3D design question!

[Guest Hagar]

I`m VERY stuck here. How do I form the blue skylight to the top of the curved roof? I need 9 of them on the rooftop. I`ve tried Face Extrude, Booleans/ShapeMerge and many other things no no avail...And I have to finish this building till Monday...So I am asking here instead of waisting another bunch of hours on this.

[Guest]

Hi, it's not that difficult.First of all the curved roof won't import too well into Fly, as it has to be cut down to triangles. If you change your curve to a number of discreet steps, you can also make the skylight match these steps to make it look good.Easiest way is to specify the number of sections in your base object (cube probably).Good luck,Norm

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Norm,Actually the roof is built in very few sections. I have enabled Vertex Ticks in the pic to show this. The complete building imports like a charm.I still can`t figure out which method I should use to match the skylights perfectly to the roof, to avoid glitches.

[Guest]

Hi there Andrew I you want I can take a look at your mesh and see what I can come up with please email me if interested or send me a 3DS file as I have 4.2 a .max flie would be updated to ver 4 when I import it. Dan (P.S. I do know my way around max)

[Guest]

Hi Andrew,the roof looks ok now with the vertex ticks. Had me scared there for a while ;-)What I would do for the skylight, is startout with a cube that has 6 sections. then edit it the way it is now. Next, just select the points of one crosssection and drag them to match the vertices of the curve.Drag in x-y plain and lock z-movement./Norm

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Dan,I think I am getting there for now. I`m leaving for Portugal on Monday, so I won`t use Max for the next 6 weeks, but I`ll bringZmodeler with me and use the evenings to learn that one too.Hope I can mail you if...(WHEN) I get stuck again :)

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Norm,I went for cross-sections. Then I moved the vertices to the right place thanks to the wonderful Transform-type in which I learnt from your scenery manual. Using this function, I can avoid a lot of snapping/adjusting indeed. Haven`t used Weld yet, just snaps & transform-type in, then Attach/Detach.Next, I Tapered the form of the skylight. Then I went back to vertices, selected groups of four vertices (the cross-sections), and aligned them to the roof. I think I`m happy with the result. Now I just have to array 9 skylights and texture map`em :)Thx for the help.

[Guest Hagar]

Here`s the result. Quite happy with this. The rest of the scenery is my crude old beta, the Tower & Terminal is for Roy`s new Gardermoen airport scenery, and I`ll deliver a Terrascened & Terrashaped quarter tile :)

[Guest]

Wow, very nice!!/Norm

[Guest Hagar]

I`m going to make the rest of the terminal & gates too, plus the night models. Hope you`ll get it all in November.As I`m progressing, there will be updates to the modelpods :)

[Guest]

Hi Andrew hope you have a great time in Portugal!! 2 Z modeler is a great little progie! I like it as well( and it's a little less costly than 3DS max 4.2 LOL). Dan

[Guest]

Hi Norm you know I still love your KATL scenery for Fly 2K BTW oh it's it's nice to see you around. Dan

[Guest]

Hi Dan,I've been really busy in the last couple of months. Jobhunting in the aerospace sector (you get the picture...).Nice to see that many are still lurking ;-)/Norm

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Dan,Zmodeler is really good news. It looks very interesting, and most important, it is achieveable without blowing up my wallet :)It is a mystery to me that such programs have to cost a fortune...