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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
You set the floor thickness on the level. Double click the level tab and you can set the floor thickness. If you don't see a level tab or can't set the floor thickness just add a level and set its elevation to a negative value. Now you can double click the level where your floor is and set the floor thickness. Export/import only your floor object. Now it has a thickness you can adjust to your 6".
I'm sorry. I'm really trying, but I'm getting more confused. If I needed to modify this floor (light) at the beginning, does that mean I should go back and delete the obj. and mtl. files that I modified for the one that ended up being only 2 dimensional and just start building the light from scratch, entirely separately from the brace, and then when I'm done creating both, separate objects, I just insert the light into the brace in the final stage after importing them into my Sweet Home 3d room I'm building?
Tell me if this is correct, please?
1. I create the brace out of walls. I create the floor that will become the light.
2.I export each separately as obj. files.
3. I text edit the floor (light) obj. and mtl. files.
4. I import the floor (light) obj. file into the Furniture Library editor & modify the light source.
5. I export the floor (light) file as a piece of finished furniture.
6. I import the brace into Sweet Home 3d as furniture.
7. I bring each piece (The floor (light), and the brace into the room that I'm working on.
8. I insert the floor (light) into the hole in the brace.
I'm finished, and they remain two separate pieces of furniture, just one is placed inside the other? They aren't actually merged at any point in the construction?
When I click on the floor, I right click to 'add level'. When I do this, the floor disappears and I can't see or grab it anymore. It's just gone like I deleted it. If I right click, 'add level at same elevation', It remains visible at least, but double clicking still doesn't give me any dimensions to modify. There's nowhere I can see that allows me to insert any value for floor thickness. There are no tabs visible anywhere. There is nowhere to set the elevation of the floor.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
Yes, you will have to recreate your light. Assuming you still have your original walls that is easy, even the existing floor will get a thickness when you set it in the level properties. You can export it again.
Your floor 'disappears' because you are on a different level. Look at the tabs, the one highlighted is your current tab. If you click the correct tab you will see your floor, is has not disappeared. With a set floor thickness you can export it again and perform the same edits as before. Import it and insert it into your brace. Export the brace with the panels and import it in your Furniture Library. That is when you set the lightSourceMaterialName. To make it clear: the lightSourceMaterialName is a property that is only available through the Furniture Library. If you add only the panels to your Library you can use them as lights but not add them to the brace and expect an export to still have the panels as lights. The obj/mtl files have no place to hold the lightSourceMaterialName so it is lost. In other words: add the lightSourceMaterialName value when you have the complete brace with panels in your Library.
So: create the panels (the floor) with a thickness, export, edit the material name, import, place it in the brace. Export both brace and panels together. Import the resulting object in a library where you set the lightSourceMaterialName. Import the library and you have a brace with light panels in your catalog.
Technical explanation: When you drag an object from the catalog into your 2D pane the program knows when that object is part of a library and has the extra properties as set in the library, properties that are not available in an obj file. Once you export such an object it goes outside the program resulting in a normal obj file and has lost any extra properties that came from the library.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
...I cannot believe the fight this piece is putting up to be created.
Ok, I finally see the level tabs you were talking about. I haven't really seen any traditional tabs in this program so far like other ones, so I didn't know where to looked for it and missed it.
I got level 0 to be visible by getting on that tab, but I'm totally locked out of the floor thickness option and I have no idea why? I don't know why it's at 4 3/4" or why the elevation is at 5 3/4". The brace and the light are supposed to be 6" thick...or deep. It gets confusing because when they're finally in position, they're meant to be standing upright.
Also, do you see the three pieces in the far uper left? Three different brace files. These have been accumulating with each of my failed efforts and it makes things more and more confusing. How do I delete them entirely? I figure you'd say to delete the libraries for each, but I'm having a hard time finding them.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
You're struggling with several basic concepts of Sweet Home 3D because you are trying to create a piece of furniture with several advanced aspects before you went through the more sedate process of learning Sweet Home 3D. No problem, kudos for what you already have achieved!
Concerning the levels you should read the manual available at the manual page on Dodecagon.nl. That explains what levels do and how they are related to heights and floor thicknesses. The initial dimensions you get for a new level come from values in your preferences. Check them and you will recognize the values as they appear when you add a level. You can change those initial values by double clicking the level tabs to get to the Modify level dialog.
For your situation start with renaming your Level 0 where I assume you have your walls and room to "Brace". Rename your level 1 to level -1. Change that level with an elevation -100 and height 94. The actual numbers don't matter in this case, they are just to create space for the floor on your Brace level. If you read the levels manual you will remember "A floor extends downward below the set elevation", i.e. it "sinks" into the level below. (If you were to export the walls again the resulting object will be 6" higher because walls too sink into the lower level. The extra 6" are added to the bottom of the walls so the top of the walls remain where they are.) Double click your Brace level and set the elevation to 0 if it's not already 0. Because of the -1 level you should be able to set the floor thickness to 6".
Assuming you already have the brace itself we will recreate the light panels. Export the room. (With a floor thickness set to 6" it should produce an object 6" thick.) Edit the obj file to set the material name 'light' like you did before. Import the object. It should be as thick as the floor thickness: 6". If not you can still change the thickness to 6". Place the panel in the brace and export both brace and panel together. Import and rotate/tilt/resize/set colors and export the finished brace-with-panel.
Using the Furniture Library Editor open the library with the old brace and delete the existing brace. Import the new brace. Still in the Library Editor double click the new brace to get the object properties. Set the following properties: Name: Brace (This is the name you will see in the catalog pane) Description: Your Library Name (The Description is shown in the catalog tooltip when you hover over an object in the list, this helps to show in which library your object resides) Keywords: Brace Panel Light (these are keywords you can use in the search box of the catalog) Creator: YourCreatorName (The creator name will show in the tooltip like "created by YourCreatorName"). License: add a license if you want but you can leave it empty. Category: you can choose one of the existing categories but you can also type a new category name. This is useful if you create a library with multiple objects that belong together and you want them to show in a special category. If you have imported my Shapes library you will see that a new category "Shapes" is added to the category list. This is how I created it. Adjust the size with the buttons if necessary. Elevation: you can optionally set a default elevation. Of course it can always be changed in your Sweet Home 3D project. In the list set the value for lightSourceMaterialName to light (assuming you changed the material name "room_1_1" to "light") Save the changes, save the library.
In Sweet Home 3D right click on the three 'wrong' braces. You will probably see a "delete" option with two of the three objects. Delete them. The third is the one from your library. You can only delete that one by importing your new library and choose "Replace" in the import dialog. The old one will disappear and the new one should show.
That should be it. Try it and let us know how it worked out.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
You're struggling with several basic concepts of Sweet Home 3D because you are trying to create a piece of furniture with several advanced aspects before you went through the more sedate process of learning Sweet Home 3D. No problem, kudos for what you already have achieved!
Thank you. And yeah, that's fair. I have some previous experience on home design software and a background with graphic software like Adobe and I figured there would be a good deal of overlap there, but maybe not as much as I'd hoped. Anyway...
Concerning the levels you should read the manual available at the manual page on Dodecagon.nl.
You know, I thought I had read them all but I missed this one. I'm looking at it now.
I followed the rest of your instructions, but I must have gotten something else wrong again. I was really careful too. It's pretty close, but there are some issues.
After modifying the brace in the Furniture Library Editor, I saved it back to the same file name I had previously, so I saved over the file I imported into that program. I didn't think that would be a problem.
The Brace came through with the light control and that was great. I even got is sized correctly, though at the last import, it still managed to come in laying down instead of being upright, which I thought I had already adjusted for, but apparently not.
When I made the last import into my project in Sweet Home 3d, it was laying on the floor instead of standing upright, and the light was no longer colored the right color. It was just white. When I started rotating the brace upright, the light object (Remember I went with a single 6" thick light object instead of two different panels) from one side appeared to be gone. From the other side it looked correct. This was something I got wrong before but I thought I had corrected for that.
Also, even though I build the light from the automatic floor control, it doesn't quite fit right into the frame. There's some overlap on one end and it causes this odd static looking distortion when I'm moving it or looking at it from different angles.
Also, I think I jumped the gun on something. I selected the two brace files that were old but there was no way at all to delete them. I tried with the furniture library editor and I thought I had deleted their libraries, but those copies are still in the Sweet Home program and I don't know how to get them out of there. You can probably see them on the far left of a few of the pics I'm sending.
At this point, my head is swimming. I'm going to take a break. Below is a new link with my latest files and pics. Maybe you could take a look and see if you can see where I went wrong again? My final combined obj. file is called 'Structural Brace & light'.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
When I made the last import into my project in Sweet Home 3d, it was laying on the floor instead of standing upright, and the light was no longer colored the right color.
It's actually quite simple. Only when you have the brace&panel correct you do your last export. This means, in the correct position, set the correct colors, and have it in the right size. Only then export it. Basically, you import & export until the last export is 100% correct. This last export is what you import into your library.
Also, I think I jumped the gun on something. I selected the two brace files that were old but there was no way at all to delete them. I tried with the furniture library editor and I thought I had deleted their libraries, but those copies are still in the Sweet Home program and I don't know how to get them out of there. You can probably see them on the far left of a few of the pics I'm sending.
Click Menu>Help>About. On the dialog there is a button "Libraries", click it. The dialog shows three lists, the top one shows all the libraries you have installed. You probably have one or more old libraries with the brace still installed. If so click that library, it should open a file manager in the Sweet Home 3D directory where the libraries are installed. Simply removing the library .sh3f file will remove the library. Restart Sweet Home 3D and they should be gone.
If you put the .sh3d and .sh3f file on dropbox I can take a look at them and see where it went wrong.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
Assuming you already have the brace itself we will recreate the light panels. Export the room. (With a floor thickness set to 6" it should produce an object 6" thick.) Edit the obj file to set the material name 'light' like you did before. Import the object. It should be as thick as the floor thickness: 6". If not you can still change the thickness to 6". Place the panel in the brace and export both brace and panel together. Import and rotate/tilt/resize/set colors and export the finished brace-with-panel.
I had to go back to your previous reply. I'm trying to narrow down where it keeps going wrong for me.
Yes, in my current working file, I have a brace, still made of walls so it's not an object yet.
I exported the 1 piece light, changed both the obj. and mtl. files, though you only said to do the obj. file, but previously you said that they both have to be changed whenever I change something? Then to test it, imported it back into the file as furniture. Yes, at THIS point, it's 6" thick, which is great, though the preview of the piece shows it as being black or grey? I don't know why that is. When it's imported, the sides are the correct color but the top is white.
I Placed the panel in the brace and exported both brace and panel together at a new obj. file. I imported it back into this work file as furniture to check it before I go to the Furniture Library Editor. When I brought it in, both the light and the brace were the color I selected for the brace. Also the light part inside was no longer 6" thick. It reverted to a thin sheet like before, but now it's brown.
It appears these are now entirely the same merged object so I didn't bother going forward with the FLE. Not sure what I did wrong.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
I exported the 1 piece light, changed both the obj. and mtl. files, though you only said to do the obj. file, but previously you said that they both have to be changed whenever I change something?
Again, knowledge you would have gained when you had started of a slower instead of diving directly into advanced topics There's another manual on dodecagon.nl that explains changing material names. Reading that manual will make it more clear what happens when you change material names and the relation between "usemtl" in the obj file and "newmtl" in the mtl file. Make sure you have the level elevations as mentioned in my previous post.
The Brace Export the walls that are the Brace or export the brace you already have if it is correct. Check the obj and mtl files and change the material name to "Brace" if you hadn't done that yet. Import the Brace obj file and check that it now only has one material name: "Brace". If you exported the walls again you will now probably have an object that is 6" higher. Change the height to the desired height. (The walls are higher because of the added floor thickness.)
Not many users know this but since the brace only has one material you could simply remove all lines starting with "g " and all lines starting with "usemtl " except the first one of each at the top. Actually, only the "usemtl " line is necessary in this case.
The panel Export the room and change the material name in the obj and mtl file to "light". Import it and check that it's height is correct and adjust it if not. If the height is 0 you have not set the level elevations correctly.
Combine Insert the panel in the brace. Export both together. Import and check that you have an object consisting of both the brace and the panel with two material names: "Brace" and "light". Change the colors to what you want, turn/tilt it to the correct position, and export. This is the final correct Brace that you import into the library. You can import it to check that everything it correct.
Import the final object into the library and set the properties as mentioned in my previous post, especially the lightSourceMaterialName.
Some of your remarks let me think that at some point you used an older version instead of your latest export. Sort your filemanager by date so the ones on top are your latest export. Makes it easier to avoid using old versions. Even better, if you are sure which is which, only keep the latest brace, panel, and combination and move the rest to a subdir 'old'.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
Again, knowledge you would have gained when you had started of a slower instead of diving directly into advanced topics laughing There's another manual on dodecagon.nl that explains changing material names. Reading that manual will make it more clear what happens when you change material names and the relation between "usemtl" in the obj file and "newmtl" in the mtl file.
Yeah, I understand I was too ambitious and impatient. I was being honest when I said that I'd read those files before. At 1st pass, they didn't make sense to me at all, and yes, I was trying to work through the exercises as well, but the downloaded files appeared as if the exercises had already been done. The files had already been altered correctly.). At 2nd, I started to understand, but I got stressed. That never helps me learn. Going back over them a 3rd and 4th time, they do make more sense to me now, but I still don't fully get them. As much as I appreciate the manuals being brief and to the point, lacking a broader understanding has caused me problems. I'd been experimenting, limiting the adjustments to making the object into a light, but that hadn't worked at the time. That said, it looks like I’ve finally done it correctly.
The lamp on the far right, I just grabbed from the library so I had something to compare my Brace lights to. Everything else are my brace lights at 1%. I’d set them that low before and they weren’t showing up but it must have been something else. Also the picture taking app in SH3D choked trying to take this picture. I finally had to leave it go for a while and came back to found it had finally finished.
There were a number of places that I suspect were contributing to the problems I was having.
I think maybe a significant part of my problems stemmed from how I was organizing my files. I don’t understand how the files work together. When I bring an item into Furniture Library Editor, is the program only drawing on the data stored in the SH3F file?
If I have the brace open in the FLE, should I then delete the existing obj. & mtl. Files for that very object, or does the FLE modify those automatically?
When I would bring an object into a project in SH3D or the FLE, I thought that they were still drawing data from the obj, & mtl, files of the object So I wasn’t deleting them. I thought I had misunderstood instructions.
I think I understand how the obj. and mtl. Files work with each other, and that I have to use the same object name between them, but can the file name be something different? Can I use ‘Structural Brace with Light’ as the file name, and eventually what it’ll be listed as in SH3D, if I use ‘light’ and ‘brace’ for the internal file purposes within those files?
I started deleting older files as I went a while back to try to narrow down the problems. I decided to run a full search in 2 of my drives about an hour ago and found at least two additional locations I had started storing files (including libraries) that I’d forgotten about. I think this was also why I was having so much trouble deleting files with the Furniture Library Editor.
Make sure you have the level elevations as mentioned in my previous post.
I went to check this. At one point I did have the level elevations you suggested, but I may have started a new file and lost it at some point. I checked this round and made sure to set up the Levels correctly again, as you mentioned.
Check the obj and mtl files and change the material name to "Brace" if you hadn't done that yet.
Something else I don't understand even after reading those manuals.
I named the FILE:'Structural Brace'
In the obj. file for it one of the top lines says, 'mtllib Structural_Brace.mtl'
This is just a tag to find it in the library, isn’t it? I cut and paste the file name into the obj. text when needed. I don't know if my not using any underscores was causing a problem?
Anyway, it’s done. I did it. Correctly. Finally.
Thank you again for your help with this.
That said, I now have some more questions where I didn’t find the answers in the manuals, but I need to take a beat. This was kind of exhausting.
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Re: Help creating new object & light source from scratch
Great that you have managed to get your brace as you wanted it!
I named the FILE:'Structural Brace'
In the obj. file for it one of the top lines says, 'mtllib Structural_Brace.mtl'
This is just a tag to find it in the library, isn’t it? I cut and paste the file name into the obj. text when needed. I don't know if my not using any underscores was causing a problem?
I think I understand how the obj. and mtl. Files work with each other, and that I have to use the same object name between them, but can the file name be something different? Can I use ‘Structural Brace with Light’ as the file name, and eventually what it’ll be listed as in SH3D, if I use ‘light’ and ‘brace’ for the internal file purposes within those files?
In general try to avoid spaces in object names. Use an underscore or use camel casing (i.e. "CamelCasing") by leaving out the spaces. The line "mtllib ..." in the obj file is a reference to the .mtl file. The object importer looks for the material references on the "usemtl" lines in the mtl file as mentioned in the "mtllib" line. If it doesn't find the mtl file all materials will be reduced to a single material "default" with a grey color. Generally file names with spaces are handled graciously but it's better to avoid problems in the first place by simply not using spaces. And don't forget that all names are case-sensive in obj and mtl files. The actual name that shows in the catalog is the name you give in the Furniture Library and that can be anything you want. Your obj and mtl file could be named xyz.obj and xyz.mtl and in the Library you can name it "Structural Brace", that's what will show in the catalog. In short, you could name your brace object 'brace', your light 'light', and the combination 'brace_and_light'. Then in the Furniture Library you can set the name you want to show in the catalog in Sweet Home 3D.
Getting a bunch of old file names can get confusing. I often use the name 'tmp' while developing a piece of furniture or part of it and keep overwriting it until I get something that 'deserves' its own name. Then I start the next part and start using the 'tmp' name again. This avoids having an endless stream of old files but you have to know what you are doing because you are overwriting previous exports. You could lose something you didn't want to lose.
I don’t understand how the files work together. When I bring an item into Furniture Library Editor, is the program only drawing on the data stored in the SH3F file?
When you import an object into a Furniture Library a copy is added to the Library zip file (the .sh3f file). You could delete the original obj file and the Library would still retain it. The same happens with your project file (.sh3d) files, that's also a zip file that contains a copy of the objects you added to your project. Essentially that's why it grows in size when you add furniture. Both the Library and your project file add extra's: the library extra properties like the lightSourceMaterialName and the project file adds things like object size, position, elevation, colors you changed, etc.
You will have to develop your own system in how you manage all the different files. Here's what I do but every designer has his own way of organizing.
I create all furniture in parts, mostly using the name 'tmp' to avoid file clutter. Only when a part is finished I give it a name and start the next part using the same method. Working with parts makes it easy to change material names, either by manual edit or in Blender. In most cases there are steps where a few parts are combined to create a sub-part. All sub parts together form the endresult. That endresult is exported with a final name. Usually there are several edits in obj and mtl files and I often export/import between Sweet Home 3D and Blender for specific edits. I use Blender mostly to easily optimize objects by combining groups into a single group and to smooth surfaces. (Smoothing is something Sweet Home 3D can't do. It's primarily a house and interior design application, not a 3D modelling application.) When the endresult is really finished I zip the obj and mtl files along with the textures used in the object. That zip I move to a subdirectory 'zip'. When I'm ready to add furniture to a library I import the zipped objects from the zip directory and set the additional properties in the Library.
At the end of each day I zip the complete project directory I have been working in with yyyymmdd added in the zip file name and backup the zip to two different drives, one external. Then I update the original project file with a new version number. (My project files are al named like 'ProjectFileName-v0.0.sh3d'. This method avoids having a bunch of project file copies in my working directory while I still have the old ones as backups if I ever need them.
For any other questions not related to the Brace and Light start a new thread. Good Luck!
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