Anyone tried using the latest PhotoWorks decals? I refer specifically to attaching a decal to a cylindrical surface. I have been fiddling around with these %^#@*& decals for 2 days now and have yet to get a satisfactory image. My VAR was real helpful too, he said you just have to tweak and experiment with them to get it to work.
This would not be so bad, but I am dealing with 2 thousand parts that no longer display their labels or artwork properly
I wonder what kind of drugs the programmers were on when they did this new version of Photoworks?
Trying to map to cylindrical faces, especially strings of them, is a flat out abomination. Even planar mapping to cylindrical faces from current view, which used to be a snap, is unbelievably aggravating and unreliable.
One of the hard things to get your head around is that the PWx-2 mapping units are exactly backward of what they should be. To move something to the Right, you have to DECREASE the Horizontal offset; to move up, you have to DECREASE the vertical offset. From the first time you used a grid in the third grade, going to up and to the right always indicated the numbers were getting bigger, but the *&%)#@$^Y(@ got it backwards.
Also, if you map a single decal to multiple faces, don't expect it to stay put. We have several files that, when opened later, the decal moves.
I need to check, but I suspect in my gut that the only reliable (if you call it that) way to map decals to cylindrical or multiple faces will be to map to the model as a whole and use masks to trim it out. I'll have to give that a shot in the next couple of days and see how it goes.
BTW - SWx knows that there is a problem, and has known about it for a long time. But here we are, 1.5 years after the early beta program for this dog, and still no fix even though these problems were some of the first they were made aware of. For Shame.
I know it sucks to lose even more time, but be sure to take the time to get your VAR to report this as a bug. Don't accept no for an answer, because if you can't use the same numbers twice to get the same results, its a freaking bug. If the help doesn't say exactly how to plant your decal in the right place, on the first try, every time, its a SPR for documentation. The most attention goes to the issues that get the most noise, and they need to hear on a daily basis that folks are being unproductive (=losing money) because of this not-at-all-thought-out-nor-tested interface.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.