How to crash AC12 - Complex Profiles and Sketch Render

[Eduardo Rolon]

I was teaching an AC class yesterday and managed to crash every single AC12 session, Mac and Win, 16 in total.

Procedure;

1. Open the attached mod file
2. Open the 3D window and select "save view and place on layout"
3. Open the view settings and change the 3D settings from "3D Window" to "Photo render…"
4. Update the placed view, it should be Sketch Render.
5. Switch to the 3D view
6. Open Complex Profiles and select the "00 crash" profile.
7. Still in the 3D window apply the profile to the 3 walls, it is the same as already applied.
8. Without deselecting the walls, switch to the Layout without going to the floor plan first either Exposé or clicking on the Navigator is ok.
9. CRASH
___
AFAIK it has to do with the curved profiled walls if they are straight sometimes it does not work.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Karl,

I was teaching a AC class my macbook pro and 15 Dell's all crashing at the same time as my students dutifully followed my instruction to switch to the layout.

[Barbara Sommer]

The crash is only reproducible on Mac, i have tested on 10.5 as well, thanks Karl for mentioning it. The crash happens as soon as the up-date of the drawing starts, we have started the investigation.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Well Barbara I did manage to crash windows but the students were working with a file that was created on a Mac so that might be a difference.

On another note I have found another strange behavior with Complex Profiles and it works on both platforms.
Steps;
1. Capture a Profile
2. Edit the profile
3. Split the profile to assign different materials i.e., yellow paint on the base and red on top.
4. Click store profile keeping the fill settings as they were.
5. Watch as AC auto heals the fill consolidating the 2 separate fills.
6. in order to edit the materials again you will have to split the fill and reassign.

[Eduardo Rolon]

step 03

[Eduardo Rolon]

Step 04 and 05

[Eduardo Rolon]

Feature or Bug?

You can still apply the profile to the object and it will apply the 2 materials without problems. The obvious workaround is to have 2 different fills but if it is a concrete wall with 2 different colors then the section will not look correct.

[TomWaltz]

Another workaround would be to offset the edge by 1/128" to create a jog there

[Karl Ottenstein]

TomWaltz wrote:
Another workaround would be to offset the edge by 1/128" to create a jog there

This should never be done IMHO This creates additional polygons.

Identical fills which touch will heal. The key is not to avoid touching...which would introduce more polygons and slow down the model... but to use different fills.

Eduardo, the behavior you have seen is normal AFAIK. After you split, you must assign a different fill to each piece. This is the same concept as wall-healing (e.g.). You may need to duplicate a fill so that it has the same appearance, but a different name (and index number).

Using this 'fill' technique, if you want a wood sill plate to have an 'X' through it, you split it into 4 parts diagonally and use two fills - one assigned to each opposite fill. A 'wall' or 'beam' created from the result will have only 6 polygons as it should. If you use the 'trick' of separating things by some tiny distance - which is harder to model anyway - then the result would have 20 polygons.

Cheers,
Karl

[Eduardo Rolon]

Another draw it as it is built misunderstood, My logic was that it is a concrete wall with different finishes and changing the material would have changed the ID for the purpose of the CP.
The correct procedure would have been that different finishes are different fills than the concrete core.

Maybe I was just surprised that the Fills fixed themselves.

[TomWaltz]

Karl wrote:

TomWaltz wrote:
Another workaround would be to offset the edge by 1/128" to create a jog there

This should never be done IMHO This creates additional polygons

It's a matter of priority. Do you want 2 less polygons or a rendering that looks right?

Adding 2 polygons to even 1000 walls would barely make a difference. One tree has more polys than that.