Arch-vis workflow

[danne82]

I´ve moved from max to maya and been using maya now for a year, still I would prefer to stay to max for those kind of things like architectural stuff, for character modelling I could use any of them it´s about the same.

from the animating guys they say that maya´s biggest advantage is animating, they havn´t used max since version 3-4 so I gues alot of things have happend since that aswell...

also you have all the good GI renderers for max if you are into that

[reForm]

yea.... it was the fact that vray is releasing a maya version before long that got me thinking that I might like a change to maya. I've always preferred the more rugged UI of maya and its node-based architecture.

I don't want to start a 'this app is better than that app' thread.... so I'll return to the question...

What tips do you have for poly-modelling arch vis in maya.

[MunCHeR]

Hiya Patrick, I made the move from max to maya a couple of years ago, good move imho, I have found it a little slow in some areas (probably just me) but basically all I do is import the dwg at scale of 0.001 assign the drawing to a layer (man I wish the layer editor had hierarchies) then extrude away, or draw curves over the cad layer duplicate and transalte in y then loft with poly output.Also you might wanna chack out maxwell render, its a little slow at the moment but some of the renders I have seen are exquisite and its a lot less painful to setup than mental ray, dunno about vray I have never used that render engine.

Good luck

MunCH

[reForm]

Hey, thanks for that muchly Munch!

I'll give that a go. Sounds like a good way to work.

Yea, Vray is great. good speed for doing animations with GI. Maxwell looks suweeet for still images, but the render speed is too slow for my liking.

[reForm]

I had a quick go at what you suggested.

With the extrude method, is there no extrude tool that doesn't require a path? This would be a pain if I always have to draw a path to extrude a shape.

With the loft option, how do you ensure that the lines loft correctly? I got a garbled mess when I tried.

I am trying to loft a sqaure with smaller squares inside (ie windows). The shapes might not be 'closed' which may be the problem.... is there a quick way to 'weld' all the verts to ensure that the splines are closed?

Thanks!

[SLarrimer]

With the extrude method, is there no extrude tool that doesn't require a path?

If you're using polygons you can extrude and edge or face without a path. Just select the edge or face, and go to edit polygons>extrude edge (or face). If you've started with NURBs, you can convert them to polys by going to Modify>convert>NURBs to Polys. I like starting with nurbs, and then converting to polys for the finishing touches.

With the loft option, how do you ensure that the lines loft correctly?


Make sure you're selecting the curves in the order you want them to be lofted in. Also, check to make sure all the curves have the same number of CVs, and that the CVs are roughly lined up. In component mode, the second CV should look like a U, that shows the curve's direction. If the curves you want lofted are going in different directions, that might also mess up the loft. To fix that, edit curves>reverse curve direction (I think... I don't have maya on my work computer so I can't check).

You can merge verticies with polygons, but I'm less sure about with NURBs. That's part of why I like converting to polys for the final model.

I hope that helps.

[reForm]

Thanks alot! that's good stuff... I'll try it out later and will no doubt have some more Qs ... :)


Thanks for putting up with my ubernooob questions.

I'm surprised there's not more around here specifically about architectural modelling in maya...

[Karlfucious]

To answer your question about the extrude. You dont need a path curve when extruding poly faces but you cant extrude polys from curves with out a path if that makes any sense. A work around to this is by using loft. Just duplicate your curves to the hight that you need and then you can loft as polys or nurbs. I personally like using polys better for walls and such because then you dont really need to deal with trims. Also you will have a lot less overall geometry in your scene.

For making windows and such poly booleans work great if you are using closed geometry. Granted you will not have all quads but It doesnt really matter with architecture anyway. I commenly use polys with 5, 10, 20 sided faces all the time and they render great as long as they are planar faces.

As far as rendering goes. Granted Maya doesnt have vray yet but you really dont need it. Mental Ray is more than you will ever need if you get it figured out. I am not to fond of the way Mental Ray handles GI. I personally dont even use GI or Final Gather anyway. Instead I just render out in passes with an ambiant occlusion pass and it looks just as good if not better than a GI render. Plus there is a lot less tuning involved.

[reForm]

ok.... I've been giving this a go. :shrug:

Assuming I import a DWG plan drawing. when I select the lines (nurbs) and try to convert them to polygons, I get an error. I assume this is due to the nurbs not being closed surfaces? How do I quickly take lines imported through dwg, make sure they are closed nurbs, and then convert to polygons ready for extrusion? the closest workflow to this I have found, is to create a square nurbs primitive, which appears to be 4 individual lines unconnected, then to select those lines and use 'surfaces-square' which leaves me with surface I can convert to a polygon. This seems fairly long-winded to me, so I hope there's a quicker way to achieve something similar.

I've managed to make extrusions if I simply trace the imported drawing with a 'create polygon' tool.... but I'd prefer to be able to use the imported lines directly.

Sorry if I'm not understanding your obviously simple instructions!

argh!

THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR PATIENCE!

[Karlfucious]

It might be easier to just turn on point snapping and use the create polygon tool to snap to all the points. Then you can extrude away. Im not to fluent with Max but Is the bevel plus tool the same as the bevel tool in Max? The bevel plus tool can create poly or nurbs geometry out of curves. You just have to make shure that they are closed curves. If not you can just the attach curves tool.

[MunCHeR]

another ideaI forgot to mention that usually I break up my imported plan into the various views, parent the splines to a locator and move them into the correct position in the various viewports, not the most elegant solution but its just how I work most of the time.
Like Karlfucious says it might be easier to make the create poly tool your friend and just snap to curves and go about it that way, should have mentioned that but its been a while since I have done any viz work.

Cheers

MunCH

PS: Patrick if you want to use the lined fron the drawing you might want to duplicate the particular line, translate it up(freeze transforms on it first) then loft bewtween them to make your wall or whatever, then delect the curve or add them to a temp layer.

[reForm]

Hmmm.... I feel my first MEL challenge is on the horizon.

Schematic :-

Proc makewall()
{
Select Line
Duplicate
Request user input for height
Translate duplicate line
Loft
convert to Polygon
cleanup old lines
}

then its on to booleans and polygon modifications to cut windows, skirtingboards, etc

what do you think?

[MunCHeR]

sounds OK, I would be avoiding booleans like the plague though.Just select the line you want, make some some shelf icons for loft then just ctrl+d translate with the y-axis in the channel box, shift select the first line and loft, I would be making a flat poly surface in the shape of the wall then just extruse it using the side elevations.

MunCH

[reForm]

So, is this the quickest way to build arch models? When I import the dwg, every line segment is detatched from the next, so you have to go through them one by one... very time consuming! Can you join the line segments together so you only need to loft one complex line?

So it looks like a really laborious process where you have to effectively copy-loft every segment to create each individual polygon, then you can weld (merge) them together to construct the single poly-mesh. This seems pretty hardcore.... no way is this even close to the efficiency of building things in max.... unless there's a plugin/script out there that can make this process more simple.

With tracing the plan with a create-polygon, how do you snap to the vertices of the reference material? holding 'v' only seems to work with active geometry.

[Karlfucious]

To snap to points on the curves just select all of your curves and go to Display>Nurbs Components>CVs. Now you should be able to snap to the curves with no problem. As far as using your dwg curves to model really depends on how clean they are. I am assuming all you have to go on is the 2d floor plan and elevations. Your lines should be attached or closed poly lines from Auto Cad if you plan on using them at all. Otherwise you have the tedious task of combining all the lines or having to loft all those parts individualy. I personally wouldnt even bother trying to work that way anyway because the create poly tool seems to be faster with a lot less parts to deal with in the end. If you have clean line work there isnt any reason why you couldnt model that way but if your lines are all chopped up it isnt worth dealing with regardless if you are using maya, max, or what ever. For me its just faster to redo the whole thing verses going backwards cleaning everything up. Also Keep in mind that most architects have a tendency to change their mind after they see it in 3d. Also any design discrepencies become apparent after you model in 3d.

It also may be benificial to just block out your entire scene before you even start to worry about the walls and such because it will save you a lot of time in the long run because then you will have a much better Idea of what you acually need to model. If it isnt in shot It may as well not be there at all.

[reForm]

Thanks Karlfucious, (what have you done to that cat in your avatar btw!?)

That seems a good fast way to build things up...

I've been doing arch-vis in max for quite a while now so I know about most of those general things... but thanks for the tips anyway!
:thumbsup:

[Velk]

Hey these are very timely tips as I'm looking at doing so arch-viz stuff in Maya soon, thanks - as I go along I'll post anything here that I find useful as well.

[Iconoklast]

Just a quick question, how would you do it in Max? and perhaps we'll find a way to mimic that method?

[MunCHeR]

I have found using the autocad drawing only as reference only, things can get pretty screwed up, I usually import the dwg, set it all up make my shapes, walls roof etc then export the selection to a fresh scene, I have had some really wierd stuff happen with autocad plugins (the name escapes me), and you get nodes all over the place in the outliner.In max I used to select the spline and extrude to a desired height, you'll want to take advantage of the layer editor, can make life a lot easier.I dont know how things have changed with maya 6.5 but it was mostly painful i found with 6.01 .

Good luck, keep us posted

MunCH

[reForm]

oK.... Max workflow.

Import Plans sections and elevations, group each one(ie plan-00, plan-01, ele-1, ele-2, etc), and place in seperate layers. (obviously making sure that they are at the correct scale and located around 0,0,0)

From there, depending on the geometry of the building, I start tracing the walls I need for internal views..... or tracing the elevations if its an external view. (or detaching(Clone) the relevant spline segments and then cleaning up to make sure they are closed splines)
Once traced or detached(using splines) I usually bevel to create the wall... then duplicate the object, drop to spline level and delete the outer spline, change the bevel to an extrude for the windows(glass).. the window frames, and cills have to be traced from the elevation, and beveled.
For floors and ceilings, I use the wall splines and extrude them or convert them to editable poly.

Pretty crap explanation I know, but that's pretty much the workflow for a simple model.

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