Accurate measurements, making a two-story appartment

[Piflik]

First thing is to use Real World Units. To keep track of your units you can use Bobo's DIMaster Script (http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs9/DIMaster/index.html) .

[Tablett]

Alrighty, here we go! :)

Downloaded, installed and made a toolbar! Off to a flying start lol :)

So how do I use this nifty little gadget? :)

[musashidan]

Also,if you have a scale ruler(in the real world) you could draw a plan elevation of your apartment's bounding walls,door/window opes,furniture,sanitary units in the bathroom,etc..
and scan this in as a background reference in Max.Then you can either trace splines or use the AEC Wall primitive to get going.And as Piflik mentioned,real-world units and grid setup will be very important.

[Tablett]

Okey, the first issue encountered.

The DiMaster script does a bit of crazy drawing when I use it. There is also this random memory error at startup. Anyone got any ideas?
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/Tabletthp/error-1.jpg

How exactly do I create a grid setup ?

[musashidan]

How exactly do I create a grid setup ?

Grid Unit Setup.you set your grid units to suit your scene. 1 grid unit=1 inch,1 grid unit=1 metre,etc.............

[Tablett]

Ah I see what you mean. Right, done that. Changed the units to meters and put each grid square to 1 meter. The appartment isn't that big, so I wanna try and get a bit accurate. Is there any way to enable smaller grid sizes inside each grid square when you zoom in? Like, if I zoom in really close, is it possible to get ticks 0,10 meter apart inside the 1 meter square box?

The AEC Wall primitive caused me more hassle than I could deal with haha :) so I just made the walls with boxes and welded them together, cut them up and made separator walls inside. Is that good enough? Or did I break some cardinal rule of 3D building by donig that?

[musashidan]

Great thing about 3D.There are many routes to the same destination.AEC walls are very fast and efficient to setup.But this can be equally true of modeling walls with box primitives or spline shapes.whatever suits your workflow.
You can setup your Grid units to 10cm and your major grid lines to 1 metre.Or whatever you prefer.

[Tablett]

Right, got it the lines the way I want...well, almost..the major grid lines are incredibly difficult to see - is there any way I can change the colour of them ?

Also, when I'm in Edit Poly - Vertex mode and I click and want to move a vertex, is there a keyboard button I can push to make it snap to the grid - similar to shift and ctrl in photoshop?

[scrimski]

Try S. Rightclicking the snap button allows you to configure the snap.

[musashidan]

Not to sound too harsh.But at this rate the thread will be 20 pages before we know it. My personal rule of thumb is(and always has been): if in doubt hit F1. the Maxhelp is greatly underestimated and overlooked.There is an auto-index and a search feature. You will learn to greatly value it whilst learning. And if you find it's not supplying you with an adequate answer or you have difficulty understanding the subject........post here.

[Tablett]

S did the trick for the snapping, thanks :)

I find, like in most applications, that the help file is most useful when you have very specific and preferably quite advanced queries. I just read a ton of stuff about grids in the helpfile and now, by the end of that essay, I still have no idea if I can change the grid colour or not. I tried all the things it suggested, but none changed anything with the grid. The helpfile doesn't seem to differentiate properly when referring to a user created grid and the standard grid that can be toggled with G, so I just don't know.
The forum query equivalent in my brain is having you sitting next to me going "yeah, you just press so and so" and then I never forget it - or alternatively "no, you can't do that". After reading the helpfile, I simply mix all the information and misremember everything, provided I actually find the information I was looking for.

My apologies for asking many questions, I just find that acquiring information this way stores it in my head easier - referring back to the AEC Wall primitive and box analogy - this way is just easier for me :) plus, there is the increased value of perhaps getting to know you guys better :) (I hope 20 pages isn't so bad :P)

[scrimski]

I still have no idea if I can change the grid colour or not.Customize->Customize UI->Colors

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