Basic modelling questions.

# 1 16-10-2002 , 02:16 AM

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When modelling things like buildings, houses or a castle even etc, what would you guys favour, Polys or Nurbs? I haven't modelled too much, severe lack of time but i'd like to try and get something together for this months Halloween comp. A haunted house. So any advice will be appreciated. Also wondering what's the best way to create accurate archways, could be in a corridor or even just a window.

Thanks.

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# 2 16-10-2002 , 02:56 AM

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Polys for straight, square surfaces, Nurbs for rounder more organic things.

Poly- walls, windows, doors
Nurbs-bannisters, doorknobs, handrails

You'll get to know what you want to use as you work more with them user added image

Darkon

Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

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# 3 16-10-2002 , 03:12 AM

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Thanks, i was thinking Polys for walls etc. The only reason i asked as the house tutorial Kev did in the VIP section was done in Nurbs and i also have a book that shows how to model a house, again it's done in Nurbs.

I've found with using Nurbs the intersection and trim tool is great for trimming excess geometery. Is there anything similar with Polys? I've used Booleans but they work differently, i want to keep my objects as seperate and not unioned, which is the way i figured in Polys to trim.

Oh yeah, the arch thing. Is there a good way to make a precise arch to be using as a window opening or door frame or even a door itself? I'm sure it's something simple but my way is too complex i'm sure user added image

Last edited by mrmacca; 16-10-2002 at 03:18 AM.

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# 4 16-10-2002 , 03:19 AM

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Originally posted by Darkon
Polys for straight, square surfaces, Nurbs for rounder more organic things.

Poly- walls, windows, doors
Nurbs-bannisters, doorknobs, handrails

You'll get to know what you want to use as you work more with them

Darkon

Originally Posted by

Ditto!

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 5 16-10-2002 , 03:45 AM

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Here's a quick arch or window, even a nice door opening. Take a poly cylinder, lay it down facing you, choose faces, delete the bottom half of the cylinder. Now choose edges and select all the edges surrounding the hole you have just created, now go to Edit Polygons/Fill Hole. Now you have a face there, do some extrudes and you have a door or window with a rounded top, for a sharper top play with the upper faces a bit. Now use this as a boolean cutout tool. Copy it (World, Copy user added image

) and use that to boolean so you don't lose your initial shape, use this one last as either the filler or the last cutout depending on what you want to do user added image

After you are done you will find that the area where you cutout is screwed up when you texture, but not to worry, when it comes to texturing time, choose Face on the object, then select the faces on the cut area only, then go to Edit Polygons/Texture/Create UV's based on Camera. If you go look at my Wizard's Lab, notice the doorway. In the render next to last the area where the doorway was cutout between the blocks is screwed up though I textured the whole wall with that wall texture. In the last render you will see a bit of a change as I selected those faces and did the UV change for them user added image

Just some quick tips, good luck user added image

Darkon

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# 6 16-10-2002 , 04:57 AM

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Thanks, that's a great help. Do you have any tips on creating an arch using Nurbs? If not, know of anyway to convert polys to Nurbs?

Thanks.

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# 7 16-10-2002 , 05:58 AM

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There's a few things you can do. Try creating a curve in your front viewport. Then create a simple shape or use the Nurbs square or circle, then do an extrude.

You can also use a half torus to start and tweak from there depending on the look you want.

Lofting will work as well if you think ahead of time of what the final arch will look like and then draw the profile curves to match the changes in shape as the arch goes from front to back.

But personally, I'd stick with polys for the arch unless you are doing something futuristic looking or perhaps fantasy style.

Darkon

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# 8 16-10-2002 , 02:31 PM

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darkon is right...

Poly- walls, windows, doors
Nurbs-bannisters, doorknobs, handrails

i even use sub-d's for smooth objects

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# 9 16-10-2002 , 02:54 PM

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Just one last question then
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If i'm using polys for walls etc, how do i boolean to make a hole in a poly plane or if i have a poly cube, just into one side. I just could not get boolean to work correctly unless it went directly through both sides of the cube.

I didn't explain that well, i'll try to clear it up. Let's say i'm making a house, basic square shape. I can use a poly cube, that'd give me all sides of the house including floor and roof. Now let's say i want to cut a window shape out of the front face using a small window shaped cube, when i use boolean/difference, i get a sort of merge. Is it possible to cut out a shape from only one side of poly cube? I could use a seperate cube to create each side of the wall, i can boolean correctly this way but is see that would cause texturing probs. So basically, what's best, build all walls at once from a sngle cube or create each wall individually. Dumb question i know. If i had more time to play with Maya i might discover all this for myself.

Last edited by mrmacca; 16-10-2002 at 04:23 PM.

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# 10 16-10-2002 , 05:19 PM

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The best way is to use a seperate cube for each wall, but you can Boolean partway through a surface, but in this case I would create seperate walls and Boolean holes right through them.

Darkon

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# 11 16-10-2002 , 05:55 PM

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ok, that's what i thought. How do you avoid the problem when texturing if you create the walls seperately, how do you line all the walls up. I'll make a quick example, easier than trying to describe it
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# 12 16-10-2002 , 07:33 PM

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Think as if you were constructing the structure in real life. Make your backwall for instance, then have your sidewalls come from the edge of the backwall, don't overlap them. And if you want a quick and easy way, construct one wall, texture it, then duplicate it and swing it around as a sidewall user added image

Just remember what to do once you start cutting holes in them walls, the cutouts will look screwy, just follow the above steps and you'll be fine user added image

Outside edge meets outside edge on the walls if you understand my meaning. I used to work commercial carpentry user added image

Darkon

P.S. Actually I should have said edge to face, as in face of sidewall meets edge of backwall user added image

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# 13 16-10-2002 , 11:13 PM

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Sorry, i'm still confused about what you're saying. If none of the walls overlap then you're always going to have an end visible depending where the camera is, as in my picture above?

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# 14 16-10-2002 , 11:54 PM

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You can select the end as a seperate face and texture it seperately if you like, or if it's a house you will be boxing it in with corner modling, then do your horizontal siding.

You can also start with one wall, then extrude a face near the end to be a side wall if it is going to be showing as naked walls user added image

Darkon