Needing help to model the rest of this sewer and space station

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#1

[IMG]http://i.imgbox.com/vHSjdjfi.jpg[/IMG]

I got most of the first level of the sewer system laid down, but the pieces are not JOINED UP (I don’t know how to join them so they align perfectly with each other or better yet FUSE THE pieces together into one mesh, (if possible) and 2). I need some sloping tunnels for going up or down the levels. I don’t know how to make sloping tunnels yet. I also need some big rooms also put between some of these sewer pipes. and I need a corner bend pipe If anyone can help with making sloping tunnels to go with this sewer system or corner bend pipes
let me know.

How do I also load in a separate mesh piece from another blend file so I can paste it in the
existing sewer pipe system? Is there a Group mesh Load System?

I also have this space corridoor mesh to tunnel out as well, it needs to be extruded out into more hallways and rooms to create a space station in the shape of a circle or ring, tht is a litle beyond my abilities to try to daisy chain these corridoors up into a ring so you can walk all around in…

#2

For joinging the sewer, I’d suggest searching for ‘pipe joints’ in the forums. Basically, you split your pipe with an edge loop, separate half of it and then sear to create a perfect right angle.

#3

Ok it took me a little while to figure it out but I think I finally got there, and had to do it in
the Vertex Mode, not in the Edit Face Mode, I managed to use the Spin Function to create the Half Bend
in the Pipe after selecting the vertices around the pipe edge. I had to adjust all the x and y parameters also to get the bend to go around in the correct direction.

To creating the long straight pipe pieces to join the pieces end to end I had to use the array function.

Tricky Stuff this…

#4

If you like, I can do a quick video going over that sort of stuff. Normally there is more than one way to get the job done but yeah, the initial figuring out can be frustrating. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

[IMG]http://i.imgbox.com/Q2BosGbi.jpg[/IMG]

yeah do a video if you want, because I dont’ know how to do these other things either. But moment I got the pipe bends working but not the other stuff. like the slanted pipe down thingy. The lighting, well I know nothing about setting up the shaders in Blender to get the tunnels lighted, so I put a simple sun light in it the world but after putting my commander inside the tunnel, none of the the lighting is coming through the tunnels anymore but you can see the sun only outside the tunnels edges shining so no light is getting into the tunnels. So the whole thing is all black and very dark and grainy. and its in cycles mode and it looks awful, you can hardly see a thing.

I also need to put some big rooms in where the pipes lead into but I don’t even know how to do that with the pipes because if I del the face where the pipe leads into the room, it will just leave a huge massive hole in the wall. I don’t know enough knowledge about Blender yet to know how to do connecting pipes into big rooms without removing the whole wall because you have to remove the face in the room the pipe leads into so you can access it into the room. I’ve only joined the long straight pipes with the array. but the pipe bends I have left unjoined because they’re not quite sitting right. I did add a couple of double pipe bends using the array mirror function.

I had trouble also with trying to set down a Custom Curve path, using the curve modifier like what was shown with the Tunnels tutorial of the railroad track that Andrew did. but It wouldn’t curve the mesh, along the curve path, when I tried it even though I had inputted the path under object as Nubiscurve or something like that but would only move the curve anchor points. Still don’t know what went wrong or why the curve path with the curve modifier didn’t even affect the mesh. because once you add the curve path and set the curve modifier to the curve path, it is supposed to allow you in edit mode to then move those anchor points around to allow you to bend the mesh following those anchor points that you move. So I couldn’t get that part of his tutorial to work.

Yet if I can get this curve path thing to work, it will be very powerful allowing me to
shape the tunnels and stuff needed for the type of game I’m doing and styling the rooms…

But when trying to scaling up the Curve Path Anchor Points, it would scale it from BOTH ends
instead of scaling it from One end. and that’s probably why it didn’t want to work. puzzled.
because I don’t know how to scale it from only one end like shown in the tutorial, and I do
not know the behavior of this program very well to work out what’s going on with it.

I was also trying to do the curve path from the 3d Preview Window, instead of the top down 2d
window, but maybe just maybe the Curve Modifiers dont work in that particular window. it might
explain why the curve anchor scaling sent the anchors all gonig straight up into the air
instead of scaling up all along the mesh. Maybe the settings have to be set on LOCAL
instead of global…

.Blender has been a difficult program to try to work with because of all these many keybaord shortcuts to try to memorize. so progress with it has been very slow…

#6

Stick with it, I totally understand your frustration, but honestly it does get easier. I came from a Lightwave background and it took me a while to understand Blender and you do feel at first you must learn the shortcuts. However, you don’t have to and I started to use them more and more as I got comfy with the actual commands. The thing with hte curve modifier is, it isn’t “real” geometry until you convert it to a mesh. A ‘gotcha’ here is, unlike other modifers, applying it does not convert the curve to mesh, go to the object menu in the 3d view header, select ‘convert to’ and choose ‘Mesh From Curve’ and this “fixes” the curve into hard geometry.

As to curve editing, you can just drag points around and extend them. If you want to scale a specific point, use ALT+S in edit mode and it bulges that part of the curve. I am going to try and put together a brief video for you. Once it’s up, let me know if there are other things you want help with and I’ll try my best.

Let’s see if we can’t get you up to speed with modelling then we can look at lighting. :slight_smile:

#7

Oh, check out my youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/ColinTCS there are a couple of videos on the modelling keys in Blender which may help. :slight_smile:

#8

Got The Curve Modifier Working well, sort of. but I can’t get the Anchor points PULLED OUT FLAT, it wants to pull the -->>–>>–
straight up into the air. like as if its in the wrong AXIS MODE for pulling them out. that’s not what I want it to do.

When is the correct sequence of doing this convert to Curve '? Because I have to apply the Curve Modifier Twice to get it
to hard write the curve into to the geometry.

Uh oh, once you have done the curve, and if you start moving the mesh to put the pipe into place, it starts buckling and doing all
sorts of horrible things to the mesh so it looks like once the curve is done, you can’t move the mesh around or it starts
deforming the mesh…

#9

Yep, once you convert the curve to geometry, you have to treat it accordingly. I have spend the afternoon doing a breakdown of some ideas, currently uploading it to my youtube channel. Will put the link on here once it’s processed, do let me know if you find it useful or if there are parts of it you would like expanded on. :slight_smile:

#10

I do a bit of curve manipulation in the video in the last section, but if you want I can do a bit more in-depth, up to my own knowledge limits. :slight_smile: Once you have seen the video, let me know if you are still having trouble with how the curves work. For things like sharp corners and such, I just dont find curves handy as they tend to “pinch” in the corner.

When is the correct sequence of doing this convert to Curve '? Because I have to apply the Curve Modifier Twice to get it
to hard write the curve into to the geometry.

Uh oh, once you have done the curve, and if you start moving the mesh to put the pipe into place, it starts buckling and doing all
sorts of horrible things to the mesh so it looks like once the curve is done, you can’t move the mesh around or it starts
deforming the mesh…

You don’t actually ‘apply’ the curve modifier, instead, ALT+C and select mesh from curve, that makes the geometry as if you had modelled it by hand. To be honest, I rough out using basic geometry, for this sort of thing, I don’t tend to use curves. Rather, I keep them for say pipes going along the corridor so I can keep them as curves and tweak to my hearts content.

Oh, to pull in something from another Blend file, make sure it is a separate object in it’s own right, then in object mode, simply use Shift+F1, (File–>Append), select then Blend file you want, go into the Objects folder of the file and select the part you need. This is where naming your objects well really pays off. If you then want to add that bit to an existing object as part of the same mesh, select the added object, hold shift and select your main object, then Ctrl+J to join them together, (Object->Join from the menus).

#11

Here’s the video, hope you find it useful.


Also a blend file showing how I’d use curves in conjunction with ‘hard’ geometry. :slight_smile:

#12

These videos are pretty good. thanks for taking the time to making them, I been making a major game
project involving hundreds of systems and worlds. The whole thing is chock full of flags. I’ve already written over 5 megs of windows script code for testing all its ideas out that’s the easy part but modling all those ideas in my script into 3d worlds now that is quite another.

I also need to find an animator for my commander as well. Hes not been animated yet.

#13

If you are doing a game, I don’t know if the environment needs to be “wter tight” or if you can have open edges, so it could be you may have to form the rooms from pipe geometry, I have never even looked at the game engine side of things. Let me know if you need anything expanding on. :slight_smile:

#14

Its a major game I’m making. I’ve already written a windows script mock up version of it, its over 5 megs in size now. So its not a
small little script. I wouldn’t know how to form the sewer rooms for the pipe geometry, but in the rooms will contain these urns, half of them will be half-submerged in the dirty slime of the sewers. This will be the home of the jellies, but also home to a
million rats as well if you wander down into the wrong part of the sewers that is. The Jellies, are those evil nasty looking flans or puddings that like to ram into you and bascially be a nuisance to slow you down…

There’s also the Panstuffs, great oversized dumb low intelligent brute beasts that guard the Catacombs. Not been modeled yet, I
only just came up with the idea for them today.

I also need to get Loana modeled too, shes the bio genetic research scientist. I’ve already got the commander modeled, but he
needs his body skinned, his head has already been skinned. Then he needs to be rigged, then animated.