What causes those "ghost" shaded areas in an object?

agericke2011_4e9fcc9847

I am trying to make a curved driveway for my mansion, so I start with a 300 x 300 x 1 block, select one of the short edges and chamfer it, and all looks OK. Then I export it as an obj. file, import it into DAZ, and get that infuriating grey shadow, but as the second image shows, there are no separate edges or faces, it is not selectable in Hexagon, it is "not real". What am I doing wrong, or is this just a weakness of the software? Hexagon or DAZ? I am still using DAZ 3, tried DAZ 4 but did not like it. The first image shows that the original block in Hexagon already had a diagonal line separating a light and dark area, and it flashed the shadow on and off depending on viewing angle.

 

 

 

Richard Haseltine

That is a massive n-gon (a polygon with more than four sides) which DS doesn't like. It isn't wildly keen on the long thin triangles that you may get if you just triangulate the n-gons. This approach may not work for modelling for DS.

Catherine3678ab

If I might suggest with selecting the curved line, copy/paste, extract from the curve a new surface for the driveway. Tessellate as required. Apply uvmap [planar works well here] and a mat zone. Export.

Hexagon has a learning curve for mastering triangles, it's too hot these days ... I have attached something you can look at and dissect, add to or take from ...

To make it more of a curve, {in Hexagon} remove one of the lines from the pairs {select and use the backspace key, selecting 'all' so no dots are stranded on the lines}

 

agericke2011_4e9fcc9847

Thank you both, Richard Haseltine and Catherine3678ab, I have only been using Hexagon for a few months, so I still have a great deal to learn, about what Hexagon and DS can or cannot do, and which tools are most useful to achieve things. I started with a square block, added 4 odd-shaped blocks, and tesselated the 4 to obtain an 8-sector "curve" that looks decent in DS. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but no more ghosts! The curve twice + 3 squares = DAZ driveway.

Catherine3678ab

That's wonderful. Have fun with it. Every modeling project is also a learning project ;-)

stem_athome

agericke2011_4e9fcc9847 said:

I am trying to make a curved driveway for my mansion, so I start with a 300 x 300 x 1 block, select one of the short edges and chamfer it,

 When you added the chamfer, you made it so the edges of the chamfer intersect with the edges of the block (so you have overlapping edges/vertex). When triangulation is being made you have short edges/faces with zero space, which is causing the bad shading.

When exporting from Hexagon, enable "Merge equal points".

However, as mentioned, you should try to avoid Ngons.

ShawnDriscoll

I did some sidewalks, based on Fallout 3's.