I was wondering if anyone knew how to model an open truss, and could explain their workflow to me. i’m really new to modelling and wanted to get better.
When I made it I took the default square then deleted two vertices to make a triangle, then filled in edges and faces.
From there I created a Boolean by cutting a hole out of the triangle with a smaller version of itself.
I then added a modifier array along the x axis, then duplicated that group and rotated it placing them next to each other. Unfortunately I still have a gap…
Why does everyone use the Boolean modifier in their modeling workflow? It’s like a dentist using a bazooka to work on your mouth!
To answer your request for help though. I think you should keep in mind that a truss unlike a cast-in-place bridge is composed of many pieces. You have a good start, but so far the shape you have is more of a single piece shape.
I put this video together as a rough demostration, illustrating the way I would go about modeling a truss bridge.
That would be great, thanks, I would definitely be interested. I want to make one for use in a space scene using parts of it as ship wreckage which I hope to animate. In regards to a boolean I used Bryce briefly before and so learnt a few things in that which is why I used a boolean. Could you tell my why it is not a good idea to use one?
Some more advanced users will probably jump on this thread and flame me for this, but I really don’t know why Blender has the Boolean tool in its current format.
When you use the boolean it will always give you a totally unworkable mesh after it is applied. This and since Blender is incapable of Ngons atm it will wipe out your edgeflow and give you a bunch of jumbled tri’s.
What I do is start modeling the “holes” and then work out from there. So for example if you have a plate with 5 holes drilled into it. I will start by placing a mesh circle, duplicating it 4 times and then positioning the duplicates to fit the hole layout. Then I start connecting them to make up a face, afterwhich I start to model the rest of the object.
Once Bmesh is incorporated this method will probably be outdated, but right now it works pretty well for me.
Here is a nice video explaining what edgeflow is and why you want it.
Awesome. Yeah i’ve seen a little bit on meshes and used sculptris a touch. That is interesting how you model holes though I don’t ‘get’ how it works as such. Maybe its just me being used to boolean from bryce so much. Thankyou very much for your help by the way, I had a brief watch of the video, but will look at it in detail later on tonight or tommorrow.
Edit: Btw if you do, could you maybe add voice to it if you are doing another video? My apologies, as im pretty new and still have a bit of a mare with the basics it would really help.
