Mayan Pyramid - broken save file?

[Fuchs]

Hey there,
this time around I’ve got a question, because I think my blender save file might be broken, or maybe I’m doing something wrong. When I loaded the file everything was just dark grey (instead of the light grey) in solid mode. There are some weird graphical glitches and artifacts, as well.

Again, this is in solid mode. I’ve googled a bit and found some old bug tickets that seem to have been fixed as well as some problems with amd GPUs, which I don’t have. For some reason blender tries to shade and apply lighting in solid mode? See here:

My current guess is that either the save file is broken and/or I’ve got some weird invalid geometry that is screwing with everything. When I made the ramp I tried a different method (deleted all the stairs, selected the top and bottom edge and filled it in, selected the sides and filled them in as well) which resulted in a shape like this:

Not sure if this is considered to be valid geometry.
I’ve since recreated everything and stuck a little closer to the methods shown in the videos, but I’m still curious as to what could have caused this.

[FedPete]

Yes, sometimes Blender gets confused by all user commands.
But , with more experience it happens less.

Always save a backup file.
Or in case you’ve missed it, use the .blend1 files (rename it to .blend first.)

You problem can have something to do with with inverted normals.

Go into edit mode, press a for select all.
Then press shift n, the normals will be reset, pointing out wards, not inwards.

[Fuchs]

I’ve checked the normals and tried using the backup save file, neither has helped unfortunately. In the end it’s not a big deal, starting the pyramid from scratch wasn’t too hard (redoing everything was actually really quick), but I’m still curious if there’s a specific reason or just “blender being blender”.

[NP5]

Append the model into a new file.
That often bypasses any accidental key press that might have made this odd display effect.
Trouble is it does not look a set up anyone might want, or has made deliberately, so it is harder to work out what caused it!

Stairs long ngon. I would not but in this simple pyramid you may well get away with it. I would at least subdivide the long edge so there were enough verts to J join to the bottom indent of each step. Which actually neatly makes quads.

[Casimir]

Hello everyone !

For anyone who tried the same method of making this ramp and “”“corrupted”"" savefile there is a simple method for correcting the “strange shadow”.

Edit mode press “L” for selecting everything and go to “mesh” → “normal” → “reset vectors”.

Have a nice day !