Modelling of a complicated-anamorphic shape building - help!

[artykris]

Hey,
I`m designing and modelling this monster.
It`s a high-rise housing scheme.
As you see it`s quite an animal it has an outer solid skin with windows and internal "soft belly" made of double glazed facade.

How do you usually approach the modelling of such a buildings?
What techniques you suggest to use? It needs to be quick, efficient and flexible for future changes.

I usually do it with meshes, sometimes editable polys. But I`m not sure if it will be ok to use meshes on such a soft masses. Might be a horror.
I work in max5 / vray.

[oconv]

maybe revit could do it in a handy way. it's also parametric and flexible for future changes.
one drawback is its price, but if your are going to build that monster...

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8963
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7336

-oconv

[artykris]

maybe revit could do it in a handy way. it's also parametric and flexible for future changes.
one drawback is its price, but if your are going to build that monster...
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8963
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7336
-oconv

yeah, that would be great to have this design going in revit.
architecture should be build in 3d not drawn in 2d

but for now we just need to finish concept presentation - so I`ll have to do it in MAX and draw the plans in ADT 2d ((.

[mike.edel]

an idea would be to use splines as a cage and then use surface tools (cross section + surface modifier) to generate patches
its pretty flexible, since you can edit the spline cage later on...
only drawback is that you have to use the same number of spline knots for every spline...

i guess the surface shape is the major point at this stage...


mike

[ShaunDon]

Man, I envy you for getting to work on a cool design, but you're in for an unimaginable hell. Starting to visualize a building at the concept stage is a pain in the ass no matter what the building is. It constantly changes. I hate tracing paper more than anything in the world. At least you're the designer, but make sure you're good and ready with the design before you start since you're not going to want to revise it.

Of course, you'll probably learn a lot about the shape in the process of trying to create it, so it's a good exercise.



I've been working in my (scant) off-hours on this ship model just to work on something that's more technically challenging than brick and concrete. I created a rought spline cage like Mike said, just enough to define the contours, then I collapsed it and refined it as an epoly before applying a meshsmooth and adding my creases. It took some getting used to, but I'm pretty happy with that work flow.

Shaun

[artykris]

I`m using surface tools. Works great!

I have one more question - cross section modifier creates the shape according to the polyline number. So if I create a couple of polylines, each gets next number.
How can I number the polylines manually? I need to modify the crosssection shape, adding few more polylines at the front - I mean before the polyline no. 1. ??

[tom schuelke]

In my opinion, Subdevisions are still a more inuitive but spline cage modelling.

of course this depends to you, but the polygon functions in max make modelling with meshsmooth somewhat more intuitive but splines. only thing with splines is , in some cases , its a bit more exact to use cause you can take splineprimitives.

but in the real stage of develloping , meshsmoth for me is the better choise.


Tom

[thumpa]

Detach all the splines separately, and re-attach them in the correct order.

[artykris]

Detach all the splines separately, and re-attach them in the correct order.

Yeah, thanks, I just did it like this.
It is a way-around...

[olitech]

interesting building...is this a Dubai project?