darn42's copycat thread

[darn42 1,268]

So, as many of you know, I have taken a hiatus from BATing because of a stupid exporting problem in 2014; anyways, I started a new project, saw reddons thread, and decided to do something similar; in that order.

 

Since I'm going to be doing this process anyways, I downloaded 2012 again, and imported my current project into that. I am also going to be looking into how much fixing and tweaking my previous projects would require from a backwards save.

 

Again, I credit this idea completely to reddonquixote, I'm totally copying him, and I think that me explaining my process will help both myself and others. I will probably go over a lot of things he does, but I am just going to be doing my whole system. If I mention a tool and don't explain where it is, or you don't see it where I have it. Just google it

 

Without further ado, I present the Jewelers Building.

 

(a little bit more of ado: this was in progress before I decided on this so I already had a little bit done)

 

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The first step in any BAT is collecting reference material: pictures, heightmaps, floorplans, etc. One of my biggest resources for dimensions is Google Earth. It's ruler tool is accurate to about a meter, a few percent in terms of BATing: great!

 

 

Just locate your building and, using the ruler tool, find some nice horizontal places to measure. My building is about 45m x 50m in it's footprint, and has many other recesses and stuff that I also measured with the same process. Take note of all these measurements. Next, if you can, I like to get my hands on some orthographic drawing of any direction. I found this one:

 

 

With this, I can refine all my measurements I took earlier. This, however doesn't have any readable measurements on it. Oh no! But we can still get all the good stuff using photoshop or gimp. Using the ruler tool there, we can set up a ratio using the known height of the building, and the height in pixels and any distance we can imagine on the orthographic view.

With all of these measurements, we can start implementing them into the prototype. This, I already did, and it requires a lot of use with the tape measure tool in 3ds max. 

After using these to make the prototype, I came up with:

 

 

Now at this point I had already started working on medium sized details on the roof but there it is. It's a very simple shape, but it has very accurate dimensions, and everything I make will be based off of this model.

 

Let's now continue/start working on the medium sized details. It doesn't matter where you start, just that you start somewhere. For this particular model, I decided to work on the gazebo at the top first because it looked like something I wanted to work with. 

As for the main shape, I started with a cylinder with enough subdivision for each section and extruded out or up and beveled. Etc,. 

 

Now, what I have left on the gazebo is the dome. 

 

 

First is to start with a sphere. I looked at some pictures of the dome:

and tried to figure out how much subdivision I needed on the sphere. When I looked I saw that there seemed to be a 3:1 ratio between the center parts, and the ornamentation. Also, things like this generally come in 16s, so 16 x 4 = 64: my sphere should be subdivided 64 times. I also chopped it down and deleted the bottom to be a hemisphere and deleted the top part where it starts being vents.

 

 

 

Now I want to make the recesses in the dome. This can be done very easily and very efficiently using just a few steps. Start by selecting a single horizontal running edge, change the dotgap value to 3 (this will insert 3 spaces between every select edge in a dot loop, 3:1 ratio ) Hit the dot loop button, and you have a nice loop around your hemisphere selecting every 4 edges.

 

Now we hit the ring button or ctrl + r, and this will select all of the ring going vertically. Once we have this, we can ctrl + click on the polygon subselection and this will transfer the edge selection over to polygon selection. 

 

 

Now we shift + click on any polygon on the bottom ring and the top ring, and this will extend the polygon selection all the way around there.

 

 

The last selection trick is to invert the selection. Ctrl + i will invert our selection. Now we have something nice to work with.

 

 

Just a few insets, bevels and extrudes and now we have some recesses, just like we wanted.

 

 

We go to border selection now, select our hole from the deleted top, and cap it.

 

 

Now we use inset and bevel tools to approximate the shape of the top terrace. Whenever there is a rounded part, we do not round it. We make it as sharp a corner as possible for a new step...

 

 

We select the loop of edges on the sharp corner (ctrl + L) and then open the windowed chamfer tool (the dark grey box in the button next to the chamfer tool). With this, we can increase edges, and change our distance of chamfer. This will make a nice curve depending on how many segments you want. 

 

 

Now we want to add a sort of exponential looking curve to the top part. So we select the ring at the top...

 

 

... connect, and scale the loop we get down. Make it nice and small so when we chamfer it'll be the right type of curve. Make sure when we chamfer from one side to another, so that it overlaps the sides

 

 

Once we chamfer, we'll have overlapping edges and vertices, so let's fix that. Transfer edge selection to vertices, and grow it a few times. Then do a weld to merge all the vertices together.

 

 

Now we will add the metal tubethings that I can see at the top. First we select the loop we want then do a dot ring with a dotgap of 1. These will be the splines that make up the metal tube things.

 

 

Click on the create shape from selection button, and switch it to linear. Then we just adjust the values for the spline, make it renderable and viewable, etc.

 

 

Let's make a quick lip at the top of this, and we are done with the medium sized details at the top of the tower.

 

 

There we go

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Hey darn, it's great to see you back and I hope that wou will become active for CBT soon!

 

Some quality was missing all the time. Hope you figured everything out and maybe you can take part in our

[edwardjeria 503]

good work

my friend

[Ace3 1,209]

Nice tutorial darn! I found the polygon editing part quite helpful

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

So, as many of you know, I have taken a hiatus from BATing because of a stupid exporting problem in 2014.

 

 

So did you get 3ds Max 2014 export to work, I talked about this on the days of the release, and I could not get it to work. You can still bat in 3ds Max 2014 and put it in to 3ds max 2013

 

 

Love the way you bat, you bat like I do, but I think you can bat better than I.  Thank you for not making a modern building, the modern buildings are over powering on ST.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hey Darn, this is great to see. Hopefully we'll start seeing more of these. I'm certainly going to learn a lot from this. I think I know about 5% of what 3DS Max can actually do...

 

"What the loop button does' is not nearly as interesting or as informative as 'how to make a cool dome'... this is the best way to learn and I'm pleased to see you doing this, and as Aaron said, I think its great you've picked an older style building as well. The details in older architecture really tests the modelling skills and its great you're showing insight into how this is done

 

One criticism.. I think you should change the name of the thread, copycat thread isn't very inspiring    Don't forget, this is actually Skyscraper's idea.. credit goes to him

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Wait a second... has this building been the inspiration for the commercial building in SimCity 2000? The one that debussyman has recreated as "Leugom Inc."? However, debussyman stayed true to the SimCity 2000 version, which was far from accurate (if it was even inspired by the Jewelers Building, that is).

[darn42 1,268]

As I am working on this, I realize I do not have the ability to document every step of the way. Multiple times I have been working and just completely forgot I was taking pictures. So I will detail the parts I remember and do more of a making of for other parts. 

 

So here it is...

 

Making Windows and other such.

 

Let's continue by working on the sort of pedestal thing underneath the dome. In this case, I will work off of my prototype directly. Most of my reference here came from google and bing maps.

 

What I notice here is that there are 2 rows of windows, and it seems that they have more space between them, than between the top or bottom of the wall. There are 3 windows per side, and a little section of windows in the corners.

 

 

Because of this, I decided to connect the edges around the base with 3 loops. The top 2 will be the windows.

 

 

The windows are also symmetrical for the most part, so I split it down into one quarter.

 

 

Now, we will setup the corner windows. First just one connection.

 

 

I wanted .25m in between the windows, and the windows are 1m wide, so it was, I think, a .625m chamfer; it ends up 1.25m between the two edges, so a .5m chamfer for 1m wide windows would leave a .25m gap.

 

 

There it is.

 

 

Now we chamfer the two loops we wanted to use for the windows, 1.5m tall, so a .75m chamfer.

 

 

Now we delete the portions that are windows and shell the whole thing. 

 

 

Now we add an edit poly on top of the shell. Between the windows, we will utilize that loop we had earlier. Chamfer it any amount, and then select a polygon within that chamfer, shift click another in the line, and delete the whole string. This will be our ceiling and floor.

 

 

Now we can either go to border select and cap each border that we deleted individually, or add a cap holes modifier on top of the stack. This will make the ceilings and floors for us.

 

 

Here is where I noticed that something was screwed up with the shell modifier. So I detached the top section with the ledge, which was overlapping itself, returned to the bottom half, deleted the very top of the wall; using either angle selection, polygon ring selection (the shift click), or going into a side view, selecting all of the top polygons, then deselecting everything that isn't the very tippy top.

 

 

Then, once that is deleted, we select the inner border, and cap this. That will be the ceiling below. The outer ring will be what connects the part we detached earlier. Attach that detached section and weld all the vertices there.

 

(No pictures for the next part)

To make the windows, we have to return to the bottom editable poly. We will select all of the borders we left open for windows, cap them, and select the polygons we capped. Then, detach them. Select the object we just detached, and select every element. We will now go to the move tool, but using the local axis. This is in a grey dropdown box near the transformation tools. Then move the windows inward a little bit. You now have the panes of windows in place. 

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That is how we add window holes and other things in a responsible way to buildings. By responsible, of course, I mean in a way that will look good, be suitable for future editing and detailing, and be seamless.

 

 I have a lot more pictures and progress but I didn't leave enough time tonight to explain. More tomorrow

 

A picture for your time.

[RepublicMaster 428]

Great project! I'll be following closely.

[Darknono35 3,137]

Great to see your come back, and woow, another good tuto

[Alex_1210 189]

wow that looks amazing, can't wait for its release!

[darn42 1,268]

Odd shaped windows, and some other stuff.

 

This one will jump around quite a bit, sorry about that....

 

My next step is to create the set of windows between the dome and the fat section.

 

 

I do a few things here. I measure the dimensions in photoshop using my height map, I look at all viewable sides in google earth, and I look at other photographic references. There are two patterns on this. There is a 1:2:2:1 setup of windows, and a 2:2:2 setup of windows, with bigger blocks between them, and more importantly, each of the corners is an octagon. Since the octagon is the most complex shape, I will start with that.

 

 

Warning: this next part may be confusing cause I forgot about taking pictures...

 

Rotating it 22.5 degrees and resetting the xform (reset xform is found in the utilities tab [the hammer] and you just hit reset xform) I collapse it again to an editable poly. Then, I delete the sides that I don't want and, using vertex snaps (right click the magnet with a 3 to the upper left of it to find vertex snapping) I align the octagon up with the corner of my prototype- I will later delete the prototype. Then I select the open edge, I drag it in toward the center 1m because there is a 1m gap between the side of the wall and the next window.

 

 

Adding symmetry.

 

 

Then I bridge the octagons together. Once that is done, I can add windows. (sorry again about the lack of information here)

 

Now, since it is harder to get information on the next section down, I will just go all the way to the bottom, streetlevel.

 

Again, I go to both my height map and streetlevel view in google maps. I get all the dimensions and the feel for what it is. 

 

 

This I will start with a single plane, created with "autogrid" checked, and using the vertex snaps. I will make this on the prototype. I make it and divide it into segments. 9 segments for the 9 windows.The trick here, though, is that I want them to be the same size, but I also want to make a section of no window near the edge of the wall. What I will do here, since I am planning on chamfering by .5m to get 1m "columns" is I will create 2 segments exactly .5m from the edge of the wall. I can do this by selecting them, turning on vertex snaps, snapping them to the edge of the wall. Then, I hit f12. This brings up exact transformation dialogue. Then, in the axis along the wall, move it .5m down. 

 

 

Now I can chamfer everything .5m and I got 9 windows, all the same size, with the same gap all around. Weld, the vertices at the edge, because they are now overlapping from the chamfer.

 

 

Now just use swift loop or connect to create some new loops for the window tops and bottoms; detach the windows and move in. 

 

 

Some other loops and connections to create the space for the revolving doors in ground floor shops.

 

 

The same thing with the other sides. I also set up some topology for some later editing. It's some bricks that run horizontally on the base.

 

 

Add roofs.

 

 

More of some similar devices. Setting up windows and other fun stuff. Using chamfers and connects.

 

 

Here is a nice tool that I have found. It's called sweep profile. It's a collection of architectural profiles that automatically add onto sweep. It's a script you can download at scriptspot here: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/sweep-profile

I will be using this frequently throughout this building during the detailing stage.

 

Now we will be adding some arched windows. These can be done an easy way which will result in very difficult editing later. Or a smart way, which takes a bit of extra time, but will allow me to edit this object later, and won't screw everything up later.

 

First I gotta make the arch shape for a boolean. 

 

 

Start with a cylinder

 

 

Delete the bottom half of the polygons, select the 2 edges on the bottom, hold shift, and drag them down. Bridge these two edges together. This will create the shape I have here.

 

 

Cap the holes

 

 

Now we zoom in and align the shape within the space we have for the window. Now we array it on all the similar parts, making sure it is very accurate--my array value was 4.433 on the x axis. Move them all to intersect with the wall.

 

Keep in mind, this is just one way to do that, you could also use splines and the shape merge command.

 

 

Pro-boolean is next. We just want an imprint of this on our model, so check the imprint box before we select any of the arches. Then select them all

 

 

Now we use the cut tool to cut from one end of the arches allllll the way to the other end of the last arch. We delete the outside imprint of the arch now, not the arch itself, but the rest of the rectangle that we fit it in (hard to describe). It will affect our welding to make these usable. Just select one of them, and use the select similar function in the "modify selection" section of the graphite modeling tools. Now weld all the vertices on and near the arches.

 

 

Now cap the holes leftover, and make the windows like you would with any other windows.

 

 

 

Now use the same process of making ceilings and floors and such to finish off that section. 

 

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That is all for now.

 

More coming soon.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Wonderful work buddy, I finally learned something here, and it's the cornice script.

 

Maybe there's a script where you type in the type in the name of the building and the finish the building for you and texture it

 

Another thumps up for you!!! 

[weixc812 509]

This is great, darn   But I still live in the shadow of wacker building. It's such a shame all the work didn't pay off...

Anyway, I do enjoy this new start. Please keep it up

[darn42 1,268]

A Cool Quick Selection Technique

 

This is something that is super easy to do, but also something I use A Lot. It is for selecting any plane of polygons or vertices or edges that aren't connected together.

 

I will be doing this on a sort of fence thing on the middle level which has a bit of a "cornice" to it. I will be using the sweep profiles tool to do that, but that needs a spline. Unfortunately, I just select the top and convert to edge selection or do a loop selection because of topology on the top of the fence, so I will have to just delete the top. 

 

 

First go into side view and select all of the polygons on the top or next to the top.

 

 

Then deselect the polygons that aren't the top.

 

 

Delete the selection you had.

 

 

In border selection, select the deleted parts, and convert to a spline. Select again and cap.

 

 

How to Create an Enclosed Gazebo

 

 

Start with a cylinder with enough sides. My reference: 

 

 

Has 4 protrusions which stick out. It looks like it is at a 3:1 ratio between circle and protrusion. That would leave us with a 16 sided circle (4 x (3+1)) But for looks sake, let's make it 32.

 

 

Now we make the extrusions, just select and extrude. I'm using symmetry modifier here again and extruding the corner. Once you've done that you'll notice the protrusions are rounded, which they shouldn't be.

 

 

Go into scale mode, and in the dropdown box select local (shown here this time) Scale the polygons in to be flat.

 

 

Now we want to setup the rectangular columns. We will do two insets. One in the center circle, then one with what I have selected here. You will see why in just a few steps.

 

 

Once we inset the second time, we select these polygons and extrude. You can see that it looks like the rectangular columns now.

 

 

Now we detach a copy of the center circle, again you will see why in a moment.

 

 

Select the columns and the center, we want the center so we will have a top to extrude and stuff with little effort later.

 

 

Delete everything on the sides that we just extruded that isn't part of the columns. Now attach the circle we detached earlier. ( )

 

 

After welding the vertices together, shift click the broken spaces in the backs of the columns. Using vertex snaps, snap it to the top of the column.

 

 

Weld that and you can cap the top. Now we have a completely seamless, relatively complex gazebo that we can add to later.

 

 

 

 

And here is where I am so far. Everything done here I have explained the techniques necessary to make and I will not be going over anything that I have already explained. That would be redundant

 

 

All of the "medium" details are pretty much done. I will now be moving onto the smaller stuff. Let's call it medium-small details

[Darknono35 3,137]

An impressive work , and an gorgeous building. I can't wait to see how you'll realize the sculptures

Keep it up Darn

[Delecto 941]

I think a masterpiece is on the way here!

[darn42 1,268]

Making Window Sashes

 

There are two types of windows on this building. The majority are the single inset sash that are very typical, and then at the bottom are some angled multiple sash types that will have a very nice effect.

 

 

First, we select one of our window objects. I have 2, one for the top section and one for the bottom section. They hold all of my window polygons. What we will do is select, on just a few of the windows, the side edges. Then we will hit select similar, hopefully getting all of the sides of the windows.

 

 

We will then hit connect to create a top section and a bottom section of the windows. Then, while the edges are selected, move the edges up just a little itty bit. This will allow us to select the polygons with select similar without selecting the top half. Once we select those, detach them to element, and using the local axis, bring them back into the window frame.

 

 

Go into border selection and select all of the edges. 

Create shape from that selection linear, and make the spline renderable with a reasonable value of width and height under rectangle. 

 

 

Now here's a trick for adding symmetry and other stuff. I would take the symmetry from the walls, by selecting the two under the stack, and right clicking -> copy.

 

 

Now we go to our sashes and right click -> paste

 

 

That's all there is.

 

Now let's do the cool ones at the bottom.

 

 

I'm using google maps as my reference, and I'm estimating the distance between the windows. There's one big window and 2 angled smaller windows. Connect the top and bottoms with 2 edges.

 

 

Select the middle and bring it out with local moving. 

 

 

Select all the edges in the middle and create shape from selection. Make it a circle with few sides and a small radius. 

 

 

Now we detach everything that isn't the big window half. We will now make the sides into a normal sash window. 

 

That's all there is

 

 

Making a Cool Arched Window

 

This is a bit abridged, sorry, but I'll try and get the gist through.

 

 

First I started with a box and I chamfered the sides with an edge value of 3 or 4 because it is rounded. Then, I made an arch with a spline and, using the shape merge compound object, I projected it onto my box.

 

 

Using the slice plane and cut and weld, clean it up a bit. You can remove extra vertices by selecting them and (shift+backspace). Extrude backwards a bit.

 

 

A few things here. I took the shape from my arch and made it into a sweep profile. Then, slap an edit poly modifier on top and create another shape from the inside of the arch on the sweep.

 

Project that shape onto the window, convert to editable poly and delete the outside part of the projected area.

 

 

Select all the edges and create shape again for window sashes. 

 

 

 

Making some ornaments

 

Looking back to my last post, the reference I used, has this little ornament below a cornice. I will be making that right now.

 

 

First, go into side view and make a spline near the shape of what we want. It doesn't have to be accurate right away, just make all the points necessary, then move then move them individually after creation.

 

 

Create a simple rectangle about the width and length of the profile of our ornament.

 

 

Select the original shape and select loft under compound objects and 'select shape' the rectangle.

 

 

 

Now lower the shape steps under skin parameters to 0 and the path to the minimum needed to communicate the shape. Then go to deformations and click shape. This will open the curve editor. This will allow us to shape the curve however we want.

 

 

 

Make yours like mine. Right clicking on a point will give the option to make it a bezier. Do that to most of them.

 

 

Now, create rotate and scale a circle until it fits around the ornament.

 

 

Loft this one as well.

 

 

Now, this would look better softer and rounder, so add a relax modifer on top of the stack.

 

 

Let's array it now. Located under tools. Holding alt while dragging on an arrow makes it go up in value slower.

 

 

Hide everything but those ornaments, make them all unique

(I forgot to make a picture so here's one from the internet)

 

Now click the window next to the attach button. Then either click on one end and then shift click the other or use hotkey ctrl + a to select all of your objects and attach them all. Then use symmetry to add it to the other side.

 

 

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Now I will do the lions heads on the fence. The easiest way to do this is to make a 30 second sketch in zbrush. That's how I do it at least.

 

 

It really doesn't have to be that accurate or detailed, just has to somewhat resemble what it is supposed to. All I paid attention to was that it has eyes a nose and a mouth.

 

 

Then decimate. It now has like 300 polygons tops but still resembles what I need.

 

 

Now just import and put it where I need it.

 

 

Now that the lionshead is in place I made a little staff thing that sticks out, very simple bevel work, and organized that the same way as the other ornaments.

 

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That's about it for this update.

 

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Once again darn it, you did it again. Keep it up!!!!  

[jwsteele 77]

Holy heck, this is looking amazing!

[Bipin 3,402]

Darn it Darn!

[Droric 99]

Wow  this is a goldmine of modern 3ds max information!  darn42:  What issues were you having with 3ds max 2014 and have you seen the gamma fix I created for bat4max 5 and 3ds max 2014?