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BAT-tutorial. Windows done by using Polys.

Started by vester, February 03, 2016, 12:12:37 PM

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vester

I use to make windows using splines and a extrude. This can take some time.
This window that is shown here can be done in less than 2 minutes.


In this tutorial I use this:
[ S ] : a standard shortcut.
[ Inset ] : bottom in one of rollouts. (#8 in these two pictures)




  • Modify panel

  • Create panel

  • Object categories


This is a small tutorials on how I have started to do windows by use of poly:

Here we have a wall with two holes for windows.


Panel:
Click on the view so you look directly onto the wall.
In the create panel under Geometry -> Standard Primitives, the plane can be found.

Turn on the snap [ S ] if its not on. Drag and draw plane.
(by snapping on the first corner of the windows hole, drag to the other corner)
Most windows are not in the same level as the face of the wall. Often set a bit into the hole.
Now would be good time to move it in. Here I move it in, let say 0,10 meters. and then half of the thickness of the finish window.
Here I will use (0,10+0,10/2) = 0,15 meters in total.


The setting after I drawn the plane. For the ease for this tut, let say we want to make the frame and the mullions 0,20 m.


The first thing I do then is make the plane I drawn before the 0,20 meters smaller on both width and height.
(For some reason the two dimension is switched)

Editable poly:

Now its time to turn this into a editable poly. One way to do this is to right click and pick it for the quads menu as shown above.

Inset:

Under selection you click on polys (a red square icon) [ 4 ] , then click on [ Ctrl ] + [ A ] to select all the polys.
Now click on [ Inset ]. Set the inset by polygon and set the value to half width of the mullions 0,1 m
(and not the 0,15m as in the above images, will replace this images later on)

When you now press okay you should get something like this:


Here I will post the easy way, but were changing the result later on is a harder.
(Might in a later post another way around making this more dynamic later on if want to know about it.)

Detach:

Keeping the selection active with what will be the glas panels selected, click on detach under Edit Geometry.
Now you get a small dialog box up, say Detach as Object001. Here you can rename it to Glaspanels01 instead and click OK.

Moving corner verties:
Now we need to move the corners back into place so the windows frame is the same size as the mullions and it fills the windows hole.
For a simple window like this you can just pick the verties and move them out 0,1 meters.

Using Axis Constraints:
If the geometry is a bit more complex, I would for this step, I use the Axis Constraints and its toolbar.
To get that toolbar to show, right click at the edge of one of the toolbar.
Now click on the Axis Constraints and you get this.


First you will need to click on the icon with the magnet to turn on axis constraints [ Alt ] + [ D ].
What this means is that you can move an object or subobjects like verties in just one or two directions.
To get really good use of this, you will need make sure you have the Snap turned on [ S ].

Lets mark the three vertices at the top:


Now maybe you want to luck the selection.
This can be done by clicking on the small luck icons just left of the coordinates (also here you can see if its turn on or not) or you can press space.
So now we want to move the vertices up.

Now you can constrain the movement in one axis by clicking on the axis (which that then turns yellow)
or two axis by click on the yellow square between two axis (see the images above) that turns up,
when moving the mouse over it. After click on the y-axis (green one),
take hold to one of the verties on move up and snap to one of the corners.

Shell modifier:
Close the selection. Time to switch to the Modify panel.
At the top, just under the object name, you find the modifier list.
Click on it and  drop down menu appears and start writing Shell.
When the shell is marked click the return key.


Here I mostly use the parameters at the top (Inner and Outer amount).
I use the straight corners, for more complex geometry.
This can be polygons where the surfaces isn't in the same plane, like windows around a corner.

Now its time for doing the same to the glass panel (that we detached earlier).
Pick it and and add a shell modifier. This time the amounths should be 0,025 m / 0 m.

This will result in the glass panel being set 0,025 meters into the windows frame:

End result:

Here is the finished window.

If you really want to take this a step further, you can have more than just one windows per object, starting out with a set of faces.
These faces could be extracted from polys that make up the wall.

bombardiere

Thank you, this looks interesting and useful.

I do make windows with rectangles, spline attach and extrude. Usually it can be done without fuzz, but sometimes a more complex window can be time consuming. So I am going to check this one out.