how to create roof

[cakewalkr7]

Hi everyone. I've never modeled the outside of a building before and so I'm having trouble figuring out how to model this roof. I found some floor plans online that I wanted to try and create. Unfortunately there wasn't much as far as elevation so I have to work off of an angle picture of the front and one elevation of the rear.

 

I took a plane in max and turned on angle snap and then rotated it until it matched the pitch of the roof. I don't know if there's an easier way to figure out the pitch from an image. And then, knowing that the 2nd floor is 8' ceilings, at least from the outside, it looks like the roof would be about 10 ft at the tallest point from the 2nd floor ceiling. But, beyond that I have no ideas about how to model it. Can anyone offer any tips? Thanks.

[Dave Buckley]

one tip i'd give you is use a different package for modelling houses from existing plans, best bet is possibly revit architecture 2008, that way you'd draw your plans whilst revit automatically creates the 3d model for you depending on heights you specify for your walls etc, then you can simply click the roof button in revit and tailor it how you like. Then export the model to max and voila, you can then render and light. One of the improvements in max 2008 is its compatability with revit architecture

[robkar97]

I would create it using an "editable poly". Begin by doing a simple box - and take a while to figure out how many segments to add (width, height, depth). Then right click the box and select "convert to editable poly".

 

An editable poly has very nice modeling options not available with an editable mesh - although otherwise the geometry is very similar.

 

Right click the move button and use relative offsets to position the vertices in 3d space.

 

Hope this helps

Robert

[sick73]

i start out by placing my reference pic in max on the top view, then, start with a plane with 1x1 segments then turn it into editable poly and start extruding edges and welding vertices, tweaking and placing verts where they should go. when u have all your geometry the way you want it, you can add height to your roof by changing to the perspective view and ading z value to the desired vertices. when u finish that, you extrude all the polys to give thickness to your plane. u can also add a shell modifier.

more or less the way i work with roofs.

cheers.

[Mechadus]

I like to model complex roofs like that by using a bunch of boxes... I collapse to an edit poly and modify each box to fit a small part of the roof - I keep doing this till I have the entire roof built out of tons of individual boxes. Then I attach them all together into a mesh, and use the slice plane to cut where needed, and eventually weld everything back together. Im sure its kinda the 'special ed' version of how to model it, but it allows a lot of flexibility when trying to block the object out, as opposed to trying to build the entire roof from a single mesh from the start

 

-Nick

[Tedrux]

GET YOURSELF A COPY OF AUTOCAD ARCHITECTURE (ADT) as quick as you can and you will see how easy it is to knock up an automatic roof from a building outline.

Do it now, even just for a trial then simply import the dwg into max...

Ted

[Tedrux]

In fact, email me a polyline / spline of the outline and I will throw it together in about 30 seconds...

Ted

[Trevor Tizard]

In fact, email me a polyline / spline of the outline and I will throw it together in about 30 seconds...

Ted

 

I'd like to think that after a year he'd got the roof done.

[Brian Smith]

that's funny

[Dave Buckley]

I'd like to think that after a year he'd got the roof done.

 

and if not he definately won't be working there anymore, at least not as an arch viz artist anyway

[Dave Buckley]

and FWIW http://www.batzal.com/index.php