Disappearing wall

[Travis]

I have a tapered wall (under a set of stairs) joined to a full height wall. Both have same wall type, attributes & class settings. In Viewport, I can see both walls in isometric/wireframe, but any type of rendering makes the tapered wall (only) disappear.

Ideas what I should check?

[jfmarch]

check to see of the 'tapered wall' (and i am curious to know what that is), has a solid fill...

[Robert Anderson]

I think by "tapered wall" Travis means what I would call a "sloped top wall".

[Travis]

Yep, the wall has a sloped top which follows the angle of the stairs with the stringer attached to one side. It does have a solid fill, just like the adjoined wall which turns 90? to create storage space under the stairway.

I created both walls with the wall tool and then modified the 3D geometry in side view. I'll try it again to see if the anomoly (?sp) repeats.

[mike m oz]

Travis

If you can't get the wall to 'appear' try converting it to either a mesh or a nurb. It should then render okay.

If you still need it to look like a wall in Plan view you can fudge it by placing a piece of zero height wall on top of the '3D object'.

If you need a door in the wall create the opening using solid subtraction. Then manually insert your door into the opening. You can then place a 2D door symbol in the zero height wall so that it looks correct in plan view.

This work around can be used where you need to model unusual walls such as a wall that tapers from top to bottom. The correct 3D shape can be created as a solid and then the 2D plan form fudged as above. You can even take it one step further and create a hybrid symbol of your 'object' so that the 2D and 3D views are only visible in the respective views.

[Travis]

Mike,

I hadn't tried converting it, but I have used all the workarounds in other situations. Thanks for the suggestion.

The odd thing is, just before reading your post, I was fooling around with the same drwg. Unwittingly, I "unjoined" the two walls. When I rendered the Viewport, I noticed they weren't properly joined and then realized I could see both walls! I went back to the design layer and joined them--everything renders as expected now! Go figure.

(I've got to get an update to my gremlin feeding protocol, they're getting restless again!)

[ 02-01-2005, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: Travis ]

[mike m oz]

Travis

Just out of interest were you rendering in OpenGL by any chance.

I've had some bizzare experiences with OpenGL rendering where surfaces of objects disappear when you are viewing from some angles. A common factor seems to be that they are modifiedl object such a wall that has been reshaped or an object that has had edge fillets. Extrude along path and solid subtraction also sometimes produces missing surfaces.

I'vw just had one a solid subtraction one where zoomed out four surfaces are not visible. Zoom in close and they will appear. It seems to be an OpenGL issue as all of the surfaces are there in the other rendering modes.

[Travis]

In this case it was any of the rendering options. . .tho I tend to use OpenGL less because of the issues you raise.

I couldn't get the wall in question to render in Hidden Line, Shaded, etc. . .it would appear just fine in wireframe only.

?????

Thanks again for your help; on so many issues here on these boards.