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Those are really good tuts - pretty much the method I use in Hexagon :)
One thing struck me that maybe Hex and Carrara are more efficient at than Blender - or perhaps the author of the tut doesn't know this - is the lining up of points. He jumps through some painful loops, where it is so simple in Hex and Carrara :)
@Cris: Most of the things I make are done by following tutorials, another persons' work. This is the first time I've tried creating something on my own, so it's a learning process finding out what works and what doesn't. I created the first floor shape by using Facets, which I'm finding aren't the best for this type of work. I got the basic first floor shape created, but then have to extrude a thin line, and add thickness to simulate wall thickness. Extruding the lines didn't pose a problem but adding thickness does. I've tried several of the commands available in Hexagon but none worked well. I ended up extruding the wall faces, which gave the desired thickness but created a cavity on the opposite side. The only way I found to close this cavity was to select edges then use bridge. This is not an efficient way to work because it creates unwanted geometry, which I hope I'll be able to remove--fingers crossed. Cris, I do the same as you, search for tutorials which might apply to what I want to do. After seeing those tutorials I'll no longer limit my search to only Hexagon tutorials.
@Roygee: I know about using Snap/Align to align, I used it to align the walls with the floor--providing I select the right spots. :lol: Can you explain in more detail what part of that tutorial he could have used the Hexagon way of lining points? I could use all the information I can get. One thing I know I'd do differently, following his method, is to complete the entire parameter of the building before creating the inside walls. He created extrusion points, so they didn't have to be done at the same time as the parameter walls; this would insure no walls were missed. Yet by creating these extrusion points he's creating unwanted geometry. He says it'd be more work going back to create those extrusion points, but I gave it a try and adding points to create those extrusion areas doesn't take very long. Plus, no additional unwanted geometry is created. And as I've learned using Wings 3D, it's best not to create excess geometry.
Aligning the points to get the edges straight. Select all the verts - or edges - along one side and make the size 0 on one of the axes (this means size difference along the axis). Do the same on the other side as well as on any other axes where they are misaligned. You can also drag on the little square on the axis of the universal manipulator until it flips over - not as accurate, but a quick method.
I'm only just starting to get comfortable in Blender, so can't speak with any authority, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a more efficient method of doing it there - just haven't seen it yet :)
One thing I do miss in Blender is Hex's universal manipulator - it is so handy!
As I understand it, you want to make a sort of plinth around the base of the building?
What I would do is scale down the walls from the bottom upwards the height of the plinth. Then extract the bottom edge loop, do an "offset curve" to get the right width away from the walls, extrude that curve downwards. Weld the two meshes and bridge between them (don't try to do the bridge all at once with this sort of shape - Hex is easily confused :) ). Chamfer the top outer curve.
Don't forget to delete the curves when finished with them - they can cause a problem in some apps if exported inadvertently as part of the .obj!
You can do this on a single or double wall.
@Roygee: Thanks for the information.
I tried Blender some time ago but couldn't figure it out, all of the work was brand new to me. Now, after working with Bryce, Wings 3D, and Hexagon I think I'd understand better how to work in the program.
Building a base for my house isn't what I wanted, I already had the base. What I was having trouble with is making the walls. I had them the height needed but didn't know how to cut them away from the base. I finally did the X&V to get them separated. But now I encountered more trouble creating the thickness of the walls. I extruded the faces but this created an open area on the opposite side, which I bridged to fill in. Doing it this way created overlapping geometry, making it harder to manipulate the walls afterwards. This whole thing is a learning process so I'm likely to create a lot of extras which could have been avoided using another method. Below is an image of the first floor so far.
those doorways seem way too tall and slim. another thing to remember, is ceilings typically don't start at the top of a door; there's usually some trim and a foot or more of wall before the ceiling. It seems like even if a person was half the height of the walls, the rooms would still be quite cramped from that perspective.
Hold down the SHIFT key and click on the move, scale and rotate icons and you will have a universal manipulator.
@gussnemo - my apologies - I'm not understanding your problem :(
Did you make the walls by extruding a single line upwards, then extrude for thickness, or did you make a "ribbon" of polys, as in the Blender tutorial, and extrude that upwards? If you'd done it using a single line, I don't understand how you could have got to the point you are now at by extruding.
Possibly you did something as in the example below - made this by extruding a line and extruding the face - first pic looks OK, but if you look at the back, it is hollow? This is made solid by bridging the two highlighted edges.
If you'd used, say, a single line line for the external walls and separate lines for each internal wall and extruded upwards, you could have given them thickness by going to surface modelling -> add thickness. You walls wouldn't then be connected, so you would need to cut in extra edges, delete connecting faces, welding and then point welding if you wanted them to be connected.
Extruding basically means extending a face - it doesn't add thickness.
One thing I have learned by hard experience is that it is often more efficient to scrap a badly started model than to try to rescue it. I still make many false starts tackling something new before finally settling on a method which works.
user.operator is correct - good idea to include a human-sized object in your scene to act as a scale reference for making doors, wall height etc. Imagine going to all that trouble to make your house then find that humans can't live there!
@aussair - yes, I know that :) Not the same thing as Hex's universal manipulator though. As far as my experience goes, it is exclusive in that you have all the translate tools in one, as well as extrude and a few other functions.
@user.operator: The door openings look too tall because they aren't finished yet. I merely created the openings at this point, to know where to place them--the floor plan image I'm using isn't the best image in the world. I'll use the reference images to set the height of the exterior doors then use those as references for the inside doors.
@Roygee: I used 3D Primitives/Facet to create the parameter of the first floor. I then extruded the created lines to form a solid form around the parameter. Because each Facet created an area, I then extruded those areas to form the inner wall areas. As you showed in your images, this left an open area on the opposite side, which I closed by selecting the edges and bridging them. While it was a nice idea, it isn't the best method of creating the walls in this instant. I could have taken a cube, scaled it, placed it into position, recreate it, scaled it, positioned it, etc., until all the walls were created, but thought using 3D Primitives/Facet would be quicker. I didn't know about Taconene's method until I saw the video, so I couldn't have used that method to start with. I do, however, plan to try that method in creating the second floor. I did try the Thickness tool, with disastrous results; I've yet to understand how to use it correctly.
While it may be advantageous to scrap something and start over, to find the best method for the given project, everything I'm doing on this project is a learning process. I've never dealt with something of this nature before, so if I make a mistake I want to try and determine how it's a mistake and how to fix it. By making mistakes I learn how not to do something the next time. And because this house has two floors, I'll know what not to do when I create the second floor.
More methods I would suggest as you get to the second floor, is to just copy the floor and bring it up to the same height as the top of the second floor. Of course, you're going to want to add thickness to a ceiling/floor. Then when you're near the end, make sure to cut and weld all the outer wall faces that will have the same texturing, this way, alignment should be easy if you want to say, add a siding texture. Or you could just make actual siding, which shouldn't difficult. You can make one siding model and copy/paste/stretch it to match each side of the walls. It doesn't even have to be perfect once you have it placed and sized correctly, you can just copy, pull the new copy up to an approximate location, as long as it covers the wall behind it.
Remember to keep in mind, sometimes imperfections add to realism. In the real world not everything is aligned perfectly, nor every corner a sharp edge.
@user.operator: Copying the first floor and using it for the 1st floor ceiling/2nd floor floor is going to be problematic. If you'll look at the image below you'll see the second floor isn't as long as the first floor. Plus the roofs are going to be interesting to create. Two pitched roofs cover portions of the house, two decks become the roof for another portion of the house, and the tower look over the front left room on the 2nd floor with another pitched roof. I've used Taconene's method to create the outline of the 2nd floor, but turning that into a ceiling will be interesting. I'm toying with the idea of using two resized cubes to create the two ceiling/floors needed. I'm still thinking about it, though. Before I go any further, though, I've got to study the images in order to find a logical progression for constructing the second floor/roofs.
I will weld everything once it's all completed, each floor that is. I plan to make it so the 2nd floor can be separated from the 1st floor for viewing or adding household objects. And I do plan to try and create the siding as seen in the house image, or as close to what can be seen in the image. Your idea of creating a separate siding is something I'd thought of. C&V is much easier than creating several of the same thing.
@gussnemo
I took the liberty of downloading your plans to get a closer look - no-one can accuse you of starting out simple:) This one is a real challenge!
It looks like one of those fine old red-brick houses you find in Georgetown - would someone really deface a masterpiece like that with siding? It cries out for red brick and white mortar.
Keep it up - you have the determination to make it work:)
@Roygee: Yeah, I've been wondering if I bit off more than I could chew for my first attempt at house building. But I like the style of this type of house, it has character. It also forces me to think about how something can/should be created.
As to siding, this house would more than likely have clapboard siding. All of the images I looked at online showed clapboard siding. But I haven't got to the stage, yet, where siding has to be determined. I'll Google this style home and see just what was used for siding when siding becomes the issue. I've been watching Gary Miller's video on making stairs, since there's a set of stairs in the house from the 1st to 2nd floor. There are also steps, but I don't think they'll be a problem.
Oh, I'll get this finished, alright. This project has me by the short hairs, like projects I've done in Bryce. It may take some time, but I'll eventually get it finished.
I'll be watching your progress with great interest - good luck :)
Yep, actually, there are definitely ways to do things more efficiently in Blender. Sometimes one author knows some things and not others. The way he worked with the windows and other things notated in the floorplan/elevations were what interested me about those tutorials.
There definitely are different ways to accomplish the same thing, depending on the abilities within a program. I was creating the front porch steps and tried a couple of way to no avail. I remembered the video Gary Miller did using a grid, and gave that method a try. Once I had the grid the proper width and height, I used the thickness tool and the "+" sign to make them the correct width. That worked like a charm.
you should have a look at my stairs tutorial, it's in this forum, and meant to be an alternative, perhaps easier and more efficient method than gary millers.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44275/
@user.operator: That's a neat method, or I should say, another neat method. I've seen the offset command, but don't know exactly what it does. Would you mind explaining it's function?
Good for you, Guss! :)
That's how you show you're learning your program.
@Cris: If you look at my previous post showing the house plans, you'll see a set of stairs on the right side towards the rear of the house. They appear to be a series of stacked, extended, platforms which encompass that area of the house. My first attempt making them involved resizing a cube to fit the top area so it was level with the floor of the 1st floor. I then C&V that object to create the additional steps. It soon became apparent that method wasn't going to work because I'd have to adjust the thickness of each one so the bottom slab sat on the ground. And because I didn't know how to calculate the thickness I looked for another method. Thinking about how those steps could be made, what methods might work, I decided to again use a cube. But one that was level with the 1st floor floor and level with the bottom of the foundation. I then looked at the 'Y' position of the top horizontal edge and the bottom horizontal, subtract the two and came up with a number which I used to set the thickness of each slab. I then set points along the four vertical edges, joined them on three sides, then added more points to create the faces which would be extruded on the sides. After a lot of trial and error moves, the image below shows the results.
I'm still chugging along on my house, along with a few other projects. Results will be seen sometime within this decade.
the way you made your steps seems to have worked, but there is an easier, if not, more precise way.
first, you take a cube, flatten it to the height of a step you want, then use the multiple copies function along to right axis to make it into a stack of copies (X axis by default, so model will need to be rotated to bottom face that axis). After that, starting from the second square from the top in the stack, select two of the side faces that make up one corner, and do an extrude to the length you want the step to be, and when extruding make sure it's an axial extrude, with the setting in the properties panel of "all faces independently". Work your way down doing the same process for each step.
then ungroup all the steps, there will be a gap between when you extruded the faces. just select one of the faces alongside the gap and axial extrude it again until it's flush with the other side of the gap. you can look at the axis information of the face you want it to be flush with to be precise about it, then change the faces position to match. do this for each step, and voila, you're done.
This also makes sure you maintain the height of the step, only the length of the step needs fiddling to be precise, which is easier.
But this isn't so great for texturing with anything outside of a solid color. Brick materials for example, will not align properly to make the texture entirely even. you could try deleting all the faces you won't see along the inner part of the extrude, then do a weld on each step and it'll create a less divided part.
You could also make actual individual bricks and use the multiple copies command to create rows of varying length to be stacked on top of each other.
The last image is individual bricks slightly spaced using the multiple copies command, with a simple box model clipped between them to make it look like they're cemented. all the bricks share the same exact texture and bump map, but each brick has its own UV space, rather than all bricks having just one UV space. This makes sure the texture conforms to the brick, rather than across multiple bricks. So I apply that texture to each brick individual, which for me is simple as dragging and dropping the material. The whole model combined is 312 faces, which is a bargain for the amount of realism it adds, and that includes the faces you can't see. Only about 61 faces make up what is needed for it to get its overall look for all angles.
you could also do something like this where suitable with the first method or with individual bricks, it could be a fountain or for plants.
@user.operator: I did try to create those steps using the method you described, but found out I'd have to fiddle with the thickness of each cube/copy in order to get the height needed. There wasn't a measurement available showing the height of those steps, only what showed on the elevations. Also, the top two steps would have protruded into the house, making it necessary to remove the offending portions. It turned out to be much easier, in this instance, to create a cube, add additional vertices, connect them, then extrude the necessary additional steps. Next time it might be easier to resize a cube, copy it, and use several copies to make steps. Methods used seem to be dictated by what results are wanted.
Clever method you used to work out the size of each step :)
Just to show that there are more ways than one of skinning a cat
Once you decide on the size of the bottom step, make a cube that size and select multiple copies - start off with just one and experiment with the offsets - hit enter each time (it doesn't commit until you hit validate). I haven't found a formula for this, so it's pretty much trial and error to get right. In this case, the offsets were X=0, Y=0.74 and Z=1.5. Once you have the offsets correct, increase the number to 3. Validate and ungroup.
Next, go to front view, select all the steps except the bottom one and scale down on the X axis by pulling on the little cube on the axis indicator (using universal manipulator). You can either eyeball for size, or make a cube as a marker. Then do the same with the third and fourth step, then again with the top step.
Select all the steps and weld. Delete the back, top and bottom faces on all the steps, excepting the top face of the top step.
Loop-select the top edge of the bottom step and the bottom edge of the second step and bridge. Repeat for all the steps.
Select all the back edges of all the steps and make the size on the Z axis = 0. For a nice finish, select all the tread edges and give them a tight chamfer
Edit - I have three more pics which I tried to upload in a new message box but the forum is "Unable to post at this time", so I'll do it later:)
@Roygee: That information is also nice to know, as it's another way to create steps. That method might have worked for the front porch steps, though not so well for the side steps.
When I created the front porch steps, I created a grid of 2D faces following one of Gary Miller's tutorials--information he received from another viewer. The grid was scaled to fit from the height of the porch to the ground and within the outline of the floor plans. I then selected the three steps I wanted to keep, inverted the selection so every other grid was selected, deleted those unwanted grids, then added thickness to those steps until they stretched across to the opposite side, creating the front porch stairs.
Going through this first ever attempt at creating something from scratch, I'm finding there are many ways to achieve the desired results. But not every method lends itself well to every given situation. So it's a matter of using that method which obtains the desired results but does so without much effort in that particular situation. And does so without adding an unnecessary amount of unwanted geometry.
Don't see why it wouldn't have worked for the side steps - simply extrude the top step to fit the alcove :)
Here's - hopefully - the missing pics.
Since posting, I hit on another much simpler idea - draw a profile of the steps using a polyline. Use the left grid as a reference and draw vertically one grid block vertically and two horizontally. Repeat for all steps - collapse DG. Then, in top view, draw a rectangle and delete the back edge.
With the first polyline selected, go to Surface modelling and select the "Sweep line", then select the second polyline. Bridge the opening at the top. For curved steps, use an arc instead of the rectangle. Finish off with chamfering, if you want. The surface tools are really powerful and underutilized, from what I see in the forum.
Using copied cubes would have worked, as I said it was the first thing I tried, but each one would have also required a lot of fiddling to get the thickness of each cube correct. Plus, since I was trying to follow a floor plan, extrusion needed to start at the top in order to see where the next step landed. This all boils down to six of one, half a dozen of another. For me, at my inexperienced level of using Hexagon, it was much easier to start with a cube the right height and width, add vertices, connect them then extrude them according to the floor plan. Creating the steps using a copied cube would have worked beautifully had the inset to the house not been there.
It doesn't look like I'll be able to use Hexagon to finish building my house because it's started crashing just about any time I try and create another part of the house.
I was working on creating the chimney and Hexagon crashed. I reset default preferences, started on the chimney again, Hexagon crashed. Started again, Hexagon crashed.
This isn't the first time Hexagon has constantly crashed while I was working on the house, but I haven't a clue what I didn't differently to get past that episode. Is there anything I should check to make sure Hexagon stops this constant crashing? If I can't get this problem solved I'll have to export what I've done so far and try one of the other programs I have which I know don't crash at the drop of a hat.
sounds like you might be working with some problematic geometry on the chimney. this may not apply, but don't try to mix things like assigning faces to UV and then extruding or using smoothing then extruding. it'd be hard to say what is causing the crashing without seeing what you're trying to do when it crashes.
There is a good thread here on how you might stabilize Hexagon to stop it crashing.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/13264/P30
On Win7-64bit I always run hex in Xp-SP2 compatibility mode as that is approximately when development stopped. Just go to the hexagon icon on your desktop right click->properties and go to the compatibility tab.