build buildings tutorial

[eptigo]

i wanted to build buildings, and rooms, and hallways and stuff like that

 

now for the avid user, this is probably a simple thing to do.

but for an eternal noob like me, its kinda awkward

 

i dont know a good method of doing things like this.

 

can someone point me in the direction of some tutorials on subjects like this

i was hoping to build city scapes and building interiors, and things like that

[MattWBradbury]

Try building your floor plan first. Then after you've got a good looking room from a design point of view, you can at the verticle elements of your rooms.

 

As for city scapes, sketch out a simple layout for your city. Start by adding some simple roads, and then add buildings.

[eptigo]

thing is, im uncertain what the final layout for my city scapes going to be. i wanted to put something together for a comic right, and i just needed certain scenes for certain parts of the comic know what i mean. just specific settings

 

with that in mind i probably dont need a whole city right?

[eptigo]

well what if i want to add doors or windows to the thing, is there a fast and efficient method of doing something like that that i may be missing?

[R Reynolds]

There are models of buildings in the Data/Models/Buildings directory on the CD. You may find it useful to open these and inspect how they're assembled.

[eptigo]

walls arent always plain and flat, (obviously) they tend to have doors, and windows, and various other accessories

 

if i initially build up my wall(s) with some type of simple grid, would that be a good way of preparing my walls for recieving an object (such as a door, or window)

this way i mearly edit piece of the grid of the wall to leave a gap for the foreign object

[Dhar]

First things first.

 

Do you have a story? Why do you need buildings? Why do you need city scapes? And will you be doing a fly through from space into a bedroom in one single scene?

 

It is hard to give you a straight answer without asking more questions about what it is you wish to achieve. City scape, a street corner with buildngs and a builing interior are normally separate models. Buildings in a city scape will not need as much detail as buildings in a street corner scene. A building does not need to have a fully detailed room inside it. So, each scene will have its own separate model.

 

As for a window in a wall, there are a couple of ways of doing that but, again, it depends on your scene. There is the boolean cut method and then there is the actual modeling skill required to build a wall around a window (which isn't that difficult). You basically build blocks and put them next to each other

[Fuchur]

The best thing is, to make a grid with a thoughtful density... that means, think about what you need at first, than build it... for example: To make a hole (which is all you will need to make a door or a window) you need at least a 5-point-hole.

 

That means, you should make a wall like in the attachment...

If you need the wall to have more holes (for example 2 windows above eachother) you will need more CPs...

 

And it can be done with dead-end-splines too... You may wonder why other users here ask you questions... that is, because if you dont need the windows in detailshots, you could use CookieCut-Maps (which are maps which will make "holes" into the geometry), Bump-Maps, Boolean Cutters or modeling it or or or...

 

If you really need to open a window interact with it or you can get quite close to it, you should model it... if that isnt necessary you will have it much easier by using maps...

 

*Fuchur*

 

PS: The second spline (vertical) from the right is actually not necessary...

[phatso]

More on "ask yourself what you're using this for"... for buildings that aren't close up or building fronts that aren't seen in perspective, if you're not going to actually open windows and doors - just make a box and put a decal on it. There are lots of places you can download photos of building fronts.

 

Suppose you've got six houses on a street and you want a character to open the door to one of them and walk in. There's no reason to model the other five closely, unless you're doing photorealistic.

 

Taking 30 seconds to ask yourself, "Do I really need to do this?" is always worthwhile.

[Eric2575]

Don't forget booleans! You can make a really simple low density building without worrying about where the doors or windows go by using booleans to cut a hole anywhere you want. After you make the hole, just make a frame for it to hide the cut. Dhar is right, though, why do all of this when you could probably just do parts of what you are going to need/shoot and save a lot of time. Look at Hollywood, they rarely make a whole city (make that never), because no one will ever get to see it. The story is where the attention is, not the city - unless you are making a documentary of a city. Blah, blah, blah...

[eptigo]

ok, ya all valid points

 

some buildings im going to be going into, but some im not

 

for the ones that i am going into

 

how do u use boolean?

is there a tutorial for it somewhere?

[Fuchur]

I wouldnt use them... Booleans in A:M are not affecting the model but only the rendering... that can be a problem...

 

Booleans in A:M are made in a model where a group for example has a bone. The bone can be set to "boolean" and that will cut whatever hits the boolean-group.

 

The cool thing about them: They can easily be animated and there are no slicing-problems like in 3dsmax, where the model can be damaged by booleans which are too complex... the bad thing: you dont really see what it will look like without final-rendering and you will not be able to, for example give the whole a real window while you are in the same model. So you need to make it in the chereo wie 2 different models...

 

*Fuchur*