wall styles?

[denham]

Is there a way to make 'wall styles', to specify reveals, material changes, cornices, etc (before you start building walls, like in REVIT) or will I have to code in maxscript?

[Brian Smith]

One word...'lofts'. My personal favorite feature in Max and one that I use to do most walls. If you ask people on CGA how they do walls, it will primarily be one of two methods, through lofts or box modeling (Edit Polys). Might want to read these threads.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/17579-concrete-reveal-lines.html?highlight=loft

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/17245-curve-walls-max.html?highlight=loft

[denham]

But, can you use lofts to make 1 wall type starting w/ bottom up (split face cmu, stuco, smooth face cmu, stuco, smoth face cmu, & stuco, w/ horizontal reveals or sweeps? You would have to loft each of these sections? right?

 

I think I might be better off coding a maxscript program, that allows me to customize an entire wall, before I start drawing? is this possible?

[Brian Smith]

You can absolutely do it with lofts. Set a different Material ID to each spline section of the shape you want to loft. Do this with the Edit Spline modifier. Then add a Multi/SubObject Material. I prefer to break the loft up into different materials once it's made so I can apply different materials to each section and not have to worry about working with Map Channels (a necessity if using different UVW Map modifiers for different sub materials applied to a single object). Unless you are highly proficient at writing scripts, I recommend not spending the time. It's to easy to do what you want.

 

Hope that helps.

[ITryMyBest]

my question doesn't deal with the wall styles but the opening in the walls (doors, windows, and such) i understand applying the mat ids to the individual splines and lofting, but what method is used to add doors and windows. i mean in the end, does it still come down to moving vertices. also if you have a window that needs to get wider for the final rendering, and you have sixty of these all over the project, are they (the windows or doors) instances of each other that you have to then adjust the wall opening for or attached tot he final mesh that then needs to be modified and possibly re-uvw mapped.

 

i guess my main question is what happens when you have to change the model

 

i should probably start a new thread with this

[Brian Smith]

Calvin,

There are two main ways that users create door/window openings - Booleans and Edit Poly (box modeling). Personally, I prefer Booleans for several reasons, one of which includes the question you asked about having to update numerous copies of the same door/window type. With Booleans, you simply create a volume to subtract from the wall object (which I like to create with lofts), and colocate the volume with the doors and windows. If you create instances of each type and save a copy of the file at the point before you perform the boolean operation, you can update all the door/window types by changing one instance of each.

[denham]

Can you apply seperate UVW maps to the different materials? Because I thought you could only apply a UVW map to 1 object. If I need to adjust the brick line on a lower portion of a wall, but do not want to adjust other areas of the wall?

 

Also what about reveals or score lines? How do you usually create these. Currently I am creating a line, giving it a renderable thickness, making it square, and angling it to 45 degrees, then doing a boolean on it.

 

I understand you can create your horizontal reveals when you loft, but for the vertical ones, is there a better way? Is there a way you can select face of a wall/box, and create an impression(reveal) along the entire surface, w/o using lines, messing w/ veritce's & booleans?

[ITryMyBest]

you can apply multiple uvw's to a single object. in the diffuse slot where you select your map, there is a box marked 'map channel' the default is set to one. if you look at the 'uvw map' modifier there is a map channel spinner also. using this knowledge, if you have a single object with brick, stone, and stucco. you can give each map its own map channel, then apply multiple 'uvw map' modifiers and synchronize the map channel with the uvw modifier. i typically rename the uvw modifier to something like 'uvw brick', 'uvw stone', etc when doing this so i know which is which. hope this helps.

 

if anyone knows a better way please let me know.

[Brian Smith]

Calvin,

Here's a few pages that talk about Map Channels. Hope it helps.