concrete reveal lines

[mlgraham]

We do a lot of concrete buildings. Is there a way to get some reveal lines on the face without doing a boolean and slicing them out? Applying a map to the concrete walls doesn't really work either. Maybe the boolean is the only way. It is so slow though. Thanks

[Sawyer]

Model it and extrude.

[brianzajac]

What is slow - having to manually go through and make it work, to actually perform the boolean, or the render process? If you have horizontal reveal lines, it's almost zero extra work when you use lofts, which is my favorite way of making walls. The attached image shows reveals that were built into the loft profile and it only took a few seconds. If they are vertical then that's a different story but booleans can still do the job easy enough. As they say though, the devil's in the details.

[mlgraham]

I agree the details are critical. I guess the boolean is my best bet. I'll just work on perfecting that for now. Thanks for the reply man.

[Brian Smith]

Two things to definitely keep in mind when doing booleans on walls (if you didn't already know), is you can usually only get away with doing one boolean operation on a loft without running into problems like missing faces. So I suggest attaching all the objects together that will be subtracted from the walls (to include the reveals) and performing the boolean once. Also, you may need to use the Subdivide modifier to keep the face from becomming too elongated. Long and skinny faces often produce poor results.

[Sawyer]

I am just wondering why wouldnt you model them?

[imgumbydammit]

Which application are you using ..did I miss that ?? Sounds like max but like was already said..model them in ?? A slice tool applied in appropriate numbers to add verts and push the appropriate surface/vert inwards for the depression....3 verts would be enough for a simple 3 sided typical tilt-up reveal just push the center vert in 5/8" or so for effect .I believe booleans might leave a mess of your mesh and depending on renderer affect that as well ??

HTH

 

sTeve

[AJLynn]

I like doing this sort of thing with displacement - depends on what software and renderer you're using, but the easiest way is to put tiles in the displacement slot if your material type has one.

[Tim Nelson]

If from far enough away, you could always just place black planes over the concrete where the joints should be and they will look just as if you had actually modeled the joints. Cheating, yes. But effective.

[joseph alexander]

at my office we would study all the variations of joint lines, using renderable lines. this gives you the ability to change the thickness of your joints quickly. you can render in a seperate pass too for more control.

 

it's also nice because you can use the lines from an elevation drawing...

 

-joe

[kippu]

why not just use tiles material... faster easier ...

[Tim Nelson]

at my office we would study all the variations of joint lines, using renderable lines. this gives you the ability to change the thickness of your joints quickly. you can render in a seperate pass too for more control.

it's also nice because you can use the lines from an elevation drawing...

-joe

Yes I think that is probably a better idea. In fact I just used that on my last interior project that had seams in some metal joints and it works great. It makes it really easy to control joint thickness.

[brianzajac]

In our office, we have tried each of these methods on numerous occassions and while they each have advantages, we still like booleans the best and firmly believe it is the fastest way. This is especially true when the reveal lines are horizontal because it takes literally just a few seconds to build them into the lofts. There really is no disadvantage to booleans when they are done properly. We never have issues with them anymore and for the very small amount of additional faces, it doesn't make sense for us not to physically model them - no imperceivable increase in render time. Putting them in with materials or renderable lines would limit us from being able to get to close in view down the road. Just our opinion:D

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

If from far enough away, you could always just place black planes over the concrete where the joints should be and they will look just as if you had actually modeled the joints. Cheating, yes. But effective.

 

the majority of time i model them, but i like using this method occasionally. even when modeled, there is often to much light bouncing back and forth between the faces, causing them to be brighter than i want. using the a plane with transparency, i can control the look of the control joint.

[joseph alexander]

I think face and line modeling for big projects is really beautiful because you can see the logic in the geometry and your models are extremely efficient. The Boolean solid modeling approach leaves you with inaccurate models if you're client throws a lot of changes at you.

 

-joe

[Brian Smith]

Possibly, but I've never worked on a project where just the reveals get changed and if the changes are significant enough to effect your ability to modify the reveals efficiently, it's highly likely that the reveals are going to be the least of your concern.

[Justin Hunt]

How about this

 

1) on the 2D spline used to trace the wall, add extra verts where the joints will be

2)Extrude as normal

3)add a EDIT POLY modifyer

4)Grab the faces that boarder the joints and insert by half the joint width and extrude by the joint depth

5)Any time the joint placement changes, just move the verts on the spline.

 

or

 

instead of a spline and extude , use a plane with the relevant amount of segemnts, add a Edit poly mod, move the segments for the joints placment , add another edit poly mod for the face insert and extrude. Any time the joints need changing just ammend the first Edit poly mod.

 

If you are really clever, record this as a script and rerun it whenever you need. Joints in an instant.

 

JHV