Site Search
Join Muvizu
Messages in this topic - RSS

Home ? Importing Assets ? Muvizu crashes when importing from Sketchup

pages: 1 2 | the topic is closed
30/12/2010 16:55:45

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		I am trying to import a "roof" of a stage I am creating for a movie - initially I wanted to import the entire stage but this caused a crash or error from Muvizu about the amount of meshes so I have cut the stage back to just the roof - but now when I import I get a general protection fault and Muvizu crashes.

When I import the object is never where I woule expect it to be...I have to scroll back to find the object and then move it - and if I get this wrong it crashes Muvizu.

Any suggestions on how to import either large and complex models or how to resolve the GPF?
permalink
30/12/2010 18:21:45

ukBertyMuvizu mogulExperimental user
ukBerty
Posts: 975 		Quoling,

You're not going to like this but.....

I've had this problem a lot - I think that not all models in Sketchup are as clean or well put together as you would like - it's a bit of a free for all.

My solution - give up and choose a simpler model.

Told you that you wouldn't like it !

Berty
permalink
31/12/2010 12:33:52

Emily
Emily
(Account inactive)
Posts: 346 		Stupid question, but did you try scaling in down in SketchUp before exporting it?



Another suggestion - when you import the object into Muvizu - before you move it at all - right click the object and change the settings so that 'floats in the air' is checked. Often objects fall through the ground, causing Muvizu to crash, but if they are floating then they don't fall. Let me know if that helps.




Happy New Year!!
permalink
31/12/2010 12:37:34

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Emily wrote:
Stupid question, but did you try scaling in down in SketchUp before exporting it?


Yes I did - I made it as small as possible - however the error is in reference to the amount of meshes and also seems to be due to the size of the created file.

Emily wrote:

Another suggestion - when you import the object into Muvizu - before you move it at all - right click the object and change the settings so that 'floats in the air' is checked. Often objects fall through the ground, causing Muvizu to crash, but if they are floating then they don't fall. Let me know if that helps.


Yes tried that and it still produces the GPF error.
permalink
31/12/2010 12:45:30

Emily
Emily
(Account inactive)
Posts: 346 		Ah - sorry to hear that!
It was the only suggestions that came to mind.

Can you email the object which is causing you problems to bugs@muvizu.com - we can look into it next week when the office opens again.

Cheers

Emily.
permalink
31/12/2010 12:50:02

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Emily wrote:
Ah - sorry to hear that!
It was the only suggestions that came to mind.

Can you email the object which is causing you problems to bugs@muvizu.com - we can look into it next week when the office opens again.

Cheers

Emily.


It's a bit big to email! - from the google sketchup warehouse search for "Queen Stage" and choose any of the "small" Queen Concert stage objects, export from sketchup and then try to create the object in muvizu - as said the problem seems to be related to the amount of mesh in the object or the size of the file itself - I have tried exploding the object in sketchup and then removing a lot of the components to see if that would help - it has in general, although I do still get the GPF.

Is there a limit to the size that Muvizu can import as a object?
permalink
31/12/2010 13:52:07

Emily
Emily
(Account inactive)
Posts: 346 		Not as far as I'm aware.
I can't test this at the moment but I'll get back to you next year
permalink
08/01/2011 11:00:51

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Any update on this? - is there a limit to the import size? -is there a way round it?
permalink
10/01/2011 11:23:08

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		Hi Quoling, I have been doing a fair bit of the Sketchup import testing and I have only got back into the office today.

We are yet to discover a "Hard Limit" of faces that causes a GPF, but if there are any more than 65,535 faces you wouldn't get a collision mesh generated properly. Although if the model is very complex it might be causing an out of memory error.

I have found that if a model is more than ~15mb it probably won't import correctly, either causing a crash or having missing faces. This isn't a rule though - I am sure that there are larger models which import correctly, it's just that the ones I have tried haven't.

The models can be compressed pretty thoroughly using WinZip/WinRar/7Zip - a 66mb model can be compressed to 5mb - so could you please compress the model and e-mail it along with a crash dump and a brief description of what's happening? (Just in case it's not me that gets the e-mail).

The dumps can be found at C:\Program Files\Muvizu\MuvizuGame\Logs (or C:\Program Files (x86)\Muvizu\MuvizuGame\Logs if you have a 64-bit system) and the e-mail address is bugs@muvizu.com

Hopefully the devs can have a look at the model and figure out exactly what is causing the crash.

Take care,
-Jim.
permalink
10/01/2011 15:30:52

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Hi Jim,
Thanks for the reply - Working in software support, I understand the need for clear details and I apologise if I was impatient in anyway.
I have zipped up the ase file along with the sketchup file and the log file. However the size of the file is over 21MB! - I am not sure how you get the file down to only 5MB....

What I am not sure about is that the sketchup file is reasonably small but the ASE file is massive! - is that where the problem stems from? - even though I have exploded the model and removed a lot of the elements it is still large - If I remove too much more, I will have nothing left!

I will try to send this from my yahoo account - however if you have any suggestions on reducing the file more that would be better.

Thanks

Pete (Prefer that to Quoling )
edited by Quoling on 10/01/2011
permalink
10/01/2011 15:45:49

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		Hi Pete,

21mb? That's pretty huge - what size was it to begin with? I use WinRar and maximum compression, which seems to work well with ASE files.

The big problem is that the Sketchup exporter adds a lot of faces and lines in order to make the model compatible with Unreal (faces in Unreal must be 3 or 4 sided while they can be any number of sides in Sketchup) and due to the fact that it's an automated process a lot of the stuff that's added is pretty unnecessary - which leads to larger file sizes and compatibility issues.

You weren't being impatient - the rest of the office was working last week but I took a few extra days off after new year - so there were people working at Muvizu HQ.

If you can't get it small enough to e-mail you can use WinRar to split the archive into parts or, alternatively, upload the model to a file sharing site such as Filefront.com.

Take care,
-Jim.
permalink
10/01/2011 16:08:12

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Hi Jim.
The ASE file alone was 23mb+ - that's what makes me wonder about how the sketchup does actually export the files and maybe there is something I am doing wrong - as said if I remove alot of the elements of the model I can eventually get it imported into Muvizu - although the performance suffers a lot and moving it around is painful - plus so much of the model is missing, it's hardly worth bothering with.
I have managed to send the file to the bugs address with details on how to reproduce - maybe it will be easier using these instructions

Hope this helps.

Pete
permalink
12/01/2011 15:03:16

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		Hi Pete,

After having a look at the model myself I can see that it's very complex with lots of internal surfaces - I have passed it on to the devs to have a look at but something that you might want to try in the meantime is splitting it up.

You could select the bottom of the stage, backstage, lighting area and sides separately and export them as individual .ASE files - this would hopefully cut down on the extra faces created by the export process and decrease the likelihood of a GPF.

The way that you do this is by selecting the part you wish to export by itself and changing "Export Selected" to YES when you go to Export as ASE file.

Take care,
-Jim.
permalink
12/01/2011 15:23:42

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Hi Jim,

That's what I have already tried - however I did not know about the export selected option - which would certainly make it a lot easier (I was removing parts manually and doing it that way which was obviously very time consuming!)
I will have another look at this later - thanks for the suggestion!

Cheers
Pete
permalink
12/01/2011 15:33:04

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Just as a extra - I managed to get the left hand scaffold imported - but straight away it "drops" to the ground and falls over and even if I set it to "floats" I cannot upright the model - is there a way to prevent this? - if there is then importing the entire stage should be possible and will look great - providing my idea works!
permalink
12/01/2011 15:39:38

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		Sounds like the automatically generated collision is getting stuck in the ground (the devs are looking at ways to improve this).

You could create your own collision box around each section - if it was slightly smaller than the piece of the stage that you are importing it would allow intersection between each part, which should allow a better "fit".

I did a tutorial about creating collision volumes which you might find useful:

http://www.muvizu.com/Video/12851/Importing-from-Sketchup-Part-2-Basic-Collisio

Good luck!
-Jim.
permalink
12/01/2011 15:49:28

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Thanks Jim - I did look at this tutorial before but must admit it went a bit over my head so wasn't sure if I needed to use it or not - will have another look - I have found if I am quick enough I can set the "float" property which stops it from crashing and as most of the stage will be floating anyway that looks good...
right better do some work - and I will play around with it later

Cheers

Pete
permalink
14/01/2011 11:27:03

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Hi Jim,

I have managed to do quite a lot with this and it's looking quite good even if i say so myself.

One question on the collision tut though - If I did this for the entire "stage" and then exported each section individually would the collision object be the size of the exported section or the entire stage and would it still work? - obviously I intend to try but just wanted to check what you would recommend the best way to do this would be.

One thing I have noticed though is that the "new" version of Sketchup is very "sketchy" to say the least and even on a 8GB 64 bit Quad core machine it "freezes" and takes an age to do anything. Any tips on how to "switch" back to the select tool from a move? - it is so fustrating moving the mouse to the arrow icon and the move continuing.

Cheers

Pete
permalink
14/01/2011 11:38:48

Emily
Emily
(Account inactive)
Posts: 346 		Hi Pete,

Had a wee look at the Queen Stage in SketchUp - it's very very similar to our 'Gears rock stage' set (in the entertainment category).

The most obvious difference between them is that the SketchUp version has lighting panels at the back and sides, and a geometrical design at the front.

What I would suggest, to give you an easier life, is to export these sections of the SketchUp object, and place them onto the Gears set. In the Gears set, you can change the thunder bolt to black to hide it, and remove the Atomic bomb prop if you want a different look.

This will result in a similar style to the one in SketchUp, hopefully with less of a headache, and you can get on with the fun stuff - animating your movie!

Incidentally, which Queen song did you have in mind?

I started a version of '
- but haven't quite found the time to finish it

All the best with your project, can't wait to see the result.

Em
permalink
14/01/2011 11:46:25

Quoling
Quoling
Posts: 112 		Thanks for the suggestion Em - I will have a go over the weekend - although I did manage to export most of the stage and it looked really good but small! - so I have been looking at the large "magic" set and managed to get the lights/drum rise etc all in -

Not sure which song I am going to do yet - I had got a "idea" on doing a Bohemian Rhapsody video - complete with the opera part (using the original video) - although I think that maybe a little ambitious - I was also going to try to recreate the live aid version even had Freddie sitting at the piano done correctly....I even found a model of the old Wembley stadium!

For now I think We Will Rock You will be the easiest or maybe something like "Crazy little thing called love" as Freddie played guitar and therefore I don't have the problem of getting the correct "mike" stand...ah thinking too much now....I will get the stage sorted and then go from there

Cheers

Pete
permalink
pages: 1 2 | the topic is closed

Home ? Importing Assets ? Muvizu crashes when importing from Sketchup

About

Media

Legal

Muvizu

Muvizu is easy to use 3D animation software that allows anyone to create high quality animations quickly and easily. Muvizu’s animation engine is ideal for storytellers, animators, teachers and businesses looking to engage, enchant and delight audiences with animated content.