BAT Help - Modelling Issues

[tcx 170]

Thanks, but I still can't find it. There's a SC4 Tool, but that is a completely different thing.

[MarcosMX 222]

Does anyone knows how to make flora?

I heard something about a script that can do this but I can't find it, I looked in the ST tools but there aren't any attached files or links to the ST Tools.

[Delta07 0]

Is there any way of making an object extruded different amouts. Like having it taller on one side and shorter on the other. Here's a picture of the building(middle tall one) I'm doing. What I'm having trouble with is the thing on top.

[Delta07 0]

Is there any way of making an object extruded different amouts. Like having it taller on one side and shorter on the other. Here's a picture of the building(middle tall one) I'm doing. What I'm having trouble with is the thing on top.

[Delta07 0]

Is there any way of making an object extruded different amouts. Like having it taller on one side and shorter on the other. Here's a picture of the building(middle tall one) I'm doing. What I'm having trouble with is the thing on top.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

You can use the taper modifier (go to modifiers>Parametric Deformers>Taper) and you can fiddle with that untill it looks right.  All of the axises to taper it with can get confusing to work with, but I think you can get your desired effect by using X as your primary axis, and Z as your effect axis.

You can also use a boolean cut.  In the pane on the right side of the screen, click on the left-most tab (it has a mouse pointer with a light coming from it).  Then click on the drop down menu and select compound objects.  Then you'll see boolean written below.  Click on your roof part, and then click on the button that says Pick Operand B, and then click on the shape that you want to cut out of the roof part.  I forgot to say that you need to model the area that you want to get rid of.  Experiment with a sphere and cube to understand how booleans work.

Good luck.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

You can use the taper modifier (go to modifiers>Parametric Deformers>Taper) and you can fiddle with that untill it looks right.  All of the axises to taper it with can get confusing to work with, but I think you can get your desired effect by using X as your primary axis, and Z as your effect axis.

You can also use a boolean cut.  In the pane on the right side of the screen, click on the left-most tab (it has a mouse pointer with a light coming from it).  Then click on the drop down menu and select compound objects.  Then you'll see boolean written below.  Click on your roof part, and then click on the button that says Pick Operand B, and then click on the shape that you want to cut out of the roof part.  I forgot to say that you need to model the area that you want to get rid of.  Experiment with a sphere and cube to understand how booleans work.

Good luck.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

You can use the taper modifier (go to modifiers>Parametric Deformers>Taper) and you can fiddle with that untill it looks right.  All of the axises to taper it with can get confusing to work with, but I think you can get your desired effect by using X as your primary axis, and Z as your effect axis.

You can also use a boolean cut.  In the pane on the right side of the screen, click on the left-most tab (it has a mouse pointer with a light coming from it).  Then click on the drop down menu and select compound objects.  Then you'll see boolean written below.  Click on your roof part, and then click on the button that says Pick Operand B, and then click on the shape that you want to cut out of the roof part.  I forgot to say that you need to model the area that you want to get rid of.  Experiment with a sphere and cube to understand how booleans work.

Good luck.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

I extruded a spline, and it's all glitchy.  It looks like I didn't weld a vertex or something, but I'm pretty sure everything's welded right.

[SimFox 803]

it also looks like one normal is flipped as well, the one at the bottom "window". You know, glitches do happen, so it might be just this situation and there is nothing wrong with your actions!! in MAX8 even with SP3 installed there are few bags related to normals.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

That sounds like exactly the problem.  Is there a way to fix it?  I think I'm just going to remake it.

edit:  Actually, it looks like everything I worked on that day (two big wall peices) has this problem.  So I really really don't want to remake them since that would take a long time.

[SimFox 803]

well often it is much faster to rebuild from the ground then go and fix all the problems. More then often fixing involves LOTS of tedious manual work that normally could be automated only with scripting. Original designing on the other hand is most often done through automated steps and longest time is taken normally by deciding exactly what result you are looking for. In the case of rebuilding something this should be done by now. so all you need to do is recreate those semiautomated steps and that, I have to repeat, often MUCH faster then go and check each single vertex and such.

It is your choice. in this particular case I would suggest first off all to fix all the normals. Select faces that face (sorry for that) the wrong way and flip them. try to weld again if that doesn't work again that means that there are too many connection to the vertex in question, you'll have to investigate this as well... and list, potentially goes on and on.. very likelly that after several hours spend hunting down errors you will chose to rebuild...

[Jasoncw 11,941]

Yeah, I just redid it, it wasn't as hard as I thought (most of it was just arrayed rectangles).  Also, to flip the normals I would need to convert it into a mesh or poly (I don't remember which right now) and I want to keep it as an extruded spline untill I assemble the wall peices.  Thanks for the help.

[SimFox 803]

to flip normals you can use either Poly or Mesh, Mesh to be honest is an anachronism. that what people were forced to use before Poly became possible. Actually you don't need to convert if you don't want. I, myself isn't to big fan of huge mod stack, but if you like them then just used Edit poly modifier. this will preserve you slpine data and allow you just to do all and any poly modeling stuff. Only "limitation" is that number of verticies shouldn't change. if it does that domino effect will come in. But generally this is a problem with stack and main reason I'm not to big a fan of it. in such a geometric modeling as most buildings are I to be honest don't see much point in it. and it can slow your work quite a bit! with Poly you can do all the same stuff by moving vertecies. And to keep it simple put different structural parts of your building on different layers.

BTW what version of MAX are you running??

[exodus 10]

I'm wondering if there is a way to attach splines that you've extruded already? I have some fencing that I have to build separately. Now I want to import it into a new scene but I can't select them all becase it imports crazily. Is there a way to do this or am I going to have to keep going back and forth to check to see if i got the values right?

[Frigid 6]

Hmm.. Select the object you've extruded, click on the edit spline modifier, and try attaching the other splines.

Or you could just remove the extrude modifier and try again.

I'm not sure I fully understand your import problem. 

[Jasoncw 11,941]

Hello everyone,

The BAT - Open Discussion and the BAT - Workshop will be merged together in the future.  As part of the restructuring, this thread will be locked.  All questions should be asked in the all-encompassing BAT Troubleshooting Thread found at: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=87425&enterthread=y