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Modelling Help - ARGH!!


Ky Lane
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Gday guys!

 

A client has handed me a very complex model. Basically, its a box building, with these wavey cool things going up each face.

 

Now, the DXF Ive been supplied looks pretty crappy and unusable. You'll see from the attached file how its come, and what its meant to look like. The panel between the 2 posts is a mesh, and there are lights inside this mesh...

 

So anyway, Im going to ask the architect to supply me just the core splines for the posts, as they are easy to extrude into a tube, however, given 2 splines, how would I create the mesh between?

 

Any suggestions?! Im kinda lost, and they want this done in 24hrs!!

 

Any suggestions/help would be GREATLY appreciated :)

 

Thanks guys!!

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Any suggestions?! Im kinda lost, and they want this done in 24hrs!!

 

 

You can either use nurbs or surface modeling.

 

NURBS:

 

I created a series of wavy splines and attached them all together. Then I added a Normalize Spline modifier to get even spacing between all of my vertices. Finally, I converted the spline form to nurbs.

 

Within the nurbs toolset I used "Create Blend Surface." CBS will create the mesh between the splines. Just select a spline and drag your nurbs tooltip to the next spline you want to use to build your mesh. Pay attention to the direction of the mesh's normals, you might have to flip them as you create them. (use Flip End 1 & Flip End 2)

 

SURFACE:

 

I created a series of wavy splines, added a Normalize Spline modifier to each one, and then collapsed each to Editable Spline.

 

I selected one spline and added the following modifiers: Edit Spline, CrossSection, Surface.

 

Go to the spline sub-object level of the Edit Spline modifier and begin attaching the remaining splines sequentially (very important). Now go back up the stack to CrossSection and choose Smooth, and back up to surface and set the Patch Topology to suit your needs. (PT functions similiar to Meshsmooth. If you convert your modeled surface to Editable Poly, you will see the results of making PT excessively high.

 

The image below shows the Nurbs model with a red wireframe and the Surface model with a green wireframe.

 

Either approach will work, but I find the Surface approach somewhat more intuitive than Nurbs modeling.

 

This thread also discusses Surface modeling:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/29200-help-im-stuck.html

 

I would also encourage you to just look up Surface modeling with Max's built-in User Help.

 

Good luck and good modeling...

Edited by Claudio Branch
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