Using Gmax, advice, tips and feedback.

[DarkMatter 21]

Brian, we have a section in our mods pages dedicated to tutorials. If you would like, I can cut and paste your tutorial, with images, into some new tutorials here on the site. It should make them more accessible to a broader range of members. My email is jrista@synapticeffect.com if you want to email the tutorials to me.

[MaxisBrian 6]

I just sent them. Thanks for taking care of that.

[DarkMatter 21]

No problems. I'll see if I can get them up tonight.

[tlannister 1]

So any chance that this will be made growable?

[Larsz 7]

Hey Brian,

I just finished the tutorial on walls and it worked great, thanks a ton for the tutorial. I have a couple of questions though.

 

The gable end on your house looks like it is part of the wall. How did you modify the wall in order to create the gable?

 

I tried a couple of different things but they didn't work I tried "Divide" segment which gave me a new vertex, which I then tried draggin up, but I got some weird geometry. I created a new extruded spline and then tried attaching it to the wall but I could not select the wall to attach it? So I just left the gable as a separate part.

 

I don't know how much communication there is between the SimCity and The Sims crews but... I never was a huge fan of The Sims but I really liked building houses in The Sims. I realize a building utility for SimCity 4 needs to be much more detailed than what The Sims has but, it was a very nice interface. I am just curious, could The Sims building designer have been fleshed out for SimCity?

 

This next question is for anyone who is experienced with both Autocad and GMax. I have done quite a bit of 2d drawing with Autocad and I keep hitting my middle mouse button for object snap when working with GMax. I never realized before how much I used object snap with Autocad! Anyway, is there a shortcut or a way to map object snaps in GMax? It is kind of a pain in the butt to select and deselect the different snaps all the time.

[mntoes 270]

Maxis Brian thanks for your Word Docs.
Followed your wall tutorial and created a wall.
The only trouble is that I have to place an Extrude amount of -3.0 and not -0.3 for it to look like your picture.
I am sure I have set Gmax up as followes:-
Generic units = checked
1 unit = 1 Meter
Grid spacing = 1.0

Any ideas?

One other point:-

...right click on the Snap Icon ,and make sure that only "Grid" is checked.

Ok fine but I have "Grid Points" and "Grid Lines" I presume you mean check both?

Larsz wrote:-
The gable end on your house looks like it is part of the wall. How did you modify the wall in order to create the gable?

Good question, I was wondering about that but have not yet experimented.
Looks like nothing gets past our Eagle eyes. (I feel like a school kid in a design lesson, only this time I'll pay attention.Lol)

Thanks in advance for any help,
Mntoes

[kruegersc4 0]

 Well, I got the Gmax, but when I finally started it, I accidently selected something about the disc drive or something like that without realizing it. Now when I open it, it says"Fatal Error   Interactive 3D Renderer initialization failed. Please check your device settings using the -H command line option."

 

 What do I do?

[DarkMatter 21]

FYI, the tutorials have been posted to simtropolis's mod section for easier viewing: https://www.simtropolis.com/modfiles/content.cfm?section=Tutorials

[MaxisBrian 6]

Mntoes,

What you are probabaly seeing is the "major grid lines" that appear every ten meters. Zoom in very close and see if the higher resolution, single meter increments grid, appears when you zoom in much closer. If this is indeed what's hapening, just scale the whole thing down to 10% of what it is now. You might then need to delete the extrude modifier and put on a new one with -.3.

Let me know if this works.

-Brian

[jbbry232 87]

----------------

On 10/29/2003 4:02:08 AM couchpotato wrote:

 

CycleDogg's CasaSencilla building can be found at the following link

http://couchspuds.homestead.com/Fourlandindex.html

 

A GMax tutorial using MaxisBrian's wall building technique can be found here

http://couchspuds.homestead.com/files/gmaxbasic.htm

 

Other 3ds Max tutorials can be found here

http://couchspuds.homestead.com/Library4.html

 

Hope to follow along with MaxisBrian's instructions and write pictorial tuts for windows, door, roofs, etc.   Really appreciate all the great information MaxisBrian. 

 

----------------

i finally got it working.. thnx couch potato.. i need a picture tutorial.. me being a visual-minded person..  this is going to be a snap now *snaps*

[mntoes 270]

----------------

On 11/6/2003 11:11:56 PM MaxisBrian wrote:

Mntoes,

What you are probabaly seeing is the 'major grid lines' that appear every ten meters. Zoom in very close and see if the higher resolution, single meter increments grid, appears when you zoom in much closer. If this is indeed what's hapening, just scale the whole thing down to 10% of what it is now. You might then need to delete the extrude modifier and put on a new one with -.3.

Let me know if this works.

-Brian----------------

Thanks again MaxisBrian
It works ok now

[mntoes 270]

Can anyone tell me how to join an arc and a set of lines together?
I have tried weld, combine, attatch all to no avail. They still all move seperate. I want a closed one piece shape, that when extruded will leave a hole for a window.

What I want to do is make an arched window.
I have bought a book but it's all double dutch to me!.
help greatfully received.
Thanks

[rubik3 116]

"Can anyone tell me how to join an arc and a set of lines together?"

The command you want to use is located under the edit shapes panel.  Choose one of your lines or arcs and select 'edit spline'.  Once this modifier is added there is an 'attach' and 'attach multiple' button that you can select to add in your other lines.

(this is going from my 3D Studio knowledge and there might be slight differences with GMax)

[MaxisBrian 6]

Right.

Or another way would be to select the line first, then hit "Attach" in the Geometry rollout and click on the arc. Then, after this and any other spline attach operations you will want to weld all the vertices together. So go into Sub-Object/Vertex mode, select all vertices then hit the "Weld" button. This helps to ensure the integrity of the new spline for other operations, like extrude. If you find some of your splines are not extruding properly, you might want to do this step and see if it helps.

[mntoes 270]

Thanks rubik3 & MaxisBrian. Hope my questions (and your replies) are of use to others.

[+Guest]

How would I do curved walls? I'm planning on doing the world's tallest residental tower...here in Australia!!!

 

Meet the blue bunny.

[rubik3 116]

"How would I do curved walls?"

 

Well you have a few options when doing curved walls.  One way would be to create it much like the arched window above.  Make the curve you want then offset it 6" or however wide your walls are.  Then you can connect the arcs with lines, join all the lines together, then extrude it to the heighth you want.

 

Or if you know the radius of the wall you can create a hollow cylinder and slice or bolean the excess off.  This is probably going to be the easiest to do.

 

Yet another way of doing it is to bend a box....but it's not exact at all and will be harder to get the results you want.  If you want to do it this way add a 'bend' modifier to a box and set the angle and curve of the bend to 45.

 

Or you can do it the ultra simple way and use either ADT or 3D studio Viz and it does all the walls, windows, doors, etc. automatically for you.  No complex line drawing and extrusions....just pick a style and point.  But these programs cost money....even for the student versions.  But depending on how much time you are thinking about spending creating buildings, the 600 dollars or so it costs for the student version of ADT may or may not be worth it for the amount of time you save in the long run.

[rubik3 116]

"This next question is for anyone who is experienced with both Autocad and GMax. I have done quite a bit of 2d drawing with Autocad and I keep hitting my middle mouse button for object snap when working with GMax. I never realized before how much I used object snap with Autocad! Anyway, is there a shortcut or a way to map object snaps in GMax? It is kind of a pain in the butt to select and deselect the different snaps all the time."

 

Well if you love ADT's snaps, you will hate GMax's.  Basically what i use is endpoint and midpoint only and if I ever need others it's pretty easy to rightclick on the snap button and check a couple of boxes.  The only real shortcut is 's' to toggle snap on/off.

 

"How did you modify the wall in order to create the gable?"

 

Well i'm working on some assumptions here.  I'm guessing you made a rectangle and extruded it.  Well go back to the rectangle and add in a 'edit spline' modifier.  Go into vertex mode by selecting the button that looks like 4 vertices then select 'refine'.  Toggle snaps on and add in 2 vertices at the midpoints where the gable will be.

You can now exit vertex mode and shuffle through your modifier stack to your extrude.  Now add in a 'edit mesh' modifier and go back into vertex mode.  Select the 2 new vertices and move to the desired placement.

 

"Now when I open it, it says"Fatal Error   Interactive 3D Renderer initialization failed. Please check your device settings using the -H command line option.""

 

It sounds like you probably set up your graphics display to something your computer doesn't support.  Right-click on the shortcut to GMax and select properties.  Under command line you want to add in the -h command at the end.  When you double click the icon it will now come up with a graphics selection box before it starts up.  Select something other than what you selected before and see if it starts up.  When you get it to work take the -h command out of the shortcut.

[Alodara 0]

----------------

On 10/15/2003 4:14:33 PM CycleDogg wrote:

Thanks for all the great info and textures.

 

Below are a couple buildings I made in AutoCAD.  (I hope we'll be able to import our autocad creations into the new

BAT

).

 

-----------------

 

I have a question. Can you do this with Autocad Lite? My roommate has a copy of that.

[MaxisBrian 6]

Shadow Assasin,

For curved walls I would start with a cylinder and mesh model it out to your specifications. I would suggest putting an Edit Mesh modifier on the cylinder and then start extruding faces inward for the window and door openings (so it's a negative number in the extrusion "Amount" field).

It will be important what properties you give your cylinder upon creation, for instance make sure there are enough sides and height sections in order to have the window/door spacings you have in mind. For a single story building, you would likely want to have three hieght sections so you can extrude in the windows from the middle sections.

You can also play around with the "Slice On" option in the cylinder's Parameters rollout if you want something less than a full-round cylinder.

[MaxisBrian 6]

Also, as a general note: you don't need to stick with rectangles for extruding walls. You could make pretty much any shape wall you want, as long as it is planar (all the vertices line up along the same plane). You would use the line tool for anything other than a rectangular wall. You can have arched window or door openings by drawing arcs for the tops of the openings, and then connecting them to three-sided lines comprising the sides and bottom. Remember to weld all vertices after you attach all the lines (aka splines) before you apply the extrude modifier.

[+Guest]

How long am I supposed to wait for the registration email?? I've been waiting 48 hours for the damn thing to come in! Also, how big's the file?

[mntoes 270]

My code came through in a couple of minutes. I would re-try and double check your e-mail address that you enter.

[recorder 0]

so....

when will this be out?

i heard early december iz this true?

 

[MaxisBrian 6]

We're hard at work on it, but don't think anyone around here knows for sure when we'll be able to roll it out. Shouldn't be too much longer though.

[+Guest]

I sent the info over a week ago...still haven't got the registration email yet. Yes, it is correct, down to the letter. By the way, I'm using an MSN address.

[recorder 0]

im using an msn address and it came in 19seconds (i counted)

[recorder 0]

where's the 2d snap?

 

[mntoes 270]

----------------

On 11/25/2003 11:20:46 PM recorder wrote:

where's the 2d snap?

----------------

On the bottom bar below where is says"Grid=1.0" you will see 4 magnet symbols.
Click on the magnet with the no 3 next to it(left hand side) and it will open up with the choice of either 3,2.5 0r 2 above it. Hold down your left mouse button and drag it up until "2" is selected and let go of the button.
You should now have 2D Snap.

[+Guest]

What I would like to know is how can I make buildings in gmax?