Hi Guy's Can anyone tell me what's hapening here(pic) all the chairs uprights should be parallel but as you can see I seem to have the 'self inflating' version? I have encountered this before in P5 so it's not a P6 only problem, I never did find out what the problem was then either. Thanks all!

Oh Yeah, and another thing... It only occurs in the render it's fine in the actual scene!

Turn "smooth polygons" off. You can do it in Render Options or object properties.

Thank's a lot randym77 for the quick response!

If you want to keep smoothing for the V3 figure, you can change the smoothing setting for just the chair in the parameter palet.

If you want to keep the smoothing, an edge loop on the center of the uprights will constrain them. This "Hoover" effect generally happens on cylinders with only top and bottom verts. Turning off smoothing is a less effective option as the uprights will be replaced by octogons (or whatever number of facets the original modeller used.)

OK nomuse...What's an edgloop then?????

Heh. Another line of vertices. Um...right now, to inflate like it does, those uprights have long thin polygons the length of those uprights. What it needs is polygons half that length. If I had the time I'd find some pictures to illustrate.

I think I understand what your saying, Thank's

This problem occurs in lots of objects when rendered with Firefly but not with the P4 render engine. As far as I can tell it happens with meshes made in 3DS on parts which have been extruded.

try importing the mesh into UVMapper and selecting "Tools-Vertices-Split". and just select ok to all the other options, then save the file back and render again. The problem is that all the vertices are welded and smoothed, and thus need splitting so that they dont round off during rendering.

"Tools-Vertices-Split". This works great and UVMapper is free, but maybe it should be noted that splitting vertices will usually significantly increase the size of the model.

"usually significantly increase the size of the model" hmm.... now i can't say that the models i have created have ever been increased by a significant amount. certainly i don't think that a chair is going to cause massive problems.. For instance i am currently modelling a pair of skates for V3 and there are nuts holding the wheels on, below are the specs for the nut in UVMapper. First without Splitting the Vertices:- Vertices=156 Normals=155 Facets=624 and when the vertices are split:- Vertices=324 Normals=149 Facets=624 Note this is not a big jump: and will not effect your renders. unless you have the worst system specs since the ZX Spectrum. Only when you start dabbling in massive Vert meshes ie V3 with 70,000+ then you better start panicing... my heighest so far 590,000 and that's not good for anything...lol

Um...hate to jump back in here, but splitting verts, while effective in ensuring sharp corners, is not a solution for the bagpipe problem. A cylinder with ends split off will still bloat in Firefly, up until you split every face down the sides. Turning off smoothing also is not the best solution. Instead of a bagpipe, you will get a ribbed cylinder; all the facets will show. A constraining line of vertices across the middle of a cylinder is the most effective solution to keep it from ballooning like this. I try to make all my models this way now. With cylinders constrained and vertices split (or micro-bevels introduced; even better), the models display correctly across all the various Poser render modes -- with cylinders and spheres instead of fluted column and D20's.

I can safely say i have not had the Ballooning effect on any model since splitting all vert to 43 degrees (yes i do meshes, i have stuff in the Rosity free area). The biggest issue i have is no matter what i do i CAN NOT get a cylinder (with no ribbing) to balloon in P6, or anything else...hmmm, am i blessed with a non ballooning version of P6... now im gonna have to re-install P4 to check my current meshes...lol

Hrm. I should note the bagpipe effect I had was probably on lower-poly cylinders...I used hexagon cross-sections a lot. Don't have data on whether a 30-sided cross-section will still balloon. I also haven't seen this effect in P6. Cutting the ends off is a must for cylinders in any case. (Or micro-beveling them).