files converted to .png at 50%, setting the max res. of meta at 2048. Sometimes some texture disappear... but it is suffient to save, quit, and re-open meta and everything goes well.
It would be better to work with full resolution, but that's it...
For the rendering, I will use an external renderer (I suppose that there are some free or cheap in the web...).
For pepakura, I will substitute the low-res file with original hi-res ones till the software can support them. I will subdivide the unfolded model into many files...

Ciao,
PINO

[codex34]

Managed to recreate your problems quite well, using 1gb mem.
The max texture resolution isn't what you might think it is, it is the max resolution for the display, not for the texture itself.
The way it seems to work is to resize larger textures to this setting, like eric_son said, but with lots of textures, it simply runs out of display memory, which is why the textures disappear.
The problem becomes worse when you add and delete textures, the display memory seems to get screwed up, metasequoia must be trying to recalculate everything.

If you set the maximum texture size to 64 even a 20,000x20,000 will get displayed, but as a 64x64 texture. The accuracy of placing the UV coords will be very poor.

Setting the max texture to 2048 will reduce accuracy but might be good enough for what you want.
I'd set it to 4096 and do it in parts with the 50% size textures.

You could try blender - ugh!