Annoying Cornice modeling

[CJI]

Ok, Im trying to think of the best way to model this cornice. Im fine on the flat walls but i can't seem to get nicely on the cylindrical wall. modelling complex objects, i can do those. Simple cornice and im stumped. lol. I thought a loft around a path would come closest using different profiles but i am unsure on exactly how this would work.

 

Any Ideas?

[CJI]

ok the only other way i can think of is to model it straight and use the bend modifier. I know this will work but its a pain to get the right circumfrence. Let me know if you have any better ideas.

[caffa]

You can do a flat cornice, and bend it (bend modifier)

[3dway]

I haven't been in max in a long time, but this looks like a boolean operation to me.

 

How does Max handle booleans these days?

 

A combination of lofts and boolean subtractions would get you what you want. Given the curves, the mesh may be messy.

 

I got out of Max around the time the power boolean plug in was starting to be offered by a third party.

 

**didn't see that other post. bending an extruded shape seems like a good idea.**

[CJI]

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah bend modifier will work, i was just wondering if there would be a better way of doing it, preferably using a spline curve to set it out accuratly but maybe thats asking too much lol. I dont have the plans or anything, in the middle of working out circumfrence and the amount of peaks and troughs so i can get a semblence of accuracy with it.

[erickdt]

I'd make a cylinder with the correct radius and enough segments on the top so as to more or less approximate where the arches and dentals of your cornice will, detatch 180 degrees of the top of the arc, convert to poly and model it from there with a series of outline inset and chamfer modifications.

 

E

[tommyjj]

or build one section of curved cornicing and then array it to make the semicircular shape

[CJI]

Im trying the bend method at the moment and i was wondering how i could add more vertices to the spline shape. Normalize spline does this but also rounds the corners like a bevel. Want to keep it sharp. I will see if i chamfer them a little first if that makes a difference?

 

I just want to add more vertices per segment if you no what i mean.

[CJI]

ok that didn't work. all sorts of artefacts on the front and back faces. Think i will try the polymodel method. More comfortable territory there.

[CJI]

For those interested i found a method that worked very nicely for the cornicing. And as an added bonus is reasonably non-destructive as well, which is always good. Maybe not in this instance but certainly for future use. Thanks for all the suggestions, it ended up a mish mash between polymodelling and Spline/path modelling, as is always the case.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I had good luck with using splines to set up one unit to keep the curve pretty, then extruded it, poly-modelled the dentil. Delete the end faces, repeat in a line and weld. Then bend 180 degrees.

 

I'm confused by the apparent difficulty in determining the size. pi * diameter; manipulate as required. I admit to not actually trying it... ;-).

 

If it were a fancy enough shape, I might have used AutoCAD with arcs, polar array and booleans.

 

You can add verts to a spline with "refine". I like to do so with midpoint snap on.

 

There were enough segments of arc here that I didn't worry that each unit was linear. How closer are we getting to it, anyway? Note though there is some facetting showing above the dentils. Probably could have stood add another loop in the middle of the unit before repeating.

[CJI]

Thanks for the method.

 

Yeah i used pi x d to get the circumfrence it was more a problem with the fact that i didn't have any drawings for the building.

 

I did the cornice by drawing the spline path to retain nice smooth shapes while keeping nice geometry. Pulled the top polygons up and aligned the verts to create a flat surface (could also use slice to achieve this). then polymodeled any details and added some more edge loops so that when i added the bend modifier it would retain a smooth cylindrical shape.

 

Yeah i could have added verts manually using refine but that would have taken ages across the whole path. I was looking for something more along the lines of "normalize Spline" modifier that adds verts uniformly along the segments or something like the rebuild spline function in maya. But the problem with this method is that it distorts the shape to average the verts to achieve more of them so it wasn't quite what i was looking for. Refine would have done it but would take too long.

 

All in all i think im happy with it now. Thanks for all the suggestions. Maybe it helped someone else along the way.

[Stephen Thomas]

Sorry to be a party pooper but looking at the photo you posted I don't think you've quite got the details correct. Should be more like this I think (excuse the crude sketch!).

[CJI]

You are spot on as ever. This mishap was in this case intentional as its only a simplistic style model for a basic shadow study for the adjacent building. The extra details are not neccesary and would most likely go un appreciated in this model. Not waisting my time on those details as much as i would love too. Thanks for noticing though lol.

[Stephen Thomas]

You are spot on as ever. This mishap was in this case intentional as its only a simplistic style model for a basic shadow study for the adjacent building. The extra details are not neccesary and would most likely go un appreciated in this model. Not waisting my time on those details as much as i would love too. Thanks for noticing though lol.

Ah, no worries!

[CJI]

Checked out your photos just briefly. They are really good, especially the winter walkies and kingston bridge pano. im just trying to pick up photography from where i left off a couple of years back at uni. Wanted to do it properly, still faffing a bit at the moment. Need a tripod so i can get some night shots as, like yourself i would imagine, im stuck in perpetual night when not working!