March Challenge - Environment - Chirone
 

Might give this a go.. might not finish as well...

I was thinking of a canyon where on the edges of the cliffs are houses and connecting between two cliffs is a web of bridges and wires.

why anyone would want to build a town inside a canyon I do not know...
maybe they like the fish in the river below, or maybe they just like how no one would bother them because no one would want to go walking in a strange place that looks like it's going to fall apart...

This place would be pretty high up in the sky so it would be windy and the houses would most likely only be made of wood
There would also be one tunnel leading in and out of the place.

also... what can you do with a curve that you drew on a live surface? you cant use it for the extrude along curve thing with polygons...

hmmmmmm reminds me of a game.....good luck mate

If you duplicate the curve (and delete hist), does it then let you do whatever with it?

Bullet, forgot to mention, this is based on the game Nier, there's a town called the Aerie which is like this

stwert, nope... there's no history on the curve to delete... and if i duplicate it the duplicate curve is also stuck on the surface with no history...

What about extract or something?

i think i tried doing extract but nothing happened. unless i did it wrong...

.. just curious what makes a surface "live" and what benefits does that have?

All i know is that if you make a surface live (edit > make surface live, i think, dont have maya atm) you can draw curves and paint fx on it.
I thought maybe I could draw a curve and then use it to do a extrude along curve...

so i made the surface live, drew the curve, made it not live, and then the curve didnt do anything other than give errors saying it can't be used for what i wanted to use it for...

minor update

LOL I dont know the game per se' but I must have seen it somewhere. Excuse me for being an idiot right now but WHAT were you trying to achieve with the curve and surface...sorry mate I am slow sometimes....looking at your images I 'assume' you were teying to do someting with the tunnel entrance (cone) or the bridge??

cheers bullet

I am curious about this little error thing you had going...

i dont think i ever explained what I was trying to do with the curve, i thought to make the curve and then since it followed the cliff perfectly i could then make the platforms to follow the curve of the mountain better.
but now that I think about it, I'm going to need a different approach since the platforms that the houses are on would be made of wooden planks

but i'd still like to know what you can do with a curve that's stuck on a surface...

I will have a go at it during lunchbreak...out of curiosity mate....see what happens

cheers bullet

Hey Chirone...I dont know what the hell Im doing BUT...I did a mountain surface...then drew a curve across it (for the planks) then created a poly rectangle and tried to extrude along it...it wouldnt do it...hmmm BUT I then turned the curve into a B-spline...then extruded the face and it worked...kinda...I got some funky stuff happening...Im at work so gotta go...so I got it to work sort of...sorry I couldnt help mate.

cheers bullet

Hey thanks bullet, your assistance is much appreciated!

thats quite an interesting result you got there.

I wonder now if I can animate along the curve, because if I can then that would be useful as well... I'll try animation for making the wooden platforms and bridges next time I get to work on this

For some reason the extrusion seems to close on itself...though physically there wasnt a closed curve hhmmmmm yeh try the animation see how it goes!

cheers bullet

Hmm, it's weird, I have no problems extruding along a curve that has been drawn on a live surface. I can also duplicate the curve, make the surface not live, then move that curve around and extrude along it, modify it etc. Not sure what the problem might be. Have you tried making the surface not live before trying your operations?

yeah, it's weird...
yeah i have made the surface not live before i did any of the other operations

i've attached an image, at the top is a live surface and what i get when i click on a curve
at the bottom is the non live surface and what i get when i click on a curve

as you can see the move manipulator is the same in both cases and i cannot lift the curve off the surface...

That happened to me too chirone....my manip would give me 3 points of direction??? wierd!

EDIT: well I dont know what the hell is going on but I just replicated stwerts..left the surface live and everything!! and it worked???? what the hell??

I tried again and left the surface live and it still didn't work...
I'm really confuzzled about this....

whilst I can't seem to get the curves used for extruding I can use them for animation paths, which means I can use the animation snap shot

So I used an animation snapshot to make the wooden planks on one of the bridges. Turned out fine, but there was something really odd going on at the end where extra objects started appearing.
I deleted them which is a hack solution... it doesn't solve the actual problem...
I don't know what happened, but there is a screen shot below of a simpler situation where a cylinder is used for animation snapshots along a curve that was made live along a surface. As you can see there are extra cylinders at the end that go between what should be evenly spaced cylinders.
I thought at first the animation wasn't linear and that's why there is an increase of cylinders at the end... the animation curve in the Graph Editor shows it's linear... I don't ever remember this happening in the past....

I tried making rope using the same technique but had a clover shaped curve rotate along a motion path.
I lofted between curves and started playing with the rotation amount and the increment in the snapshot. eventually it got to the point where the rope just cut off and stopped being made of geometry and started being made of invisible...



EDIT: interesting development. the surface curves have to be duplicated with Edit Curves > Duplicate Surface Curves.
now all that remains is the animation snapshot issue...
Also I wouldn't be sticking with geometry rope, I'll do it in a more efficient way, I just thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if I did it with animation snapshots and lofting

It might not only be animation tangents, but the spacing of CVs on the curve, you could try rebuilding curve to see if they space better. All around it's quite strange... it's a mayastery.

as far as i can tell the clustering of cvs doesn't affect the animation snapshot
I built a curve where a lot of cvs were bunched up so they weren't evenly spread and still got the same result if i change the snapshot increment to anything other than 1

Perhaps i'll just have to adjust the timing of the motion trail... although I don't think that's possible after the motion path has been made...

I think it is possible. Try this: Go to an intermediate frame and change the U value in the channel box (motionPath input node)... I'm just reading this out of a book, so hopefully it works.

Okay, when I try it, it needs something slightly different, Ctrl MMB drag to change the U value, and then key selected. Maybe. :D

hmm, yeah, you can re-key the U Value in the channel box, so that also means you can adjust the keys in the graph editor.

I think that's easier than fiddling with the stuff in the channel box :D

made a platform that sits on the cliff side
it's held up by cylindrical shaped poles of wood
and a shot of the cliff from further out because i extended the cliff to be bigger

Hey you could probably check out this script instead of the animation snapshot, it makes object placement much less of a headache.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/do...on/c/sppaint3d

I got the script working. It's really awesome! don't know how you found it..

I do wonder how you get a 'weird hierarchy' though...

So far it's pretty easy to use, had an issue of not putting the script in the right place but that's nothing bad.

thanks Genny!

updates later...

I love the detail you have already put into this. I agree it looks like it would be great in a video game setting. will there be anything at the base of the cliffs like a river or forest?

Gect: after playing around I think it's easier to play with animation snapshots and adjust when the end frame is. The script you linked me to is good but unless I'm using it wrong I can't paint in a straight line...
I could use it for maybe the inhabitant's earlier attempts at building along a cliff and things are all wonky though...

twisted: thanks. I'd post images of references of my main inspiration but I can't find any decent ones...
I was thinking about what was at the bottom of the cliffs... At first I thought maybe there's nothing there... it's just rock, or spiky rocks. Then I wondered why would anyone want to live here if there's nothing but certain death at the bottom... perhaps the inhabitants are exiles, perhaps they like living next to danger, perhaps they are hiding from something or someone, or perhaps there are minerals to be mined..
I think that it'll be water down there. After all... why would you build a place to live if you can't get water?
So there's a river at the bottom of the cliff.

update...
i have no idea what I want to do for the huts/houses on the platforms... i figure they should be made of wood... maybe fat wooden poles, maybe with the wood standing up or in a lockwood house style...
or maybe made of stones...

I dunno... if you were to build a house in a high up windy place on a platform made of wooden planks what would you make it out of? I figure it shouldn't be anything too heavy that it falls off the cliff, but it can't be too light that it blows away...

I just thought of something... if it rains the water would just sit on the platforms because it they are flat...

anyway, attached pictures, one with a concept hut/house, and one under the platform. The planks were there previously, but i never showed them until now. I think the platform is secure....

I can do all that for you Chirone...but...and I mean but...it will complicate it entirely and remove the fantasy of it all. If you want realism...you will have to rethink some of it if not all mate...obviously 'how did it get there' construction wise is your first hurdle..then yes drainage...access/egress etc etc...up to you mate. I can give you the input but you might shy away from it man?

cheers bullet

hey i'm totally up for suggestions and ideas ay!
if you give input and i decide I don't want to use it then I'm sure you wont mind.
a lot of pictures of huts i find don't look overly suitable for windy places, but i figure a circular nature to the building would reduce the chance of a building being blown down.

but if i did take your ideas then it would no doubt be "hayden-ified" (that's me, hayden)

LOL no worries hayden...I will try not to Anthonise it too much (thats me Anthony).

Ok first off you really do need (construction views mate) pivot points of weight bearers...ie every 10 to 20 metres SHOULD be either a column from top to bottom to take the weight of the planks..ie bridge...with me so far? if not I can bash out a 5 min example.

Shit..Jay I hope this is ok helpin out here?

second : for both water run off and basic 'lets not roll out the door over the cliff' the planks should have a lean towards the cliff face...so if you staggered out pissed and fell over..you would roll back towards the cliff face.

third: to dissapate the water run off...right hard up against the cliff would be a gutter (same as the one on your roof) this would take the water to the end of the row..either to a tank on every floor (for water) or to a resovoir at the bottom..which would then need a bucket/winch for everyone to share the water...or you could use a corkscrew gadget like they did in ancient Egypt.

This would of course mean that either every level, will have a slight fall from left to right (or vice versa) or the floor will be flat and the gutter itself will have the fall.

Have I still got you??

cheers bullet

you mean a pole that goes to the bottom of the cliff?

that makes sense, maybe ill have one of 'earlier construction' where the platform is sloping downwards away from the cliff and a broken fence where someone has stumbled out of...

ah yeah, thats one way to get water... i was (still probably will) have a pulley system where there's some rope with buckets attached to it that goes down to the water below to scoop some out. two ways to get water should be good :)

mostly! apart from the first part i get what you mean

thanks!

LOL yeh the first part....what I mean is like a suspension bridge....every now and then you would have a support pole/beam to take the weight of the decking...as it is it is completely unsupported...if I get time at work I will sketch it

cheers bullet

Good thing i'm not an architect...

That one doesnt do it for me Chirone.....the vertical logs dont bend in life...and they wouldnt get put together like you have it. I wouldnt make the logs on the big hut on the roof...they would have main ones...but the internal ones would be smaller...will try and do a quick example if it helps?

cheers bullet

EDIT: something akin to this maybe??

and I got bored...LOL

The logs aren't bent, there's the logs that make up the wall and then logs that were cut slanted and placed on top.
I'm not entirely sure of what the roof should be like. I suppose planks of wood would work, but I'm not sure of how it would connect at the corners... I could just make it out of cloth or something.... not sure how that would work in these conditions...

also, your building is way better than mine :P

LOL ok mate sorry...they just looked bent to me. Actually I was thinking of cloth too....LOL nah my house is just boredom mate...yours are fine. Something like the back one?? Sorry mate its early in the morning LOL took an hour too!!

cheers bullet

yeah I did another image search for wooden huts (it's good it works now, i bought a switch to hook up both my mac, pc, and laptop and somehow it magically solved the images issue i had) and found something pretty cool

http://gallery.hd.org/_exhibits/plac...tall-1-DHD.jpg

yeah i saw a lot of houses like the one you just built, but i don't think the square-ness would work, it'd catch the wind too well, so Im looking at building angled stuff.

Thats cool and petite...I like it man