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Subject: 
Re: My first part
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dat.parts
Date: 
Tue, 13 Jul 1999 13:33:02 GMT
Viewed: 
1083 times
  
On Mon, 12 Jul 1999 23:51:43 GMT, Patrick Sayre-Little
<wsayreli@polymail.calpoly.edu> wrote:

First off, I hope I'm doing this right; in terms both of posting and making a
part.  I need some feedback here:

The post seemed to come through fine.  And your approach to making a part
(at first blush) seems ok.  I'll dig into the code in a minute.

BTW, this is a good first part.  The following comments are more at length
than I normally make about new parts, because I usually don't make the time
to look at each part in this depth.  So don't take them too personally,
please. You did ask for feedback. :)

0 Tile  2 x  2 Round with Yellow Submarine Radar Pattern

I would leave the "Yellow" out of the name, since it appears the submarine
is just the same color as the part.  TLG could conceivably release this
part in a different color (though that seems unlikely).

0 Name: 4150p?.dat
0 Author: Patrick Sayre-Little
0 Official LCad update ??-??

It's not official *yet*.  The line above should be "Unofficial part".

May I suggest you add 0 CATEGORY and 0 KEYWORDS meta-statements to the
file?  For this file, they would be something like:

0 CATEGORY Tile
0 KEYWORDS aquazone, printed, crosshairs, aquanauts, decorated

[Snipped most of the code taken from 4150.dat]

4 24 0 4 20 0 8 20 -7.65 4 18.48 7.65 4 18.48
4 24 -7.65 4 18.48 -7.65 8 18.48 -14.14 4 14.14 0 4 20
4 24 -18.48 4 7.65 -18.48 8 7.65 -20 4 0 -14.14 4 14.14
4 24 -20 4 0 -20 8 0 -18.48 4 -7.65 -18.48 4 7.65
4 24 -18.48 4 -7.65 -18.48 8 -7.65 -14.14 4 -14.14 -20 4 0
4 24 -7.65 4 -18.48 -7.65 8 -18.48 0 4 -20 -14.14 4 -14.14
4 24 0 4 -20 0 8 -20 7.65 4 -18.48 -7.65 4 -18.48
4 24 7.65 4 -18.48 7.65 8 -18.48 14.14 4 -14.14 0 4 -20
4 24 18.48 4 -7.65 18.48 8 -7.65 20 4 0 14.14 4 -14.14
4 24 20 4 0 20 8 0 18.48 4 7.65 18.48 4 -7.65
4 24 18.48 4 7.65 18.48 8 7.65 14.14 4 14.14 20 4 0
4 24 7.65 4 18.48 7.65 8 18.48 0 4 20 14.14 4 14.14

I believe the above commands were copied from the original 4150, but they
were conditional-lines, not quads.  Just change the leading 4's to back to
5's.

0 my pattern

Nice job on the drawing. Good use of primitives. :)

I'd move the pattern to the top of the file.  In LDraw-land, on-screen real
estate is first come, first serve.  The stuff at the top of the file is
more likely to be drawn and stay drawn.

1 16 0 1 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 4-4disc.dat

Why not make the above command a ring, and move it to Y=0?  Especially
since it effectively gets covered up by the next command.  Actually, you'd
need two commands:

1 16 0 0 0 1.7 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1.7 ring10.dat
1 16 0 0 0 1.818 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1.818 ring10.dat

1 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 4-4disc.dat
1 16 0 -1 14 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 RECT.DAT

Erk. Stop here.

The technique of positioning a plain surface slightly behind the pattern
elements is always tempting, but it has a number of drawbacks.  The first
of which is bleed-through, because LDraw doesn't always handle distances of
less than 2 very well.

Also, when you use more than two levels (you've got elements at 1, 0 and -1
heights), you get some odd visual effects.  View this part in LDLite, at 8x
zoom, and turn on rotation.  You'll see that the details appear to 'float'
above the two background discs.

The elements positioned at Y=-1 are really bad, because when you view the
part from the side, you see the 'printing' as a line, separated from the
part by 12.5% of the part's height.

1 16 0 -1 -14.50 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 RECT.DAT
1 16 12 -1 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 RECT.DAT
1 16 -12 -1 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 RECT.DAT

BTW, the RECT.DAT primitive outlines the rectangle.  You haven't outlined
the rest of the pattern, so you might want to just use quads instead of
these rect.dat's.  For uniformity's sake.

1 1 2.6 -1 2.75 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1-4rin10.DAT
1 1 2.6 -1 -2.75 0 0 1 0 1 0 -1 0 0 1-4rin10.DAT
1 1 -2.6 -1 -2.8 -1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 -1 1-4rin10.DAT
1 1 -2.6 -1 2.75 0 0 -1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1-4rin10.DAT
3 16 2 -1 -11 -2 -1 -11 0 -1 -9
3 16 0 -1 -10 3 -1 -6 -3 -1 -6
4 16 3 -1 -6 -3 -1 -6 3 -1 6 -3 -1 6

Some picayune stuff follows.  Feel free to ignore it.

3 1 -3.5 -1 6 0 -1 6 0 -1 11

The front windscreen (waterscreen?) might look better as a quad (or even a
1-4disc).  Also, the point where X=-3.5 sticks out beyond the rest of the
sub.  Shouldn't it be X=-3?

3 16 3 -1 6 0 -1 6 0 -1 11
4 16 -3 -1 -4 -3 -1 3 -4 -1 -2 -4 -1 2
3 1 -4 -1 -3 -4 -1 3 -6 -1 0

Your top bubble doesn't meet up with the edge of the sub.  On the part I'm
looking at, there's a smooth edge along that area.

Also, using a 2-4disc for the bubble-top would have been good.  Even though
the actual pattern has the corners angled, not vertical.

1 16 -5 -1 -4 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.25 4-4disc.dat
1 16 -6 -1 -5 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.25 4-4disc.dat
1 16 -5.5 -1 -6 0.35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.35 4-4disc.dat
1 16 -7 -1 -7 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.25 4-4disc.dat
1 16 -8 -1 -9 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.25 4-4disc.dat
1 16 -9 -1 -8 0.35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.35 4-4disc.dat

Nice bubbles. :)

Overall, the only major problem is that you need to clip the background out
from the foreground, and put all the elements of the surface at Y=0.

Very nice first job!
Steve



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: My first part
 
(...) Yes I did. Your comments are very helpful. I'll get started on them right away. (...) I tried that at first, but I kept getting some wierd overlap effects: some of the pattern would show, other parts wouldn't. I figured putting them at (...) (25 years ago, 13-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dat.parts)

Message is in Reply To:
  My first part  [DAT]
 
First off, I hope I'm doing this right; in terms both of posting and making a part. I need some feedback here: 0 Tile 2 x 2 Round with Yellow Submarine Radar Pattern 0 Name: 4150p?.dat 0 Author: Patrick Sayre-Little 0 Official LCad update ??-?? 0 2 (...) (25 years ago, 12-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dat.parts)

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