so confused with Pepakura Designer 3

evan3585

New Member
So I found a model of a atari controller(google sketchup 7) I exported to .3ds within sketchup and opened it with Pepakura and I get. 13 Vertice(s), 10 face(s) and 2 object(s) were deleted for data normalization. What ever got deleted I'm sure its fine right? Then it says Too many faces(# of faces: 1764) so I press OK.1314 edges were merged. Then I clicked on Unfold and it looks all crazy. How do I fix this? Here is the .pdo I made from it. http://www.mediafire.com/file/ktzkihdmejj/atari_controller.pdo
Read something about lowering the poly count, faces or something but don't know how to lower them. I don't understand the settings either. Can't find any tutorials that explain complex models in pepakura. This is just a test to get to understand all this.
Don't know too much about 3D modeling. I have sketchup and 3d max 2010.
I've just downloading from google 3d warehouse and every model has failed me expect a box. Please hel thanks.
 

evan3585

New Member
I'm, looking for all kinds of things but I want to make my own .pdo file from a model and make it not one that has already been done. Anytime I get a file from the google warehouse I have to convert it so I just convert it to .3ds so Pepakura will accept it. It always says too many faces so is there any way around this? I don't understand how many mm's I should unfold it also. When I do it gives me these crazy shapes with lots of sharp points if you know what I mean. Would take me months just to cut the pieces out lol. Looking for star wars, scifi, horror movie figures and other stuff. Video game stuff also. Seems every model no matter how simple it looks has too many faces and it sucks.

or use someone elses model and make it less polys somehow. Would that work? I can't figure it out. Also I downloaded a box with images on all 4 sides and when I loaded it in pepakura it didnt load all the images.
 

Dragos

Active Member
I'm going to to give a very simple exemple:
let's take this Borg cube: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=792519dbf24ac586bc85fe2717149e42&prevstart=0

Open it with Sketchup, don't save him as a 3ds model but export it as Google earth 4kmz file. Open it with Pepakura Designer and Voila: see picture

If you take a much complex model ( like this one : http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8b27db55a6be855bc7b1b1a7beb04027&prevstart=0 ) you have rearange the parts with Pepakura Desigener
 

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Elliott

Senior Member
Good advice from a designer who knows his stuff. Thanks for giving a helping hand Dragos! :thumb:
 

evan3585

New Member
I've been able to do a box but that is it. What do you mean rearange more complex models? Plus when I exported models to .kmz it doesnt work right. like that cube was 226 kb and when I exported to .kmz it was 61 kb. If I try and open it in pepakura it crashs. Any idea why??
(figured it out I had to downgrade to sketchup 6 for pepakura to take it and make sure its google earth 4)

Is there any possible way you can explain how to do a more complex model. Not something thats crazy complex just more then just a box. That would be very helpful and thanks for all the info you gave me so far:)
 

evan3585

New Member
What about this for an example http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=1ddf7826d6dff2cccffdc5bf87b1e5e2&prevstart=0 or something else would be fine. Also it seems like colors get dropped but it might be cus I'm exporting to 3D max I don't know. Sketchup just doesn't export everything for the model it seems.

Is there any good tutorials out there? Videos or tutorials with photos that explains this in more detail? Really want to get into this but havn't been able to do anything:confused:
 

evan3585

New Member
So Im starting to figure this out but how to a make complex images have less faces or poly count. I tried this polyreduce plugin but its not working right or I don't get it. Is there a way to do this manually?
 

Dragos

Active Member
you're kinda right : I use the 6.0 version. It's a little irronic that a older version is better from this point of view as the new one. When I say to rearange the part I mean to use the functions that appear when you give click-right on the mouse ( Rotate, Join/Disjoin faces and so on).
Here is a exemple in the first picture is the model unfolded by Pepakura and in the second one the same model rearanged.
 

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Dragos

Active Member
I guess this is how the model should be looking before printing ( at a greater resolution of course )
 

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evan3585

New Member
Thanks that helped a lot!! So those lines at the bottom of the page of N3.jpg I don't need? Some models are so complex with too many faces how do I fix this? There is pieces that are big and some that are so small and weird looking that they are usless but without them there would be empty spots right? Here is an example of a speeder bike from star wars I found on warehouse.This is after I unfolded it and saved to .pdo http://www.mediafire.com/file/zytmezmozza/Speeder Bike.pdo . Didn't rearange it yet. The unfold size(mm) is kinda confusing to me also.
 

evan3585

New Member
Thick? what you mean? I still need help with these more complex models. How do I lower the faces or polys or whatever?
 

Dragos

Active Member
Thick? what you mean?

cardboard-thickness.jpg
 

evan3585

New Member
So what kind of paper do you use? Saw the photo but doesnt say what kind it is. Card stock?? Also I still need help with more complex models still (lower poly count or something) if anyone can help!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im going crazy here!!!!!!!
 

evan3585

New Member
thanks for the info on that:)
Is there a Pepakura forum where maybe someone can help me with the complex 3D models so I can make them have less faces so there not so crazy looking when unfolding?
 
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