You're gaslighting me now, right?

First, just calm down. I was only interested in helping somebody figure out how to avoid this problem in the future. If you think it's a waste of time to understand something, you should just move on. Nobody is making you stay in this thread. Your ego is doing it. If you think I was needling you, you're wrong. If I wanted to piss you off, you'd be seriously pissed off. Like, you'd be pounding your keyboard and writing many PM's to Rendo admins demanding that I be banned. Actually, that may happen anyway by the time you finish reading this, but that's your keyboard there, Sparky, so take it easy.

(I threw that little made-up name, Sparky, in there to demean you, kind of like when you referred to us in the White Balance thread as "kids". I know you're not big on "semantics", so I thought I'd clear that up.)

You just can't stand anyone having an opposing view to yours, can you?

Actually, there've been hundreds of threads demonstrating otherwise. I certainly tolerate opposing viewpoints. But just to clarify, it is not enough for you to disagree with me to get me to give you a rebuke. You have to actually be an ass about it. You don't seem to be aware of that - how you come off in your posts. I noticed in the other thread, as soon as just one other person besides me hit you back a little, you didn't answer.

You know, you're not the absolute font of knowledge on 3D, you're just not.

OK, although I have to observe that you couldn't possibly have believed that's what I thought, right? I mean, you're not saying that to actually convey information to me. Which means that you're saying it for some other reason. A goad perhaps. I'm not sure. In any case, don't say stupid stuff like that again, or other people will start attacking you.

Oh, perhaps you're making a veiled reference to this thread?

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2716053

Just so you know, demi-god is not the same as absolute font of knowledge. Quite different, really. Nobody, including me, ever thought I was the latter.

*You seem intent on tearing down anything I say in this forum, simply because I disagree with you.

Let me state for the record I am not intent on tearing down just anything you say. Only particular things you say. I am intent on tearing down any illogical statements that confuse people or impair one's ability to solve a problem or use the tools they have effectively. I do that ruthlessly,  and I do it to everybody, not just you. How many times has somebody said in these forums "neutral gray causes no bump or displacement" and I have to say no, that's incorrect. That's true of other applications but not of Poser. In Poser you must subtract .5 from the map if you want it to behave that way. Let me point you to all the other threads that show you that.

When I do that, I am helping them, not abusing them. Most people get over the mild sting of the rebuke and think twice about answering questions with statements for which they have no proof, evidence, or experience. Most people notice that I give my time and an uncommonly high amount of free, hard-to-find information and high-quality content. Most people actually enjoy learning, including tearing down pre-conceived notions that were incorrect and holding them back.

I respond with a rebuke, because I'm trying to help somebody work through a problem and somebody coming into it with illogical statements is actually worse than a troll. Now if you happen to be the person who consistently makes illogical statements, then you will be a person who consistently gets an argument from me. That isn't personal. How could it be? You're nothing more than a name on a screen to me as well as the sum total of what you say here. I'm not singling you out. You're singling yourself out by being a bit of an ass about things, rather consistently. LIke right now. Your last post is really quite provocative. So were several of the posts you made in the White Balance thread. Over there I let you go when you dropped this bomb:

*You can keep having the argument, semantic or otherwise, as long as you want, but I've spent too much time with this already, so will bid this place good-bye and go and enjoy my long weekend in the perfectly rendered real world.

Now we get this:

*I have better things to do than to waste any more time here. It's just not worth it.

I let you have the last word there in the other thread. Not this time. Let me make this perfectly clear. You've brought this issue up twice, so let's get it over and done with. If you spend time in a forum, actually writing that it wastes your time, you've demonstrated that your time is worthless. Somebody who actually has something significantly more important to do, actually does that other more important thing. He does not stay here and write that he has something really important to do and should be off doing it. For you to say, in this forum, that speaking in this forum is a waste of your time, is so incredibly, deliciously illogical and revealing, it makes me smile. It is probably the most absurd thing you've ever said. Reading you say it is like watching The Office. I enjoy it a lot. Do it again. (Oops, I just needled you a little bit. Sorry)

Moving right along...

So my issue with you actually is about wasting time. You waste my time. I'd venture to say my time is worth more than yours (even if you hadn't proven that your time is worthless) so when you waste mine I get a little bit annoyed.

If you came in and typed "Baggins is a douchebag and doesn't know anything", well nobody would think that should influence the problem solving process and we'd not waste a lot of time. But if you come in and say "I made two changes and the problem is gone, so the first change fixed it" (not in so many words, but that's basically what you said) well now you've created a real problem. If you come in and repeat it, or argue about it, well then you are really interfering with the problem solving process and I get annoyed and I let you know. I'd rather have you spew nonsense than do something like that. There are plenty of people who have trouble following a cleanly presented argument, let alone without having the issues further hidden from them.

Want to know what my issue is? I think you should, since you've come back at me demanding that I not put words in your mouth.

*I never claimed that the cut and paste method was a way to test a hypothesis, only that
it was a solution to a problem, so don't put words in my mouth

Actually you did claim that, precisely. I didn't put any words in your mouth. Here's what you said:

 *All I did was cut the top and bottom polygons and paste them back into place. Because the vertices are now unwelded, it renders fine.

*That's where you made a mistake in deductive reasoning. You made two changes, but attributed the outcome to a particular one - "because the vertices are now unwelded it renders fine." You are asking the reader to believe that you know WHY the artifact is there.  

It was after you said that, I pointed out that you have no evidence to prove that the unwelding is what fixed the artifact because that isn't the only thing you did. You also changed the normals. That was when I explained that your test neither proved nor disproved any possible underlying causes or hypotheses. You simply made the problem go away, and I agreed that you made the problem go away. But you claimed that having done so, YOU PROVED WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS.

That's where you f'ed up badly and why I tried to explain that you have to investigate the causes and find a differentiated test that answers to or agrees with A or B, but not BOTH.

My contention is that you mistakenly believed you knew the cause of the change, and you did not investigate it. I think you do need a lecture on problem isolation and debugging, only because you came into this thread throwing elbows like you own the court. If you'd never stated anything illogical, then i wouldn't be questioning your logic. If you came back after the first rather mild rebuke with greater understanding and a bit of hesitation to make unprovable assertions, we'd get along fine.

Instead, you've come back with challenges. You throw down statements provocatively, daring me to refute them. When I do, you protest that I'm not the God of CG, that you probably know more than I do, and that you dont' have time to waste here in the forum.

The atmosphere here is not toxic, but you have clearly lost your temper and need to get it under control. If you think you have "better things to do" and this is wasting your time, then really, please, just go.

I'm not going to tolerate any bullshit, or illogic, so if you stay, you'll have to put up with being called on it when you make a mistake. 

None of this is an indictment against your modeling skills. Please don't bother defending those. I concede (for what reason, I'm not sure) that I've done "Bugger all" much 3D modeling. You're the king of the models here.

But you still don't know WHY this artifact is happening. You only know how to hack around it. I understand you don't care why. Great. Shut up then. I acknowledge that you invented several ways to change the normals, which seems to fix the problem. How's that? 

I, on the other hand, want to know why and there might be one or two more people who will find it valuable to know why. I always want to know why and how something fails before I commit to a workaround, particularly one that limits my options or increases my work. This is a key part of my philosophy in building complex systems; "Know your tools, inside and out". Another one is "If your tool offends you, cut it out of the system". It is this (along with a few other key things, #1 being "Anticipate Change") that differentiate me (and my income) from the vast majority of software developers. You have no right to disparage my interest in this phenomenon as dicking around for a week with a cylinder. My interest in knowing why it fails is perhaps a waste of MY time, not yours. You are free to leave immediately and never reply here again.

I bet you won't, though. Your ego won't let you. Twice now when you should have left, you came back to tell us you were wasting your time and now you're going to leave. Actually, now that I think about it, you've totally screwed yourself. If you don't answer me now, then you leave me the last word. If I've got you figured out right, that will just eat you up. And if you do answer now, then you embar-ass yourself again since you twice made the bold claim you can't afford to waste time dicking around this forum. LOL. You are so screwed. No, wait, I change my bet. I bet you come back. You like to do things over and over.

I think it's great you've created models that render perfectly in Poser for years. Keep doing it. And feel free to offer workarounds, as well. Just don't make the simultaneous claim you know why they work, the way you did above. Do not start telling people your unsubstantiated theories about why they work in a thread where I'm trying to explain something, unless you want me to embarass you again. Since you've so vehemently opposed and derided my investigation of this phenomenon and my interest in it, I won't hold back on you as I've done up to now.

By the way, you still didn't answer as to why you don't simply export without normals instead of doing these other hacks, like adding extra microbevels or unwelding things. Do you have an emotional attachment to these extra steps in your workflow? Because so far, without normals we have no artifacts. The simplest, most logical "quick solution" to the problem is this: don't export your normals. Of course, I'm not an expert in modeling, so maybe it's important to do things the harder, more time consuming way, because I don't understand the ramifications of not having normals in my OBJ file.

Oh, and don't come back about "semantics" again. When you are failing to communicate effectively, it is your fault. It is illogical to object to a call for clarification in the meaning of your communications. That's what semantics are - the meaning of communications. I've never understood why labeling a point as "semantics" in any way invalidates the legitimacy of the point. It's like dropping your pants in public - it doesn't look that good - don't do it.

(Note to lurkers: If you think this was my finest performance, don't say anything at all.

Get it? LOL.
)

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)