A tip for those using Metaseq and Pepakura

[eric_son]

If you use Metaseq's Texture mapping function, you may be tempted to change the default texture path in Metaseq's system settings. Changing this will make it easier for you to browser for your texture files by making the file browser start at the default folder you've specified. If you don't do this, you'll always have to browse from the default folder of Metaseq....

Well...tempting... but DON'T DO THIS.

If you do this, you may lose a handful of hair trying to figure out why your textures won't appear in Pepakura.

If you change your default texture path to say..... C:\mystuff

And you assign a texture to your model, and the model is stored in C:\mystuff\plane\skin\a.png, meta will parse out C:\mystuff and just store the relative path namely, "plane\skin\a.png".

If you load this in Pepakura, you'll be shocked to find that your textures are gone! To correctly set your texture, you'll have to manually re-set the paths in Pepakura.

Anyway, long story short, I changed the default texture path to something else (actually brought it back to default). This is to prevent Metaseq from making that optimization.

Hope this helps other Metaseq and Pepakura users out there.

[legion]

I did make that mistake too...

[nothing]

never done that myself but good to know.

something else with pep and the reload 3d model feature. i use it a lot. but if you set it keep watch of the file it becomes unstable. doing a manual reload is the workaround.

[legion]

I tend to not use the undo unfold thing at all. Or the reload 3d model feature. Sometimes that option makes all edges unjoinable. That is why i make an untextured build first, to iron out things. It's a pain to remodel something though if you notice a big error...

Like forgetting to untick the Pack textures option when going from nurbs to mesh in Rhino (see attached image). Doing this will make texturing in Metaseq look like the left cube in the second image. The right cube is the one with the unpacked textures.

[eric_son]

Oh...one more thing on Pepakura + Metaseq.

Have you also lost some hair trying to figure out why Pepakura tells you that it discarded n-Objects even if you've already cleaned up your mesh of all overlapped faces and joined close vertices?
If so, then check your object list in metaseq again. If you've got an object declared, but that object has no defined faces, then Pepakura will discard that object. The same rule applies to objects without faces but has child objects defined. Pepakura will still discard the object (but will keep the child objects).

I usually organize my objects in a hierarchical structure:

Wings (no faces defined... just a place holder)
+- Left Wing
+- Right Wing
Gears (no faces defined... just a place holder)
+- Struts
+- Wheels

When you import the above into Pepakura, it will report that it has discarded 2 objects.