Creating water around complex objects using geometry? Boolean failing.

[Kirsten Zirngibl]

Hi, a little stuck here.

 

I'm working to visualize a seastead concept which involves floating architectural "bowls" within the ocean. Some of these have lower levels of water within them. I want the ocean to be volumetric if possible, since the viewer will be able to see through the walls of some of the bowls into it.

 

(Note that the bowls are not completely rounded as showed below, so remodeling everything is NOT desirable.)

 

 

I thought this would be easy. Simply model the bowls with some thickness to them, then boolean subtract the bowls from a giant "ocean box", then delete the inside-of-bowl water part.... well, not working out as planned.

 

Using regular "boolean subtract" sort of works for the first shape, but as soon as I try to subtract other shapes from THAT one, the geometry goes haywire, and instead of getting bowl-shaped indentations, I get no indentation at all.

Proboolean is even worse. I simply get a dialog box error saying "invalid boolean" when I try to pick Operand B. I keep hearing that booleans are bad, that they're sloppy, nobody should use them, etc... but what are my alternatives in this situation?

 

 

Should I invest time into learning fluids in Max? Because this is a still water scene AND not an animation, I'd assumed it would be unnecessary.

How else would I go about "filling in the cracks" between structures?

 

 

Thanks.

Edited September 14, 2015 by kirstenzirngibl

[tonybishop]

You can bridge the cracks in between the structures? also makes you when you booleans/proboolean the objects are intersecting with the bowl instead of deleting the box why not just deattach it or use the slice tool to slice a bottom of an object

 

 

The Slice modifier lets you create a cutting plane that slices through a mesh, creating new vertices, edges and faces based on the location of the slice plane gizmo. The vertices can either refine or split the mesh according to the selected options.

 

 

The Slice modifier slices through groups, selected objects or sub-object selections of faces.

Edited September 14, 2015 by tonybishop

[Kirsten Zirngibl]

You can bridge the cracks in between the structures?

Well I need to model it so that the water begins where the structures end. In other words, simply bridging them would not be the same shape as just the water's shape, because it would overlap where the glass is. I'm afraid that would create problems with the render. Sorry if I'm not understanding you right.

Edit: I think you mean just bridging the outer part of the objects and deleting the inner. That makes more sense.

 

also makes you when you bootleans the objects are intersecting with the bowl instead of deleting the box why not just deattach it or use the slice tool to slice a hot in an object

Not sure what you mean here. By "deleting the box" I meant that the resulting subtract of that bowl would create the part of the box inside it, and the part outside it. I had planed to go into "elements" mode to select that inner element and delete it, or use the slice modifier to make it lower for the bowls with water at the bottom.

I don't know what you mean by "slice a hot" - you mean "slice a hole?"

 

 

 

 

The Slice modifier lets you create a cutting plane that slices through a mesh, creating new vertices, edges and faces based on the location of the slice plane gizmo. The vertices can either refine or split the mesh according to the selected options.

OK I think I know what you mean now. You're saying to bridge the edges of the bowls so that they are a solid object, making that the "water," then use slice to reduce the elevation of said water so it's just below the bowls. I still have a reservation about it (as I said above) but just making sure I understand you. Also, because they are fairly complex objects, I don't think I can easily bridge them. Their vertices don't correspond 1 to 1, and I've failed on simpler ones. Could still give it a go, though...

 

 

The Slice modifier slices through groups, selected objects or sub-object selections of faces. I

Group slice is indeed very useful! Used it for a cutaway recently.

EDIT: Re-read that last part "sub-object selections of faces." OK, hmmm... so actually I don't think it could do this, I should experiment a bit.

Edited September 14, 2015 by kirstenzirngibl

[tonybishop]

what i thought you meant is you deleted the top and bottom face of your giant ocean box, you could of just deattach them so you can get to holes in your ocean box,

[Kirsten Zirngibl]

I see, thanks for your input!

 

Here's a follow-up: I thought that Max's boolean function might be getting confused by the fact that there was an inside and outside to the bowls, so I deleted one's thickness and applied a symmetry modifier, effectively making it more like a sphere (added a ceiling) so that it was a "solid" object with no actual walls. Still no dice, BUT... I'd originally assumed that the mesh density of the bowls was screwing up the boolean attempts, since I wasn't getting specific mesh error messages. Ended up running a STL check and found a few errors along some of the bowl seams. Welding all the vertices didn't seem to help, yet recreating the bowl-spheres (less complexity, same poly count) from scratch DID work with Proboolean! There must have been some other discrepancy within them unfound by STL check.

 

The next step was simply to apply the slice modifier to them to trim them from spheres back down to bowls, and THEN apply the shell modifier to give them their internal thickness as the final step.

 

Sucks I have a some remodeling to do, but my faith in that tool is at least partially restored. It's not limited by resources/inefficient coding as I'd thought, just really finicky about the integrity of the mesh.

Edited September 15, 2015 by kirstenzirngibl

[Corey Beaulieu]

I would try making your bowl geometry and then using the Section tool at the height you will want the water. After that you will have a shape at the point you will want your water.

 

For the higher water, delete the portion of the shape (inside or out) that you don't want and then draw a rectangle that is much larger than your camera view. Align this with the shape at the proper height and then attach the Bowel shape to it. When you add an Edit Poly modifier, there will be a hole where you need it.

 

For the lower water just delete the portion of the shape you don't need and then add an edit poly. It should create the water line on its own.

 

You can then simply use a material with a bit of fog in it to generate a more substantial water texture.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Not really sure what you are trying to archive, but from what I understand I would say, first, do not mix complex geometries with Boolean, Max always freak out. if you think you can't poly model your water, try to make a simpler version of your "bowls" and use those to create your boolean then put the real bowl geometry in place.

Having said that, to get volumetric water effect; it is always better to use fog effect on the shader.

In your case if you are over the water, looking down to one bowl and this one is translucent and shows water behind or other translucent bowl I will just made a plane, for water, cut the circle to place the bowl on it, and add fog to the water shader. that should give you a similar effect of light decay that water has. You could place omni lights under to give some light accents if need it too.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I was going to write an idea but Corey already wrote it. If TWO people think so, it must be a good idea.

[SgWRX]

here's what i did, created the red box, created the bowls, copied them and deleted inside polys and rim. then capped the top. then boolean'd those into the box. next i brought back the original bowls and did an edge loop at the level i wanted the water, made those a shape, then did an edit poly.

 

now, the problem i ran into was that i had to go into the top viewport, create another shape (like rectangle or circle), convert to edit spline, with that selected attached the other two shapes created from the edge loops, then delete that 3rd shape (at the spline sub-object level). reason i had to do this was the the edit poly wasn't work properly (nor would extrude) because the splines created from the edge loops had a different orientation.

 

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Edited September 23, 2015 by SgWRX