A Simple building...how?
That Other Persona
Posts: 381
OK. I'm new at this and am trying to get a grasp of everything, but fog sets in from time to time!
I want to make a simple building (a shop with a large front window and a door to the side) of about the same quality as the House2 object.
- the walls need some thickness
- How do I cut holes in the walls for the windows?
- I want to make a frame around the window
- the window will be clear so the camera can look into the shop
I have tried extruding from a plane but controlling it was tough. Is there a simpler way?
Are there any tutorials on making buildings?
(I come from SketchUp and could do this easily there, but I need to make an animation of people shopping)
I tried making parts in SU and importing, but they come in in different sizes... would like to be able to do everything in Carrara.
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Comments
Maybe create a grid mesh, delete the verts for windows and doors and add thickness?
you can tessellate for more detail to delete openings.
I would model parts myself and join it all up in assembly room.
While I know exactly how to do this using the Architools plugin, I'm assuming you're asking how to do it in the regular Carrara vertex modeler :)
I'm really new to learning modeling in Carrara, so hopefully someone will chime in with better answers for you, but I'll venture a few guesses as to how I might go about it.
You could model the walls out of simple cubes, or you could take a cube and instead of flattening it to make a wall, expand it using the scaling tool so that the six walls of the cube actually become the roof, floor, and four walls. There is a command in the bottom of the 'model' menu to 'add thickness' so you can make your cube walls into 3 dimensional walls. For cutting windows you could easily pop in another cube, scale it the size of the window you want and put it in the wall in the place where you want the window to be, then do a boolean function to cut the hole (there is probably a better way, but that would be really easy).
As far s the windows being transparent, you could put in a flat plane where the window would be and simply texture it using the glass shader.
These are really rough and quick methods, and I'm just spitballing. I've used Architools (a plugin for Carrara that is for creating buildings easily) to do most of my buildings. Here's some example renders of buildings I created using Architools(and it's a lot of fun to play with too):
Thanks for the replies.
I'll try modeling first. I would like to figure out how to use Carrara instead of just playing around with the objects that came with it or that I bought online. I'm not much of an artist, though, so this stuff doesn't come easily to me.
Architools looks nice, too. Nice buildings you've made there!
I too came from sketchup, I love Carrara and it is a very different beast.
Many complex thing are easier to do but some things were easier in sketchup and it can take a little time to wrap your head around
the difference.
I would look at some of the houses and windows included with carrara for ideas.
If I were trying to do this, ( and I am not the best modeler in carrara) I would do each wall as a different object.
I would made each wall in the spline modeler.
Draw the rectangles for a wall, and draw rectangles where you want the windows, and use the compound gemoetry
to make it one unit with cut outs for doors and windows.
I'm sure there are many other ways to do this and others will chime in. Good Luck!
I'll bet Archtools is the best route though if you have much of this type of work. ( though I've never tried it myself)
8068
There are many ways to model a building. One simple method I know;
-In the vertex modeler, insert a Plane primitive.
-Shape the four sides into a rectangle(or wall).
-Use the Add Vertex tool with 'Constrain Position' and 'Auto Link' checked(right side of screen under Add Vertex) to draw the lines/edges on the wall.
-Then adjust/move the position of those lines/edges to form the window shape.
-Select and delete the main window polygon(s) after to form the window space or,...Duplicate/Copy the window polygons for later use.
-Add thickness to the wall.
Repeat as needed for other walls. Use the Scissor tool to delete unwanted edges or lines.
EDIT:...added info.
tbwoq, you just rocked my world. I never knew how to use the add vertex tool before now. I'm just learning modeling, so I'm a total newbie, but up til now if I wanted to draw a new line/edge I would have tesselate then carefully scissor out the edges and vertexes I didn't want, before moving things around. Thanks to your post I have again improved my workflow, and finally figured out the add vertex tool :) Thank you!
I agree with each post. There is more than 1 way to do this.
You can model each wall separately then gather in the assembly room. To do this, you can use any modeler. For example, you could use primitive boxes and cut out the door and window using booleans - but I wouldn't recommend that. Or, you can create each wall in the spline modeler by using the pen tool to create holes for the doors and windows. Or, you can start with a single box in the vertex modeling room and a new vertex where you want to cut out holes. Or, you can leave the box mesh intact, and simply define the window and door using shading domains. Or you can use the extrude tool to create recesses for the window and the door.
I'm not trying to be confusing, just pointing out that different people would choose a different method based on what tools they are already familiar with.
I've attached some screen shots of two vertex modeler methods. In the first, I've used the construct tool in the vertex modeler (grid, y plane) and set the U and V to 6 and 10. I then deleted squares for the windows and the doors. You could then add thickness. Do this for each wall and a roof, then put them together in the assembly room.
In the second, I started with a vertex box with subdivision set at 6. I then extruded a window and a door using the link polygon tool, and curved the roof by lifting a couple rows of the top. I then set new shader domains to the window, the door, and the roof.
Neither method took more than a few minutes. You could make them look much better with a few adjustments.
Hope this helps.
Jonstark. Glad it helped. :)
I've been working alot with Carrara lately and researching features in depth. I keep forgetting sometimes theres right side options for vertex modeling tools. Still haven't had any issues with creating anything I need in Carrara though. I was also going to link to the topics in the old forums about making windows. There was ALOT of info there, but forgot there has to be extra info to display the pictures in the old forums. I'm sure will make new ones here.
You can also highlight polygons that are in the same plane and hit the backspace button to dissolve. In my example above, I used dissolve to reduce the number of the polygons in the final building, even though I started with a 6x6 box.
Thanks alot everyone.
To get me going quickly, I downloaded ArchiTools.
I will try out everyone's modeling suggestions, too!
Primitives only. Here is a similar building using only primitives (not the vertex modeler). I used the primitive cubes, and the 3D Boolean tool under the edit tab in the assembly room.
Insomnia tonight, so I've been flooding the forum. Blushing.
So just to add to all of the above. Do not forget you can just bring in a 3d cube with lets say 12 segmentations. Then you can just use symmetry if you want to have windows even on a wall and go around and select your window polygons and delete where you want the windows and door openings to be.
The roof you can select whole rows of edges and starting with the center one just move up (translate) to get the roof line you have in mind.
after you have a simple shape you can start adding thinkness and details.
rich
Nice job Rich Gelles.
Now a method using shader only.
This one will be a simple 1x1 vertex box, with the doors and windows created entirely with the shader by uvmapping and using the 3D paint tool in the alpha channel. The nice thing about this method is that you can get a variety of shapes for the windows without complex modeling. I threw this togther by painting directly on the model in the assembly room, but you could get more exact results by saving the UV Map and editing in Photoshop.
Step 1 - insert vertex cube with 1x1 segmentation, but scaled to the size of your building.
Step 2 - in the vertex modeling room, uvmap the cube using all six possible squares.
Step 3 - in assembly room, choose the 3D paint tool, and choose to work on the alpha channel. You won't have a map yet, so create one and save the file as something larger than the default size. For this, I chose 512 by 512 and called it building alpha.tif. Make sure the default color is white. You will be painting black for the holes. Make sure the paint brush symbol is clicked in the alpha channel.
Step 4, under the tools tab in the 3D paint menu (upper right), make sure you have a sharp brush, no softness, and the color is set to black.
Step 5 - paint black where you want doors and windows.
edited for minor correction
And a nice thing about the alpha channel method, is that you can add complexity to the windows quickly.
Great thread. I've learned a lot.
8068
Me too. Had no idea the response would be this great.
Now to absorb it all...
You can also highlight polygons that are in the same plane and hit the backspace button to dissolve. In my example above, I used dissolve to reduce the number of the polygons in the final building, even though I started with a 6x6 box.
This " Dissolve" edit command is new and very interesting to me. Looked in the manual and all I could find was the dissolve modifier.
I tried whatI believe you suggested. I created a cube in the 8x8 cube in the vertex modeler.
I selected one face of the cube and selected dissolve. And Yes it became a single square poly. ( nice)
On the face that had the "window" punched out when I selected dissolve the entire face disappeared.
What am I doing wrong? or did I misunderstand?
Thanks
8068
This " Dissolve" edit command is new and very interesting to me. Looked in the manual and all I could find was the dissolve modifier.
I tried whatI believe you suggested. I created a cube in the 8x8 cube in the vertex modeler.
I selected one face of the cube and selected dissolve. And Yes it became a single square poly. ( nice)
On the face that had the "window" punched out when I selected dissolve the entire face disappeared.
What am I doing wrong? or did I misunderstand?
Thanks
8068
Yikes. I may have opened Pandora's Box. You probably are not doing anything wrong. As discussed above, you can also use the scissors tool point-by-point. However, when I have a big area that has many extra polygons, the highlight-backspace method of dissolving seems to save me time. But you are right, occasionally if I have the entire plane selected then the backspace will delete.
Remember, the undo function is our friend.
Interesting thread - just to add my favourite method -
1. In top view, draw the floor plan using a polyline - click at each point where there will be openings (windows, doors.
2. Copy,/paste -copy up to the bottom level of windows. Copy/paste, move copy to top level of windows/doors
3. Copy/paste and move copy to top of wall level.
4. Select the ruled surfaces tool and click on each polyline in turn.
5. Select the polys that make up the doors and windows, extract and hide them - this way you'll get perfectly fitting windows and doors for later
6. Add thickness and model roof from a grid.
7. Bring back the hidden doors and windows and model detail.
This is an easy and quick method of making complex building shapes with very little effort :)
ok a bit of fun using my method mostly
I tessellated the grid to get more squares
and some more
you can do a bit more drawing things with polylines and filling polygon and using bridge tool
then try creating shading domains and UV mapping for the results you want with textures
oh and another thing
your sketch up models
to make them work in Carrara try two things
One select each part by shading domain and triangulate polygon (important as selecting all will alter uv mapping)
two show normals and see if any flipped if so in modeling room select and cut
in assembly room insert new vertex object then in modeling room paste and reverse normals
(might need to resize)
Wow, great stuff, Roygee and Wendy.
As mentioned above, you could also use the spline modeler. There is more than 1 way to do it in spline as well. Same principles apply.
First, you could use the pen tool to outline your floor plan following the same logic as Roygee is using in the vertex modeling room. Then create new cross sections, and copy the floor plan, for the beginning or end of windows and doors.
Second, you could spline model each wall separately on its side, with cutouts for windows and doors. Then gather the walls in the assembly room.
Third (I think, but I haven't tried), you could spline a simple wall rectangle and use the alpha map to cut out doors and windows.
Anyone want to demonstrate using the metaball modeler?
Wow this thread is fantastic, we actually now have 2 different threads on Carrara modeling with all kinds of tips and tricks, I"m learning tons more. Diomede, you've opened my eyes, great stuff from Wendy and Roygee too, thanks to everyone as this is really helpful to someone like me who is just learning how to use the modeling tools, it seems there are a *lot* of different ways to do this.
Lol, now that would be an impressive way to do it! ;)
Lol, now that would be an impressive way to do it! ;)
Metaball?
It would work, but it is still beyond me. There are negative metaballs, so you could cut out doors and windows. But I just haven't used metaballs enough to get familiar with moving them with the mouse in all three dimensions. I only seem to move them side to side. Plus, I always inadvertently add another metaball when I'm trying to select. I'm sure it is just practice.
Now what would really be impressive would be to create a building using the plant modeler or the hair modeler!
I'm revisiting this thread as my learning continues and I have time to practice.
With many of the different methods in the vertex modeler, I discovered it's very important to select everything and crease edges; otherwise things come out a little bit messy.
Using the polyline method, after I create the external walls and I go to create thickness using a minor setting so that it goes in, the corners are actually squeezed a little bit. Is there any way to fix that easily?
Using the Architools plug-in, how can I make my own windows and doors and such? I tried making a couple today and they didn't work.
Edit: found them. Had failed to copy them front eh download folder... Slaps head...
To create a wall with windows and doors in the Spline Modeler, draw your wall shape with either a rectangle shape or the pen tool. Then do the same with your door openings and window openings. You can also copy and paste the shapes. With all the shapes located within the wall, you would go to the Arrange menu and Combine as Compound to create the openings.
Starting in this post in the Movie Night Challenge WIP thread I give a mini-tutorial on how to create a film spool using compound shapes. The same principal applies to walls or many other applications.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/P30/#476706
Edit to add: Whoops! I see this is a revived thread. Oh well, I did the work already! ;-)