Modelling a Building

# 1 02-01-2007 , 04:45 PM

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Hey everybody!

After shelving my old project, I've decided to start a new one. The problem is that I have found abosultely nothing that deals with modelling buildings in Maya. Are there any sites, any tutorials anything that deals with the modelling techniques and stuff out there?

Thanks

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# 2 03-01-2007 , 01:46 AM

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buildings are pretty easy i just make a poly cube scale it to the right size set the subdivisions to all 10s and sue extrusions for the windows e-mail me if you want more detail

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# 3 03-01-2007 , 12:14 PM

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So there ain't any specific techniques? I though there would be something specific just for buildings and stuff, I mean you see people writing 20+ pages for objects like planes. Well I've been tweaking the polys with the inputs and stuff and while I get I good result for simply things I'm completely lost as to making anything more complex than a heap of cubes with detail stacked on top of each other.

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# 4 03-01-2007 , 12:25 PM

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Ive not really seen any tutorials for modeling architecture,

I've got a friend who models them in AutoCAD then improts into Max for texturing, lightering and rendering. So he never uses Max for modeling..

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 5 03-01-2007 , 02:54 PM

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Thats pretty much what I've been seeing - make the building in AutoCAD then texture it in Maya/Max. But I don't want to learn AutoCAD, let alone buy it (Autodesk is evil).

Anyways, didn't the people making the special effects for King Kong do the architecture (aerial shots of a 1930s New York) in Maya? They modelled all the doors, bricks and windows and wrote a script that builts entire buildings. My point is you can make buildings in Maya, so why doesn't anyone do it?

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# 6 03-01-2007 , 03:09 PM

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I think people do make buildings in maya - I'm working on a scene at the moment in the WIP section with a group of buildings in it and so is marlonjohn and acid44.

What type of building are you planning on making? I think how you would go about building it depends on the building itself and how it will be used in your final scene. The lack of the tutorials is probably due to the fact that aside from making a regular run of the mill building, which would probably be fairly easy to work out, there are so many different types of buildings that how you make it depends on each specific project.

arran3D

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# 7 03-01-2007 , 03:13 PM

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Originally posted by The Architect

Anyways, didn't the people making the special effects for King Kong do the architecture (aerial shots of a 1930s New York) in Maya? They modelled all the doors, bricks and windows and wrote a script that builts entire buildings. My point is you can make buildings in Maya, so why doesn't anyone do it?

Originally Posted by

They might have projection mapped them, used another progarme say Vue, or even imported cad drawings as their basis.

Theres lots of ways to do things.

If I was to make a building I would knock out the basic shape then use bumps etc to get all the details

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 8 06-01-2007 , 07:54 AM

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arran > 'What type of building are you planning on making?'

Hard to say. Guess you can call it a parade ground where tanks role past these 'platforms' where the leaders stand. Its for this story thing I'm developing. I can go on further but I'll think I'll bore everyone. Anyways its not too complex, no archs and stuff.

gster123 > 'They might have projection mapped them, used another progarme say Vue, or even imported cad drawings as their basis.'

They defantly used a mel script in Maya to do automatically generate the city. Anyways, I think Vue is only for making forests and other natural things (Pirates of the Carribean) but correct me if I'm wrong.

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# 9 09-01-2007 , 10:23 AM

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If anyone is still interested about how they did the 3D 1930s New York in King Kong, after ten hours of shifting through history, I found the link: www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/article1_CW.asp

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# 10 11-01-2007 , 06:23 AM

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hey Architect, sounds like a pretty cool project you are about to design. about the tutorials, heres a link which helped me dramatically even though the tut looks newbieish...dont know if this will help you any bit or you already know it but here it is.

https://www.tutorialscentral.com/inde...d=30&Itemid=30

also a tip just to spare, plan before you start building because you will end up having trouble and it will kick you in the butt, lol.

Cheers
Marlon

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# 11 11-01-2007 , 11:30 PM

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Thanks for the tutorial. You are right, the tutorial is a bit newbieish as you said but I did learn some tricks about how to speed up modelling.

marlonjohn > 'also a tip just to spare, plan before you start building because you will end up having trouble and it will kick you in the butt, lol.'

Yeah, I learn't that a long time ago, before I started Maya, lol.

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