How do you ‘remove’ an amount of wall so as to provide the exact outline of your add-on structure

Federmann

How do you ‘remove’ an amount of wall so as to provide the exact outline of your add-on structure

Predicament: because I don’t know the technical name of this problem, I can’t look for on topic threads and tutorials.

This must be a newbie staple once they start modifying/set-dressing their shop bought environment (let’s call it ‘primary environment’) so as to build a more personalized scene: how do you slide a (let’s call it ‘add-on’) structure like a padded room, a prison cell, storage room or even a cupboard  (etc.) into one of the walls of your primary environment making the ‘add-on’ look like a seamless part of that primary environment (allowing you – for instance - to place characters in the add on who interact with characters standing in the ‘primary environment’). When I do it (you guessed it!) the front of the add-on is (at best) visible on the wall but that same wall ‘prevents access’ to the hollow space of the add-on, i.e. you can’t see a character in the add-on space etc. In other words, how do you ‘remove’ (hide) an amount of wall so as to provide the exact outline of your add-on space/structure so you can see the inside of the add-on space/structure?.Making this a bit more concrete (not the best phrase in this context, lol): When I open the door of my padded cell that I have slided in one of the walls of my primary environment; I don't see the inside of the padded cell but only the wall of my primary environment...

I stumbled upon somewhat related problems and solutions but it looked like solving this problem is w-a-yyyyy beyond newbie levels, or is it?

WendyLuvsCatz

one way is with a cutout opacity map

you need to have a UV map of the wall surface to work out where to place it

you can do a screengrab of UV view in the viewport with that surface selected to see how it's mapped

(UV refers to how ithe XY co-ordinates unfold like wrapping paper, your texture being the wrapping paper)

FeralFey

Or, a more advanced step would be to make the cutout area on the wall it's own material zone by reassigning the polys and then you just turn up that section's transparency (3DL) or cutout opacity (iRay) settings in the surface tab. But to do this you'll need to use the Node Weightbrush Tool and the Geometry Editor Tool. 

Using the Node Weightbrush Tool selected and in the Tool Tab Active, you can highlight the area on the wall where you want to create the "pass through". Once you've selected the polys you want to use, then switch to the Geometry Editor Tool and go back into the Tool Tab. Scroll to the "Surface" section and right click to bring up some options. You'll want to select "Create Surface from Selected". This will turn those highlighted polys into its own surface, which you can name whatever you want. Then go to the Surface tab. You should then be able to see your newly created surface (so long as your model is selected still). Scroll down to Cutout Opacity (if the environment is using iRay materials) and move the slider down. The section of your wall should disappear.

Now, the caveat for using this method is that you'll have to save it as a material preset for that environment and any time you want to revert back to the original texture of the wall, you'll need to point your new surface section back to the old materials and dial the opacity back up. It's not a huge fuss, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

WendyLuvsCatz

it depends on how many polygons in the wall though, many have only one so cutting out a bit difficult

Gordig

I discovered to my disappointment that you can't use an Iray decal node to place an opacity map wherever you want. 

FeralFey

WendyLuvsCatz said:

it depends on how many polygons in the wall though, many have only one so cutting out a bit difficult

Fair point. 

Federmann

WendyLuvsCatz, FeralFey, Gordig thank you all for the suggestions! I will (have to) put on my thinking cap and try to implement your suggestions but I may just end up cheating, cobbling together primary and add-on in post-render edits in PS (not that I am a wizard at that...). Would be cool though if I could make it work inside DAZ, I am sure gonna try.