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Thank you. I do try and follow along and try the exercise wether its a video or written. I think I made the wall with the balcony 6 or 7 times before I got it right. I'm hoping to work on some of this tomorrow, I ended up spending half my day running around as both my son and his fiancee are sick, so I ended up running over to their house with medicine and soup lol. Since I was already out I went ahead and did the rest of my errands as well.
okay I have my first set of 4 walls done (yay me lol). I can't figure out how to get them all into the modelling room at the same time. If I select all, and go to the model room nothing shows. If don't select anything the last one I did shows. And I don't know how to select two at time either. I tried right clicking and dragging with no success. I have an idea on how to put it together but first, I think I need at least two of the walls in the modeller right? (I don't know why I am so intimidated by this process, this was actually fun, and I am already thinking of modification to make. but first, I have to figure out how to put it together lol)
I'm thinking I should be able to weld all the walls together at the corners, outside and inside. then I may try my hand at adding a roof.
First off, you don't need to put them together in the same model. It is often quite convenient to keep them as separate models, so that they are easier to map, so that you can turn a wall invisible to accommodate a particular camera angle, etc. If you want to move them as a group, line them up how you want, select them all (or however many you want to group together) and then Ctrl-G or the Edit menu item to group them. There is also a menu item to Ungroup, or use Ctrl-U.
However if you really want to combine them, select one of them and go into the Verex Modeller, select all (Ctrl-A) and Copy (Ctrl-C). Come back out into the Assemble room, select the second and enter the Vertex Modeller and Paste (Ctrl-V). You will probably need to re-align them as they were probably not modelled in the right position relative to each other, even if they have been moved into the right positions in the Assemble Room. If you make sure that nothing is selected before your paste, then only the pasted mesh will be selected. You can double click on one of the walls (polymeshes) to select all of it - a single object can contain any number of separate polymeshes. You are probably thinking of joining the walls together - again you don't need to do that, multiple walls will happily co-exist in the one object.
P.S. Congrats on getting this far! Having looked at you model, you will want to crease the edges, at the moment it looks like all your edges are smoothed, which is why it looks like it is trying to inflate! Smoothing and creasing edges is important for how the model looks when rendered, and also for how the model responds if smoothing is applied.
Ah I hadn't thought of it that way. I think separate may be a better decision as I do like to be able to use inside and outside. I will go see about the creasing the edges, they do rather look like balloon animals at the moment lol. Thank you very much!
Good start.
Phil's tip also works in reverse. You can start with everything in one mesh, then copy and paste parts to a new vertex object for a perfect fit. For example, if you save your initial grid, you can use it as the basis for starting doors that perfectly fit your doorways. To open the doors, use rotate instead of a morph. This technique is not so important for a building with doors and doorways because the dimensions are simple. It is more useful if you are modeling a complex machine with interlocking parts that need to fit together.
Okay I think I did the creasing right. I also renamed each wall and saved them in my objects individually and also saved them as a group object. I didn't try uv mapping them yet. That will probably be a project for another day. But I am feeling much more confident now and pretty darn excited lol. Now, I do have the free uv mapper, would it be better to uv map it in that? I really struggled with the uv mapper in Carrara
That's something I may try when I am a bit further along lol. But I will add it to my notes for sure.
Missed out a bit on this discussion (sorry, it's been a busy weekend!). My own technique, preference, habit maybe, is somewhere between Phil's and Diomede's. Let me illustrate with a render of what I'm working on right now. It's a little more complicated because the doorways are arches, but in principle it's the same.
You're looking at two rooms joined together by a shallow staircase. Each room has only three sides and each is a single vertex object. The ceiling is another vertex object. The rooms are symmetrical, so the facing walls mirror each other, although the front/back walls are different. Within the vertex model, the walls are separate meshes. I made one wall - three arches joined together. For this, I started with three cylinders rather than a cube. Set them next to each other and bridged between them, then knocked out the middles. Once I was happy, I duplicated the wall for the other side. The end wall just has the central arch enlarged.
The door frames were made by selecting the inside of the arch, duplicating, scaling and adding thickness. Separate cross-piece for the top, which is duplicated around. The doors are separate models, parented and constrained for axis rotation. There's a right side door and a left side door, mirrors of each other, hinges positioned at 0,0. Duplicated and fitted to each door frame. There's a revolving door in the middle, which is no more complicated really than the other doors (again, make one door segment, duplicate & rotate.)
BTW, if you're duplicating meshes, it's preferable to UV map them first (otherwise you'd need to UV map each duplicated part separately). If you're just punching holes in a grid, you probably won't even lose the mapping. That both saves time, and it helps the textures to line up between walls.
Right now, I haven't decided whether to keep the walls in a single vertex object (I can name them and bone them in DS, which allows them to be hidden for camera access etc), or split them into separate vertex objects so they can be moved apart. Generally, the smaller the room is, the more important it is to have walls that can be moved or hidden.
And here's what it looks like in the vertex editor.
Thats interesting how less complicated it looks in the modeller than when you look at like it would appear when you are rendering. Its starting to make more sense and I am really looking forward to getting better at this. Being able to see it in the modeller is very helpful.
It is also useful to build up an inventory of generic parts over time. You won't need to model each new room from scratch unless you are doing a specific building or layout, like the visitors center at the Grand Canyon. For example, I have modeled, uvmapped, and saved several 14 by 14 by 1 wall pieces. One is plain. One has a 4 by 3 window hole in the middle. One has a 3 by 7 door hole in the middle. One has a 3 by 7 door hole off to one side. And so on. They have been modeled so that they have very similar dimensions to their uvmaps. Therefore, it is relatively easy to assemble a few walls and apply a paneling texture for a study or an office. Or, apply a wallpaper pattern for a child's bedroom. Or, apply a stone texture for a cell. Because the uvmaps were done similarly, the panels or patterns or stones will generally match in the room. My models have too many polygons because I used the simple grid method before getting more practice.
So... which "free uv mapper" do you have?
I did actually remember to save my 4 parts lol. I also put them together in the shape of a room and saved the group.
I should have also mentioned that Carrara's UV editor does work fine, once we get used to it a bit.
You could make seems and unwrap the thing, for but stuff like this, I actually like to just use Planar projection separately for each wall, then I edit the parts that face the perpendicular direction by hand. But that was because I wasn't good at unwrapping.
The next time I do anything like this, I'd just mark seems and unwrap the thing ;)
Just know that, when it feels super touchy when working in the UV editor, try zooming in as much as you can. The closer we get, the more smooth the manipulations become ;)
BTW - fantastic set, Tim. Hope to see it soon.
Its just called UVMapper Classic. I havent' really done anything with it yet, I never got this far before lol.
There's always that first time! ;)
Cool. Thanks for the name... I'll check it out. I have a UV Unwrapping thread with all kinds of software and techniques discussed, so when I grab this one, I'll make mention of it in there. Might be a bit before trying it out though... we'll see.
Also, the first post in that thread contains this short video, showing Mr. Keith Unitt-Jones on UV Unwrapping in Carrara 8.5 Pro
Pretty cool
Thank you I will give it a try. I would imagine that like anything else, once you figure out how it works, it is much easier lol.
Within Carrara, my walls were uvmapped using Seams and unwrap. My main "island" is made up of the the front face of the wall, the top face of the wall, and the back face of the wall. There is also an island for the narrow left thickness, bottom thickness, and right side thickness. If there is a window or similar, then there is an island for its inner frame. To get the main island, place a seam on three side edges of the front face (left right and bottom) but not the top. Repeat for back face. Now place a seam on the outer edge connecting the upper corner of the tops of your seams, If you look at the screenshots in my post above, the pic for the simplest wall is named mm01 something or other. See how the result is one big island and one narrow strip island? The big island has the front and back faces, the narrow strip island is the outer thickness. In the others, you can see the cutouts for the door and the window, but the size of the main island is essentially the same. Note that when you first try to unfold the uvmap, the islands will collect along the bottom of the screen. You have to rotate and adjust the scale of each.
That looks totally different than what happened the last time I tried to unwrap anything lol. Will be giving it another try soon. I'm off to bed, have to work in the morning. thanks for the help everyone.
You will want UVMapper Pro version as it will do more than Classic.
You can loop and backspace away many of those "excess" edges without losing the UV mapping, in the event that you need to poly-reduce.
You should be "pretty darn excited"... looking good. Regarding UVMapper Classic... stick with this for now. I've found that Pro is nearly $60+-, I thought it was less, and there is no way to purchase it at the moment... they are looking into a ecommerce solution presently. That said I'd learn the one with Carrara which many find is easy and very good after learning it... besides it's only a mouse click away. Anything you use there will be a learning curve.
For your next house... think bigger... how about a ranch style... think modular where you can stack that style to get a 2 story farmhouse or even one with deck walk with a banister surrounding it set upon a foundation and the same banister walk around the first floor. Forgive me.. I seem to be rambling.
Not only think modular but also think rectangular also. Also save blank walls as you can always cut the doorways and windows later in different places and sizes. IMO interior walls need only be single sided... I'd probably design a long solid hallway with no doors since room sizes will vary and you can't know where a doorway will be if used for different projects. Interiors of rooms can be extracted, copy paste, from a hallway section and further modified... they only need to be single sided, no need for Add thickness as the next room or wall is on the other side. Aaak... those are my ideas which aren't always best. Everyone who has been helping you are much more experienced than I. Kudos Folks!
BTW: I've added a link to here from my Modeling Objects for Carrara thread.
I appreciate any and all advice even if you are rambling lol. Its actually a stellar idea and I am also thinking window boxes, furniture, etc. Its a good project to stretch myself a little bit. Ugh, i just need 48 hours in a day. I have a ton of renders that are patiently awaiting post work, and I am trying to do a render of every character I own just so I know what they look like (massive project, I have a ridiculous amount of characters, its hard to turn them down when they are $3 or $4 dollars. Although at this point they have to be pretty special before I will buy any more). I actually love things like castles and old houses and beautiful old medieval furniture. Maybe some day I will be good enough to model some castly style furniture from photos.
If you haven't already... check Freebies today. I picked up some LRoom tables simply because they were free and I've not gotten around to modeling my own. I also am planning on designing, learning, to make various chairs... one for a dining room table and 2 different ones found in restaruants and other uses. Guess I'd better get started.
I did snag the free items today. I need to get started too. Busy week this week in the real world hoping to get to it before the weekend but if not, Friday or Saturday for sure. will be checking in on your thread to see what's happening lol.
I was exchanging messages with an American 3d friend recently and it struck me that she loved castles but had never actually seen a real one. Seems odd to me as we like visiting them and have had banquets at them and even stayed in one. You are never that far away from a castle in the UK, although many of them are ruins or at least partial ruins. I suppose we are blessed to be surrounded by so much history.
When I was in Bosnia in the 98/99 i Was always in awe of some of the old castles even though they had recently been injured.
i even got to enter one but most of it was off limits due to Mines and booby traps.
it was a very eye opening to see the construction methods and the tactical view they provided.