I do not want to give up exercise11, but this 5-point patch just not seem to work right for me. I have been trying for an hour now to get this decal done, but I found that the distortion of the image only occurs at the area of 5-point patch. I have tried everything by disconnecting the CP and reconnect it, but when I group those 5-point the "Make Five Point Patch" does not get highlighted.

Does anyone have any trick on this issue?

CHEERS!

The classic 'trick' for selecting 5 point patches that don't seem to want to take is to hit the Period Key twice.
The first time will cause A:M to select everything except those 5 CPs while the second time will reselect them again... almost always reselecting them in the proper order so that they are recognized as legitimate 5 point patches.

Try it out and see.

There may be times when no matter what you do there is distortion in a 5 point patch area.
For cases like these you may want to find the most unobtrusive place to place the 5 point patch such as under an armpit... behind an ear or someplace out where the effect of the distortion is less apparent.

I will try that out.
How about the distortion of the decal at the area of the 5-point patch?
Do you know what causing this or a way to get around it?

Thank you, Rodney!

If you post a shaded/wireframe picture of the problem area, including the patches around the 5 pointer, we may be able to offer more suggestions.
Decals on 5pt patches can be a challenge. It often helps to shape the patch as close to an equal sided pentagon as possible. Sometimes you can get a good stamp even if you have an oddly shaped 5 point patch, but if you are having trouble, try to even out the shape a bit.

I realized I hadn't addressed the distortion so I added that in my original post as well.

In some cases the distortion will be caused by spline discontinuities, where the splines don't run in such a way as to keep the decal/image from deforming.

If the 5 point patch is directly in view you may want to reconsider or refine your geometry to see if you can rid yourself of the 5 point patch (consider 3 point patches and hooks for instance) or to help relocate it to another area.

You can get distortion even in 4 point patches if the size of the patches varies greatly.
Holmes touches on this in his response.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Thank you all for your responses. I think I found the solution and here are what I did. If you have two consecutive 5-point patches you can make 3-quad out of them. Problem solved.

CHEERS!

Here is the image with 5-point patch distortion.

It looks to me like you've got something else going on besides 5 point patch distortion.
I've seen this before but forgotten the specifics.

The white spots appear to be areas where no decals are applied at all.
You can test this theory by changing the Surface color of the model itself... say to a red color.

I would guess that in the process of reselecting your 5 point patches you broke the decals connection with the patch.
You'll have to add those CPs/patches back in.

Thank you, Rodney! I will test it your theory this weekend, but I have to move on to exercise12.

CHEERS!

Or the normals may be flipped? To test this, go to Tools Menu > Options > Modelling Tab. Check Display Normals.

All your patches should be pointing out with a yellow thing. If those 5 pointers have the yellow thing pointing into the middle, then you can flip the patch.

Click on the Patch tool on the right, select the 5 pointer and press the F key.

Don't forget to turn off normals again, otherwise you have a yellow hedgehog forever more.

Another tip, sometimes for 5 pointers you can hide most of the mesh and use the lasso tool to select the 5 points. Then press the period key twice. That always works for me.

It's great to see you progressing and absorbing all this knowledge

Edit: Of course if the giraffe were rendered to a tga that distortion might disappear. I remember now that I had distortion until I rendered.

Edit2: I've just read your other thread where everything is sorted - ignore the above

Thank you, Caroline! I just made a quick solved to those 5-pont patches by turned them into 3-quads as shown in the picture, but I still would like to know more why they get distorted. I will test all those methods recommended this weekend to if those help fix the issue.

CHEERS!

You are right on the money about normals on those 5-point patch, but I still have to test the decal to see it the normals are the cause of the distortion. About the trick to make 5-point patch, I still cannot make mine to work as you can see in the picture. Any recommendation?

Thank you!

Still distortion after fixing those normals.

By adjusting the shape of the patch as close to an equal sided seems to help, as you can see that the white area is decreased.

As you can see that the 5-point patch does get decal applied to it.

Hey,
Just want to mention that those are great troubleshooting pics.
Newbies take note...that helps a lot!

Question:

Did your reapply the Decal after you reset the normals/5 point patch?
By this I mean Right Clicking / Position / Apply and then delete the former Stamp?

Edit: If reapplying doesn't work you may need to share the model file. I've got 5 Point patches decaling fine in my tests (operating with 15c).

Yes, I did re-appled the decal, and here is the file with my quick fix by turning two 5-point patch to 3-quad. You have to change it back to 5-point patch again.

I'm a bit confused - I've lost sight of what the problem is.

Anyway, looking at your model, the way I think you've 'fixed' it is a no-no.
It does not have the 2 crossed splines that you should; it has several splines going into one control point. You can see the marked green spline is unhappy.
Click to view attachment

I put the 5-pointers back, and selected the 5 points around one, holding down the Shift key. The 5-point patch tool appeared no problem. I did the same for the second patch, and I had to use the period key twice to get the tool to appear. Note I have hidden the part of the giraffe that I don't need at the moment. The red circle is explained in the third picture here.
Click to view attachment

This next picture is also a spline no-no, and will cause distortion. You should only have two splines crossing. You have a third coming in dead-ending. If you are going to make a hook instead, keep it away from 5-pointers.
Click to view attachment

It appears to me that the decal distortions go away on render.

Can you simplify for me what the current problem is?

And I think it's great that you are spending time analysing this - to me this exercise and exercise 6 (Shaggy & the door) are the most important exercises, that really define the zen of Animation:Master.

I think you get the cookie on this one Caroline.
Not sure we can call it a complete wrap yet until Eric chimes in but thats some mighty fine investigative reporting.

You have to chage it back to 5-point patch just my picture here.

Click to view attachmentHmmmm!!!!
Step-1. I selected all 5 CP that made up 5-point patch.

Step-2. Hit the period key.

Step-3. Hit the period key, but the "Make Five Point Patch" still not active...

Keep wacking the period key till my fingure started bleeding... it still not active.

I can get those three to work but not this one for some reason. Have you tried the decal?

So you got all 5-pointers except that last one?

I can't see anything wrong with the splineage there - are you ABSOLUTELY sure that you are ONLY selecting those 5 points, and then hitting the period key till your fingers bleed ? (In that last screen capture if you lassoed, you would get all the points behind as well. Similarly, if you shift select, you may be getting others selected.) Make sure that before you start selecting, you use the T key to turn your model so that no other control points are behind the ones you are selecting.

I had the decal on, and the distortions went away when I did a partial quick render.

If what you've selected isn't a valid 5 point patch it won't matter how many times you whack the period key.
Not that this is your problem but... generally you don't want to place two 5 point patches next to one another.
Rather you want to add some more geometry/splines inbetween.

I've read this a lot, and I don't understand why. What's the reasoning behind this, Rodney? When you put in a round something like a leg, or the horns on the giraffe head, you get 4 5-pointers at the base. I've never had a problem creating those 5-pointers together. Would it be for animation's sake? In that case, if you make them really small, is it OK?

Where and when you can use two 5 point patches next to each other... depends on how "distorted" the area is and how much that "wonky" area will bother you. In some cases an extreme distortion of a 5 point patch looks... funky. Two right next to each more so. If the area is "generally flat-ish" not so bad. However if it's really distorted AM can't decide how the surface should look exactly... and you may get some weirdness.

5 point patches work... but AM has to "infer" where the surface of the patch is. It's not an exact science like a 4 point patch. The more "flat" a 5 point patch the better it looks. The more if follows the existing surface plane... the better it looks. If you have a 5 pointer that has one side that does a hard right angle bend or turn... you get a weird curve that doesn't look right.

I had that problem on part of my Terminator model. A really bad bad bad 5 point patch that was extremely bent in half (ick).. but... I decided it didn't matter because the chrome hid it pretty well and metal... doesn't move much... and... uh... I was just too lazy to fix it... and I wanted to get the image rendered dammit and I could just fix it later.

-vern

I have to admit that I've never noticed too much distortion, but then I'm not super picky.

So small and flat is good for them.

(And congrats on your win - there were some fantastic entries!)

I have to agree with Vern at this point, and I have to admit that I have learned alot from exercise11, especially about this 5-point patch. It is not that I am picky or anything, but if we just let it go by then we will never truely understand the root cause and will never try to fix it. Trying to hide it is ok but the best is try to avoid it at all in the first place.

Does AM support UV-map

CHEERS!

Looking over this thread you can see clearly why 5 point patches like that are completely fine. First off the big ones are under the body. Second that decal really breaks up the surface and hides any artifacts. If this were rendered with AO only, white on white... then the 5 pointers might be a nuisance. But with all the pretty decals you don't even notice.

It's exactly like those celebrity photos of some gorgeous actress or supermodel, who just woke up, has no makeup on, has not combed her hair, is wearing a 5 year old ratty sweat suit with flip flops and has dunkin donut icing from her breakfast smeared on her face...

Okay it's not EXACTLY like that but it's in the same ball park.

-vern

Sure does. A:M even has a built in UV Editor.

To access it Right Click on either your Decal or on the decal's stamp and select Edit.
This will open the mesh/decal in the UV Editor where you can adjust your mesh as necessary.

Caroline said:


Vern answered this pretty well and his experience far exceeds my own.
I'd say each usage will have to be considered.

A lot will depend on your project and as you've stated in many cases it'll be fine to have the 5 pointers together.
If your model in low patch count and will stay in A:M I suspect you can often do it this way.

There are several schools of thought with regard to 5 pointers.
Some prefer to avoid them altogether. (This often from those that want to export their models for use with other applications. Many a hoop is jumped through to get there.)

Some try to work them into areas of the model where the occasional artifact, odd folding or unanticipated movement in animation will be less apparent. There are also issues with 5 pointers that have to be dealt with regarding Sub Surface Scattering, Porcelain, Flipped Normals etc.

Some embrace 5 pointers and work with them extensively all along the way.

In the case of a leg or some other appendage it doesn't take much to add a few more splines into it.
If the spline/patch count doesn't increase too much by adding the additional splines in to separate the 5 pointers I say... add 'em.
This will give you room to adjust if you need to move them elsewhere on the mesh later.

Adjacent splines/patches can help smooth the transition of the surface into/through the 5 point area.

Separating them also can make them a lot easier to find and select.

This is great, and I am really glad to hear that. Thank you FYI, Rodney!

There was a mention of attaching limbs that require multiple 5 point patches right next to each other. My rule of thumb in that case is to make the 5 point patches lie as flat as possible on the "larger" surface the limb or "tube" shape is being attached to. So, you have an "extra" ring from the extruded tube/limb that is also flat against the attached area "inside" the 5 point patch group. Because all of the bending and movement of the limb is in the area that has good 4 point patch structure, this then nearly eliminates or at least reduces the amount of stretching and movement of the 5 point patch at the joint. A 5 point patch works the best when it's patch surface has gentle gradual curves. AM can better determine the surface.

With mechanical modeling (my favorite obviously) 5 point patches are wonderful and can be used practically with out any worries at all. If it looks good and renders smooth, you're done. 5 point patches on COMPLETELY flat areas are great... as long as one "corner" isn't "in line" with another or pushed too far.

I find that 5 pointers that have CPs arranged to look like a 4 point patch with an extra CP in the middle of one side are going to cause weirdness. A 5 point patch works best when all 5 CPs are as equidistant as possible.

-vern