LDPub3D 1.2.1 - medium motor fade test

[David Manley]

I'm struggling to get LPub3D to successfully generate build instructions with a faded medium motor. I am trying to diagnose whether this is due to my install of LPub3D or a bug. If someone here (other than Trevor) would try running LPub3D 1.2.1 against the simple model reproduced below and reply here with whether or not they see a faded medium motor on the third page, I would appreciate it. When I run it, I do not get a motor (either faded or not faded) on the third page whereas Trevor does see a faded motor.

Code:

0 Untitled
0 Name: motor_test.ldr
0 Author: David Manley
0 Unofficial Model
0 ROTATION CENTER 0 0 0 1 "Custom"
0 ROTATION CONFIG 0 0
1 2 -81 0 35 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3811.dat
1 0 0 -29 43 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3024.dat
0 STEP
1 71 -72 -36 16 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 58120.dat
0 STEP
1 4 -126 -29 35 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3005.dat
0 STEP
0 !LPUB INSERT MODEL
0 !LPUB INSERT PAGE
0 STEP
0

Regards,

David

[Gerald Lasser]

to see the faded steps I need to set this in the preferences and I get this additional line in the file:

0 !LPUB FADE_STEP FADE_COLOR GLOBAL "Very_Light_Bluish_Gray"

WIthout this line I get the usual steps and I see the motor in its colors.

When I add the line I do not see the motor, but all parts are faded (VLGB)

...need to see why

edit:
- I see that the line is not necessary, it is only added when I change the fade color through the menu "Fade Step Setup", however, this has no effect at all.
- I can only influence the fade color in the "Preferences" setup, I this this is an error, should be within the file.

[David Manley]

When I add the line I do not see the motor, but all parts are faded (VLGB)

Thanks for the reply. I already had the preferences set via the menu. At least now I know that I am not alone in the motor not appearing as a faded part on the third page!

Regards,

David

[Gerald Lasser]

I got it to work!

My assumption was that the issue had to do with parts out of parts (sub-parts), looks that was a good way to go.

I tried a hinge part and got the same result I mentioned above -> part gone.

So I used the "Generate Faded Part List" from the configuration menu, which was the last thing I did yesterda evening before closing the file. After forcing the redraw I had the hinge and the motor as faded parts.

One problem though, it was always faded...

Now I opened and closed LPub3D and when flipping through the pages, they were rendered correctly, motor in color when added, faded on next page.

Next was to force the redraw of the page. This led to the motor (and hinge) being always faded again.

My Conclusion:
To get it work now you need:
- Set the "Fade Step" in the preferences as well as the proper color
- Run the "generate faded parts list"
- Close LPUB3D
- Open LPub3D again with the file, you should see the correct colored/faded parts now

I think there is still some error that leads to that what we see, looks like it is fetching the wrong parts at certain times when using the faded steps .

[Trevor Sandy]

- I see that the line is not necessary, it is only added when I change the fade color through the menu "Fade Step Setup", however, this has no effect at all.
- I can only influence the fade color in the "Preferences" setup, I this this is an error, should be within the file.

This is a bug which has been fixed in LPub3D 1.2.2 and the update is available for download. Existing installations can use Help=>Check for Updates... to download.

LPub3D 1.2.2.442.3
Features and enhancements
------------
-Fix: Update fade parts "failed to archive..." error messages
-Fix: Change fade step color from "Fade Step Setup" menu writes the correct meta command
but color does not change when steps generated.

Note: If you are testing fade, no-fade and/or change fade colors scenarios etc..., please be sure to reset all caches between renderings. Reset Cache... is available under the Tools menu item.

[David Manley]

Hi Gerald,

I tried your suggested steps regarding the "generate faded parts list" but it did not resolve the issue. However, I have managed to come up with an alternative workaround which seems to have resolved the problem for me. The alternative workaround is as follows;

1) the medium motor (58120) is formed from 4 other LDraw files (59143, 47157, 59143 and s\58124s03).
2) I took a copy of each of these files from the parts directory hierarchy where Ldraw is installed (in my case "D:\Program Files\ldraw\parts") and placed the copy in the appropriate "fade" sub-directories for LPub3D (in my case "D:\Program Files\ldraw\Unofficial\parts\fade" and "D:\Program Files\ldraw\Unofficial\parts\fade\s").
3) I renamed each copied file, adding "-fade" as a suffix to each file name e.g. 58120.dat became 58120-fade.dat, 59143.dat became 59146-fade.dat, etc
4) I edited the 58120-fade.dat file and set the colour for 59143, 47157 and 59143 to 16.

I then invoked LPub3D once more, purged the image cache and regenerated the build instructions. The instructions were successfully generated with a faded motor. Huzzah!


Trevor,

based on this resolution, I'm speculating that there is some kind of issue with LPud3B not being able to generate the "fade" files. My guess is either the space in the directory path where LDraw is installed (in my case "D:\Program Files\ldraw") is causing a problem with a regular expression within the code or maybe there is a directory write permissions check that is not quite right and the file is unable to be written. These ideas are pure sepculation but I would suggest there is some kind of issue with the generation of some fade parts.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

David

[Trevor Sandy]

David,

I tested some scenarios and, I can confirm, on my system (Windows 10) that the fade parts routine is NOT able to create (write) fade files in the Program Files directory. With the latest version of LPub3D, 2 messages should be generated when attempting to fade step where the LDraw directory is a subdirectory of Program Files/Program Files (x86).
They are:
- Failed to open C:/Program Files/LDraw/Unofficial/parts/fade/<filename>-fade.dat for writing: The file system cannot find the path specified.
- Failed to archive fade parts.

When using the location C:\Test Directory\LDraw... or C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\LPub3D Software\LPub3D\LDraw, the fade parts routine runs without issue.

To avid this issue, I suggest moving your LDraw directory - including the LPub3DViewer-Library directory - from Program Files.

I suggest, for example,
- AppData directory (C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\LPub3D Software\LPub3D\LDraw)
- the root of (C:\LDraw)
- the root of your profile (C:\Users\<username>\LDraw)

[David Manley]

Trevor,

if I'm reading documentation correctly, I think that rather than using the "<Ldraw install directory>/Unofficial" directory as the root directory for generating parts, you should be using a different directory. Take a look at http://www.holly-wood.it/mlcad/unofficial1-en.html, which identifies that the LDraw unofficial parts directory has had to be moved

---

... the LDraw Parts Library has been moved from the LDraw root folder in the Windows Program Files (x86) folder to the Public Documents folder located in "C:\Users\Public\Documents” ...

---

which appears to be the behaviour being experienced.

Regards,

David

[Trevor Sandy]

Trevor,

if I'm reading documentation correctly, I think that rather than using the "<Ldraw install directory>/Unofficial" directory as the root directory for generating parts, you should be using a different directory. Take a look at http://www.holly-wood.it/mlcad/unofficial1-en.html, which identifies that the LDraw unofficial parts directory has had to be moved

---

... the LDraw Parts Library has been moved from the LDraw root folder in the Windows Program Files (x86) folder to the Public Documents folder located in "C:\Users\Public\Documents” ...

---

which appears to be the behaviour being experienced.

Regards,

David

David,

For the context of what you are describing above, there are 2 directories named LDraw:

No1. The installation directory for LDraw All-In-One-Installer (AIOI)
No2. The LDraw parts library default directory

It is the LDraw parts library default root directory (No2) that was moved from (No1) - not the Unofficial directory as you stated in your remarks. No1 by default is installed by the AIOI under Program Files... Not having No2 under Program Files is in fact the right thing to do as the LDraw parts library is a content library - not a program library. There are no program files. Also, it is common practice to expect the Unofficial folder under the LDraw parts library (No2) which is where LPub3D expects it.

If you read again the full excerpt below from the holly-wood site, you will see it is the same as I have explained:


  Unofficial-Directory.png (Size: 58.87 KB / Downloads: 2)

Cheers,
Trevor

[David Manley]

Bingo! Thank you Trevor, your clarification has helped me to resolve the issue. Faded "complex" parts, such as the PF medium motor and the Technic shock absorber are now generating automatically as faded parts without requiring any manual intervention from me.

In case this is of use to anyone else, I will describe my diagnosis and resolution below.

Original state

• LDraw application root directory was "D:\Program Files\LDraw"
  
• LDRAWDIR environment variable was set to "D:\Program Files\LDraw"
  
• The sub-directories "parts", "p" and "Unofficial" were located within the directory "D:\Program Files\LDraw"
  

Corrected state

• LDraw application root directory was "D:\Program Files\LDraw" i.e. no change
  
• LDRAWDIR environment variable was set to "D:\users\Vista\Public\Documents\LDraw"
  
• The sub-directories "parts", "p" and "Unofficial" were moved to within the directory "D:\users\Vista\Public\Documents\LDraw"
  
• The owner of "Unofficial" and all its content and sub-directory was set to mimic that for "parts" and "p". This may not be a necessary step for some but it was for me as I had been fiddling about manually in "Unofficial"
  
• I moved the files; Category.txt, LDCfgalt.ldr, LDConfig.ldr, LDraw_DAT_parttypes.txt, LDraw_LDR_parttypes.txt, LDraw_Themes.txt, MLCAD.cfg and parts.lst from "D:\Program Files\LDraw" to "D:\users\Vista\Public\Documents\LDraw".
  
• I ran MLCAD and confirmed it worked successfully.
  
• I ran LDView and confirmed it ran successfully.
  
• I ran LDPub3D, amended the location of the "LDraw" directory within the "Configuration/Preferences" menu option, changing it from "D:\Program Files\LDraw" to "D:\users\Vista\Public\Documents\LDraw". I then exited LPub3D and started it a second time.
  

Having undertaken the steps per the "Corrected state", things now appear to be working correctly.

I think the key takeaway here is that the value of the environment variable LDRAWDIR needs to be set to the "LDraw parts library default directory" (i.e. the "No 2") and not the LDraw application root directory (i.e. the "No 1"). In my original state, they were one and the same but permissions were (correctly) not allowing the application to write to the Unofficial sub-directory.

Thank you for your assistance.

Regards,

David