Proper modeling practices for rooms (interior)

[wannabeartist]

Hi there!

 

I'm curious, how do you model your rooms?

 

It's simple enough to use the AEC Walls or just about any method to model a box for a room, but do you just settle for that, or do you further refine things like the interior corners? What about recesses for doors and windows? I mean, they never really sharp in real life, right?

 

I come from a different modeling application and I'm tempted to add edge loops around corners like these and then subdivide the geometry to get just a hint of roundness there, but is this the way you are "supposed to" do it in Max?

 

Thanks!

[CJI]

If you use Mental Ray there is a handy llittle box you ca "round corners" and its inder the special effects tab in the A&D shader so you can apply it on a per material basis. Remeber this is just a shader so if you want to do it to the geometry just select your edges and chamfer them. Job Done. Saves on the subdivisions when you don't really need them. I used to have the same issue when i first used Max.

[wannabeartist]

Thanks Curtis!

 

I am using mental ray and I actually remember reading about the round corners option for A&D - I should give it a try, so far I have just been doing it the "hard way" with those edge loops and subdivisions.

 

However, if you do need to subdivide an object, are there any rules for choosing the method for that?

 

I mean there seems to be quite a bit of alternatives in Max. You've got your "Use NURMS Subdivision" -option, you can apply Meshsmooth, HSDS and whatnot. Is any of these methods considered the best way to do that?

[CJI]

No probblem.

 

As Far as i know there isn't a prefered way, but a whatever works way.

 

If all my editing is done and its just a case of smoothing it i use turbosmooth as its applied to the whole object but is awkward going back and forward to make edits as you have to turn it off and on all the time or go back in the stack.

 

Meshsmooth is similar to turbo smooth but you can still edit at the vertex and edge level. Don't really use it so can't say much about it.

 

HSDS is subdivision surface moddeling so if you want particular polygons subdivided and smothed this a way of doing it. Similar to maya SubDs.

 

Nurms in the editable poly list is what i use most often for complex smoothed geometry as you can edit, extrude etc while smoothed and it displays the isoline cage of the orginal (unsmoothed) geometry so you can keep an eye on the actual shape. I find Nurms much like C4Ds Nurbs stack. When done either convert to editable poly with the nurms checked or turn nurms off and add a turbosmooth as above.

 

I might have missed something but thats about it. Hope that helps. Out of curiosity which program you moving from?

[Dave Buckley]

FWIW there is a way of enabling the round corners for all material types not just A&D, i can't remember the link for it off the top of my head but it's on either Jeff Patton's blog or Master Zap's blog. One of the two, have a route around, i'm sure you'll find lots of other interesting information that way

[wannabeartist]

Thanks for the explanation, Curtis!

 

I'm coming from XSI, or Softimage as it's now renamed by Autodesk.

 

I haven't really given it up, though. I love it's modeling tools and if I would have to commit to a job right now, I would still go with XSI as I just don't have enough experience in Max yet - it's quite a task actually, learning all the tools again. Fortunately, at least mental ray works the same way in both apps

 

Thanks, Dave!

 

I will have to take a closer look at Jeff's blog. I'm actually just currently watching his tutorial videos at Gnomon. I've been reading Master Zap's blog before and learned a lot that way - as it's not Max specific, I've been able to use his tips with XSI as well.

[Dave Buckley]

you may wanna check out the post on here about the 3ds max webinar that is being held in half an hour, not sure if you can still register??

 

anyway it's about the next release of max, and there was a post here that hinted max may be gearing towards an xsi interface . again hunt it out or if i find it i'll add the link to the thread

[Dave Buckley]

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/39327-register-learn-about-future-3ds-max.html

[wannabeartist]

Thanks!

 

I think I managed to register in time...