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I couldn't understand at first why Roygee started out in top view... now it makes perfect sense. Great point on adding thickness as a negative number so that the outside of the wall is not effected... keeps it from expanding. Thanks for all the advice and pics illustrating how a blueprint, polyline drawing, is used to do this. I may just start over from scratch... but first I want to figure out when/where things went wrong with my last Wall attempt.
Note that I always keep a copy of the original polylines as a separate similar filename to avoid the need to draw it again from scratch... once I have one that works out well of course.
Welcome Dart... glad you like it. Gosh... now I'll have to model a piggy bank to hold your two cents. :) As far as "keeping the title of the thread" goes... I consider Shaders and Image Maps to be as important as the model itself... who wants to look at a grey uninteresting model. I'm impressed by all the expert Carraraists myself... Thanks to eveyone.
Modeling in Carrara is funnnnn!
[Addition] I loaded an earlier version and now have normal Normals, see pic. Next step is to align the polylines to match inner with outer walls so when I go punching holes holes they will line all line up with no problems... perhaps tomorrow.
Plain Ole Common Sense. I'm sure that all the Carrara experts know all this or use their own methods but want the below for anyone new to 3D and/or Carrara Vertex modeling to see.
Using Roygee's workflow method, pointed out by Diomede, I recreated a simple exterior wall and then duplicated it to make the inner wall both using the Ruled Surface tool as shown by Diomede's pics yesterday. I even managed to mess it up... all in less than 1/2 hr... yes I'm slow. :)
1st pic: Simply shows how to move an entire polyline on all 4 sides of a wall at the same time. Of course it works on either vertical or hozontal polylines.
2nd pic: Shows what Not To Do. This is how I or nearly anyone can goof while messing with an the object. Note that I was using "Left" view same as shown in the 1st pic to punch a few openings in the object. I was using the polyline tool, highlighted at upper right, to create the openings. I thought that it was a bit odd that after I deleted the polyline there was still another underneath/behind it. As soon as I viewed the object in Directors Camera view all was obvious... I neglected, ok forgot, to use "View/Hide Selected" for the back wall while working on the front wall.
3rd pic: An Easy Way to Reverse Normals. I wanted double walls an inside and outside wall so Duplicated the original and moved it away, just a slight offset, from the original wall. Then I selected 1 entire wall side at a time and simply moved them inwards finally placing the smaller, inside, wall within the outside wall. Next I chose only the outside wall and used Hid Selected for the outer wall... at this point all the Normals were facing the same direction. With the outer wall hidden I selected the inner wall and chose Reverse Polygons Normal after which I unhide the outer wall. Ahhhh... PrestO ChangeO... while hidden the outer walls Normals remained facing outwards.
TIP: Don't even bother trying Scale, I did, which will cause the vertices on the inner wall to be offset. Use the method above instead since moving the walls inwards will keep them lined up... see pic. I highlighted the Ruled surface tool as well as a few inner and outer vertices to show how perfect this worked out.
Well done. You are so close! Try taking this stage (attached) and adding thickness. I use a small negative number when adding thickness for these walls, but that is a matter of taste.
EDIT: in other words, use the "Add Thickness" command from the menu, don't create an inner set of polylines.
My reason for an inner set of polylines is so that I can easily have two different/separate material zones for textures... ie, brick exterior and white plaster interior. At this point I intend the model to be used for both indoor and outdoor renders/animations. I understand "why create inner polylines" or vice versa if only viewed from one side. Please let me know if I'm wrong about that.
Excuse the crudeness of the building... I wanted to try Roygee's method out which is quite fast.
TangoAlpha's Medieval Hall and Garden , am I still drooling, preview in this past Carrara Callenge got me excited about modeling a room... I have purchased plenty from buildings and rooms from DAZ but want one of my own creation.
I've a picture of a character standing inside a room and leaning out an open window... the camera shot would show both the exterior and the interior in the background. I do realize that the interior could be a separate vertex object.
One recurring theme is that there is almost always more than one way to accomplish the same task in Carrara. If you are happy with the results of two distinct sets of polylines, great, However, you can create separate shader domains for the outside walls and the inside walls even if it is the same vertex object. The outside could have an aluminum siding shader applied and the inside could have wall paper. Doorways and window frames can have a third shader domain with a wood frame. I still recommend that you just add thickess rather than use a second set of polylines. Here is the post in which I saw Roygee explain the method for the first time (for me). Note that Roygee uses add thickness.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/435937/#Comment_435937
FYI: When using the "Add Thickness" command, the newly created polygons, edges, vertices, are now selected.
Simply add a new material zone at this time, and you'll have a separate material zone for your newly created walls... or whatever was just created.
I've never modeled using polylines before. I've learned (in theory) how to do it, I just prefer box modeling. Well... I think I prefer it. Having not tried polylines, how could I know for sure, right? ;)
My main reason for (thinking that I'm) preferring the box, or cube, modeling method is that, as I've mentioned in an earlier post, I only want quads throughout my model. Trigons are three-sided polygons while n-gons are any polygon with more than four points. Quads Are the only accepted type of polygons by Daz3D, so that's what I've always ventured to use.
Anyways, I always add a lot more material zones than that. For example, if I have four walls, each wall has it's own zone - interior has entirely different zone from exterior, yes. But each wall is also kept separate - but that's me. Then, as I extrude out (and/or in) for window/door frames and other mouldings/parts, etc., I take the opportunity to give those parts separate zones as I go.
Great... I never new about different shader domains on inside and outside. I did briefly check out the link and added thickness at different values. Will have to go back and read the entire discussion. What happens it that adding thickness closes the top as well as adding the thickness value but for some reason the corners are thinner than the interior, - value or exterior + value. I've got to revisit the tread and do some reading. I did add the link on my 2nd modeling information page here since it looks very interesting. Different ways of modeling is what makes Carrara so much fun to work with. Thanks for the link.
The 'roof' and 'floor' polygons added at the time of "Add Thickness" are easily selected with a simple drag-select. I'll often give those a separate zone as well. Otherwise, if they're included with either of the other zones, I find them easy to manipulate in the UV editing phase.
Add Thickness produces a result I can only describe a "not quite right". I still use it, but the mesh often needs a bit of tidying up afterwards. And as Dartan suggests, set the new material zone (or name the polygons) while the polys are still selected.
The "Add Thickness" can produce irregular extrusions,. it's fine for most things,. but not completely accurate.
Unless you need to use that function ( and you don't ) ..do something simpler,. like duplicating,. and scaling, or moving in or out
Any polygon,. or selection of polygons can be set as a shading domain and can have a different texture applied to it,. so a cube could have each face a different colour or texture.
This should be really simple,. a plane (or a simple filled polygon) is a floor , it;'s also a roof or a flat wall,.
a plane with a hole in it,.. is a wall, with a window, or a doorway.
Whether it's textured with plaster or brick, or is positioned internally or externally,. is up to you
It's useful to look at real world construction and materials ,. the exterior brick wall, then an air gap,(or insulation). then the internal walls are a framework of wood with flat plasterboard panels.
in 3D you don't need the framework of wood,. Just a flat panel (plaster) ,.. but it's the basic principle that the outside walls and inside walls are two different things,. and in the real world, the bricklayers are not plasterers.
You'll also have differences in the wall height and length,. the external going from ground level, while the internal walls start above that level.
If you make a single wall,. then duplicate, and rotate it ,. you have a corner,.
If you duplicate and rotate that,.. you have a room.
if you create a plane with brick texture,. and a plane with plaster texture,. the base's of these would be immersed in a floor, and the tops would be in the ceiling or roof.
the sides or ends, would be in a wall or be hidden by a wood fascia surrounding any openings,. such as a door or window.
so, you're not going to see any gaps between the inner and outer walls,. even though they are different meshes.
On the inside of a room,. you'll generally find that fascia boards cover the joints between floor / wall / ceiling,. with Skirting board (edging board) around the floor/wall,. and Cornice around the wall/ceiling. these decorations, hide any minor construction issues.
Once you add a window frame, and a window,. nobody will see the air gap between the inner and outer walls.
You could create a single model for the exterior of the building ,. and create a room,. then position that room inside the building walls, duplicate and move to create other rooms.
You could build all the wall's with a cube,. but you'd be creating four faces you'll never see, around the edges.
It may be a better idea to concentrate on building the exterior walls,. get those right and the internal rooms will be easier to add
Sometimes I want my added thickness to have the ability to be turned invisible or something similar. So instead of Adding Thickness, I'll select the area and Ctrl C to copy it, then extrude my thickness out however I need it to be, then Ctrl V to paste the selection back into the model, and give it it's own new zone name. Now I have a new polymesh which will not be selected if I double-click on the other part of the model, since it's its own polymesh.
Works great! ;)
Awesome example/instructions 3dage!
I tried add thickness using Rulled Surface as Roygee suggested in the link you provided. Yesterday with I ended up with unwanted results. The thickess was smaller at all corner polys which would have created more cleanup. Today however I got it to work just perfect.... here is how.
[edit] I've not been able to repeat my steps just yet. I've apparantly messed up one of my steps or am entirely wrong. Be sure to view your model in wireframe from different views which I neglected to do.
First pic is an exagerated pic of adding thickness. 2nd pic shows thickness after first using Crease Edges is done.
@wgdjohn Just a note about creasing edges as you did above. This is a really handy technique that can save you a lot of geometry if the item will just be rendered in Carrara, but if you plan to export it for use in other programs as well, you may need to reinforce any corners you want to keep sharp since Carrara's creasing will not translate to those programs and the edge may not look as crisp as you want in another program. If I am wrong about the creasing exporting then it doesn't matter (anyone who knows better, please correct me on this) but I am pretty sure I have had that issue before and it might be a good idea to be in the habit of putting extra edges near any edges you want to remain sharp in other programs.
I'd post an example (and also try out my vague memory about creasing not exporting) but I had some computer issues and am taking the opportunity to clean up my DS install (which is really jacked up as I had manually installed a lot of older content to weird places that made sense to me at the time but now mostly use DIM) - I am currently doing a complete reinstall of my whole DS library that has been typing up my computer for the last two days.
Glad I am that you brougt those up. I'll have to try adding at the same time... I'd never thought about that since I'd rather have them as either different polymeshes which is not necessary. Regarding zones I usually create a different zone for each wall, the ceiling and the floor. Most of the time all walls are the same texture but not always... I've seen say 3 plaster walls combined with a brick wall for the 4th wall. If wanting a zone for a mural on a wall Drag select is one option but I suspect it easier to use Phil Wilkes example in his http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-tutorial-video-11-5-hours-long-instant-digital-download.
Speaking of "naming" things... I'm wondering about naming Material Zones... I had a problem with changinging the name at the top, not the texture/shader itself. Seemed that If I selected what polys were to assigned a particular and changed the name at the top it changed that name for any of the material zones. I did of course set-up/duplicate and change different shaders for each... they all worked when assigning the zones but the Selection/Name were all the same. Hmmmm?? Guess I'm still a bit Zone Illerate. :)
UV editing is one thing that needs to also be mentioned here... it is one of the important features of the Model Room and is very neccessary that everyone know how to use it... page 1 has a for a few links to discussions about it. I hadn't used it before since I'd though it was only for using image maps... which is not the case.
@MDO2010 Creasing holds good for export to DS at least (via obj). Can't speak for other apps. But if you're going to invoke Sub-D smoothing, you'll definitely need to reinforce the edges.
I think I now know what you mean by "not quite right"... just tried this on a cylinder and the vertices/polylines no longer line up. I just viewed the cylinder in wire frame from the side which shows what happens. Also tried on an almost square polyline with creased edges... which seemed to work viewed from left but turned out wrong when viewed from the top. The examples I showed earlier might be wrong... I'll have to do one from scratch again and view from top as well as front views in wireframe to be sure that I'm right in my instructions that I can't seem to repeat. :(
Does selecting and naming the the polygons using the Regular Selector include the vertices also? I suspect it will.
Interesting - I was under the impression that that was one of those functions that every program handled differently, but I am happy to be wrong :) Thanks!
Your detailed descriptions are great advice for any 3D modeler. Every ones advice is greatly appreciated. My hope is that more folks wanting to learn to model or more about modeling view this thread since there is so much information here, tips as well as different ways to model mentioned... I believe I've experimented with them all while trying to absorb it all. Onward... [note that below is an edited version of 3DAGE's advice... see above for full advice]
I'd never used "Add Thickness" before so had to play with it... there are plenty of menu items/tools I've yet to try out as well as others forgotten since I last used the Model room in Carrara 6. I'll give it a go later in Carrara 8.5 or a future version.
I agree with "simpler" and will likely pitch my last Wall idea. However I will use Construct/Insert 3d/Grid to create a single wall or plane to make it the size, direction and have enough grid lines/polylines to work with later when cutting out windows/doors... then duplicate that. Note on Scaling... for a building I wouldn't want to do this to a single outer/inner wall without scaling both at the same time otherwise their polylines would not match up for cutting openings.
If I understand polygons correctly they cannot have more than one texture per side. Adding thickness is similar to having an inner and outer wall since it creates other sometimes matching polygons for the inside or outside of the thickness. Thickness is also similar to extrude in that it will connect the top, bottom and sides of a wall adding more polys of course and wasting memory if those are unseen. I say similar since is while being very different.
Only time the framework would be needed is when it would be visible as in a building under early construction or exposed for some reason.
That does make sense... for inner walls they can be duplicated or copied by selecting a group of polys from outer wall. In my house the brick outer wall sits down lower than the inside floor. Also, per county building code, the brick wall sits atop an exposed foundation. It all depends on what time period or county the house is built in.
I'm curious... on your pic of the 2 story structure are the outer walls one or multiple polymeshes or did you make them separate and later work your magic welding/etc, them parts of walls together? Bravo on the 2 story... looks great... the other pics are also very helpful, as always.
Why do you not use Ctrl+D to duplicate it? I'm likely wrong but always thought that Duplicate uses less memory.
Oh please let me know what you mean by "reinforce any corners"... think I know what you mean but may have the wrong idea about this. I would want the object to work in any program not just Carrara. TangoAlpha says later that it works in D/S. I'm wondering also about Blender, Hexagon and others.
Let me know if I am on the right track to "reinforce corners" as shown in the pic below... I may be entirely wrong. I would think that only the 2 corner sides would need this and the polylines could be very close to the actual corner itself .
What I mean i best seen by applying a level of smoothing to your model. You will see that any edges that are not creased will be sort of pulled by all the edges resulting in a roundish shape. Adding additional edges near an edge helps it resist this tension and will keep it relatively sharp depending on close together the extra edges and the original edge are.
There are two quick ways to do this in Carrara: by adding a filet to the edge (which splits one edge into two edges) or by using extract around to draw an edge on either side of the original edge. I probably use the filet option most myself, selecting an edge and then using Quick Filet on it to turn it into two edges, but you have to be a little careful with this as it can create some weird geometry at corners sometimes.
In real life almost nothing has a perfectly crisp, razor-sharp edge so it's a good idea to add a litle fillet to the outer edges of a model anyway, since it makes it react a little more realistically to light.
In the Assembly room, it does (use less memory). Perhaps in the modeler(?) too. But the point I was making is that I'm holding the placement and exact shape/size in memory while I extrude the new polygons. Then, after I'm done adding the new geometry (which leaves a hollow void where the copied mesh was) I paste it back in.
Mike Moir (inexpensively) illustrates this process very fully in his Carrara Modeling Tutorials videos.
Truly a Must-Have!
MDO2010, Figured I was incorrect. Thanks for steering me in the right direction.
I just experimented with both methods. Duplicate ss faster for me in a few ways... 1 shortcut key "Ctrl+D" like copy does place objs in the same position keeping exact shape/size/position in the Model room from my experience also the duplicated original object is unselected but it's move axis are shown in grey... just grab the move axis to highlignt and move to new position and repeat if desired. Not In the Assembly room it seems to behave a tiny bit different. I just watched Phil Wilkes video, Disk 1 of "Learning Carrara 8.5/Objects" and he shows using "Ctrl+D" to create a picket fence and a spiral starcase for the 3rd time and finally got it right... he shows how Duplicating then Moving and how the next Duplicate will place the new primitive into a new position equal to the last distance exactly the same space/rotation, I expect even scaling would work but wold not actuall move the object. This did not work when I dragged a sphere into scene tab or empty space. It did work with a cube drug inton the main window and rescaled as PhilW shows. This also works on a vertex object. I'm either fairly sure or hopeful there is a way to do this in the Vertex room.
I know that you already have PhilW's video I mentioned. I have mmoir's video also but have only watched the making of a Pencil and not been back for the rest yet. I also know that you already know all of the above... I've mentioned it for anyone's benefit. Links to video's by PhilW and mmoir are located on the first page, 2nd post by myself.
What do I remember someone saying... Oh yea... as Dartanbeck says Carrara Rocks!
Sorry to confuse the issue. We're talking about entirely different things now ;)
Tip: Primitives, Assemly room, can be converted to the Vertex Model room for more modification and vice versa. Do Not convert from one to the other and then back again thinking that you will end up with the original... it's best to save it first in order to get exactly what you started with. I don't prefer to do that because the converted Primitive has more Polys than needed and the user does not have control that is in the Vertex room. Note that a Spline object can be converted to Vertex object but not back again. In my experience Vertex object cannot be converted to Spline objects but Spline objects can be converted to Vertex.
Please let me know if I'm wrong and I'll correct anything.
"I know want is wanted but not always how to do it." :)
Please read my post again I accidently hit "Post Comment" before I was done.
Seems that it is I who am confusing my original question... should have asked it differently... so will restate it how it should have been.
In the Vertex room is there any difference, reason or time I should use Copy/Paste instead of Duplicate or vice versa?