Help! The ‘union’ operation isn’t working.

I have a request;
Because of the problems I’m having and my ignorance of the program, would somebody build me a wall and post it as a 3do ‘part’ file so I could look at it and try to apply my textures on it?
I would also appreciate the exact construction method used in steps, if that would be OK with someone.
If all goes well, I’ll use the wall and try an export into the game to see if ‘your’ window/hole shows.

The wall;
8’6′ tall on Y
10′ wide on Z
2′ thick on X
Window is 2′ square and should be centered on Z but not critical and the bottom sill is 5′ up on the Y.

I have made some more changes of this model this morning incliding removing one windowed wall. The other windowed wall I’d like to keep, though.
The whole model is in pieces at the present time because of the changes I’m working on.
It may be tomorrow before I could post this model for all to look at.

Thank you very much,

Is this any help,load the attached file into 3DC.

I droped a cube into a new scene, then…
1) Scaled to 5′ in Y (the bottom of the sill)
2) Scaled to 2′ in x
3) Selected the top face and extruded by 2′(the window height)
4) Extruded the top face again by 1.5′ (the wall height)
5) Scaled in z to 4′
6) Selected one side of the side faces on one side and extruded by 2′( the window width)
Extruded these side faces again by 4 to give the wall width.
7) Selected the window/hole faces on both sides and clicked the Bridge operation.

Bazza

Thanks, Bazza, I’ll look this over. I built my wall similarly but didn’t extrude the thickness. I started with a 2′ wall instead.

Thanks,

Ah, this is the complaint I have with putting a hole in a wall.
Notice all the additional faces and points as I’ve tried to apply my textures and the gist of this whole thread.
Bazza, this is your wall;
[img:35dckk58]http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3120/mywallpg8.jpg[/img:35dckk58]

Sooo, my question begins at the begining of this thread again and is, ‘how does one put a window/hole in a wall without all the additional faces and points so a smooth texture can be applied???’

I believe the [b:35dckk58]Union Boolean Operation[/b:35dckk58] would work if it wasn’t buggy.
Does anyone know if there are plans to fix this problem?

Thank you,

Your doinging something wrong when applying the textures to get this effect.
The wall model I zipped is Ok.

I looked at your file, you can’t build stuff like this, you have to many illegal faces.
Faces should have either 3 or 4 edges.

I’ll come back to you about the textures, can you post the texture you are using, I’ll apply it to the wall model.

I’ve sent you a PM.

Bazza

Here’s my wall model with a plank texture applied, See attached file.

When you apply the texture
1) Make sure you are in Edit using standard coords on the top toolbar.
Position the camera so you are facing the wall.
Not at an angle to it
2)Click the Fill tool on the right toolbar to apply the texture.
3) Click the Operation adjust tool, move the curser over the bottom right Scale Gizmo and scale the texture as required.

Last use the paint tool on the right hand toolbar to apply a texture to all the edge faces.

Bazza

Appearently I have no idea how to apply textures because I don’t understand what you said.
I need a tutorial on texturing, I guess. All I do is apply my textures to a flat surface. This wall has 6 of them so my textures apply evenly when there is no other faces or points on their surfaces.
I rarely use the fill tool because that spreads my textures horribly everywhere onto all 6 surfaces. Each surface has it’s own texture so I use the paint brush 99% of the time and the reason that I want a clean flat surface.

Forgot to mention that there is a ‘window plug’ in that other wall to make it look good in the game for now.

I work grave shift. Gotta go to bed. See ya tomorrow.

Thanks,

Ok…I’ll take a look at your model and get back to you with some texture hints and tips.
Probably sometime tommorow.

Bazza

First, the ilegal face problem….
The faces you create on a model by extruding, dividing ect. MUST have either 4 or 3 edges.
Thats the rules, and this is why your model didn’t load into Tranz with the hole visible.
Not only that but if you have ‘illegal’ faces, sometimes known as Ngons, the lights in either 3DC or your game engine won’t shade the faces correctly.
So you will have to re-build the offending walls on your model.

1) A basic cube, each face has 4 edges, these faces are known as quads.
2) Here I used the Edge operation to create a diagonal edge between two points.
This front face has now been divided into two faces, each with 3 sides.
Three sided faces are known as polygons.
So you can build a model in 3DC with both 3 and 4 sided faces.
3) Here I divided the top face of the cube.
The front face now has 5 points and 5 edges (an illegal face)
You can see that 3DC can’t shade this face correctly, as it does in figs 1 and 2.

[img:2epsjayy]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4245/illegalyr5.jpg[/img:2epsjayy]

Bazza

On to to texturing….
MAKE SURE you are in EDIT USING STANDARD COORDS on the top toolbar when applying textures.
AND that the camera is square on to the faces you are applying the textures to.
With just about every model you build you will need to apply textures to areas of the model with multiple faces.
There are a two main ways of doing this.
a) By using the Paint tool, keep the left mouse button held down and drag it over the faces you want the texture applied to.
This method works OK for small areas were you can easily reach all the faces without having to let go of the mouse button.
b) Sometimes the area to be textured is so large or difficult to get at, you can’t get to all the faces without letting go of the mouse button.
So you need to select all the faces to be textured and then use the Apply Material to Selection operation.
This, as it’s name suggests applies the texture to the faces you selected.

1) To select multiple faces, hold down the Ctrl key and either click on each face or drag the mouse onto each face holding down the left mouse button.
2) With all the faces selected and the texture loaded you can now click the Apply Material to selection operation.
you should end up with something like fig 3.
3) It isn’t really necessary to use the Apply Material operation with something as simple as this, so I just clicked on the first face with the Paint tool, held down the mouse button and draged it over the other faces.

Suggest you practice these two routines on a basic divided cube.

[img:2mow7phd]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8003/faces1sy0.jpg[/img:2mow7phd]

So back to the my wall model…
1) The wall side with multiple faces.
2) The faces selected that are required to be textured
3) Click the Apply Material to selction operation
Again with something this simple you could just use the Paint tool and drag it over all the faces.

NOTE the camera is more or less square on to the selected faces.

Next you would do the same for the faces on the other side of the wall.
If the texture to be applied to bothe side s of the wall was the same you could have selected the faces on BOTH side of the wall and run the Apply Material to selection operation.

[img:2vg1uv5y]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3118/faces2zc6.jpg[/img:2vg1uv5y]

Bazza

More often than not when you apply a texture to an area it will need to be re scaled.

1) The texture as applied is stretched horizontally ( the rivets are elongated)
2) To correct this you use the Operation Adjust tool ( 4th tool down on the right hand toolbar)
You really need to do this as soon as you apply the texture as this operation works on the current or selected object layer.
So first click the Operation Adjust tool.
Next click on the model you applied the texture to
Move the mouse down to the bottom right scale gizmo.
Hold down the left mouse button and (in this case) drag left to scale the texture horizontally.

Now the texture looks much better and the rivets are round as they should be.

You can also rotate the texture by draging on the Rotate arrows on the Scale/Rotate Gizmo.

[img:tco5js2x]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/6657/faces3aq7.jpg[/img:tco5js2x]

Bazza

I’ve also rebuilt the cab part of your model as a single object using the Extrude operation. See attached file.
I’ve left all the layers intact and just put a window opening in one side but you can run the Bridge op for the window on the other side if you wish.

A nice little exersize would be to texture this model using the above methods.

Bazza

Morning,
Just got home from work and have the next 3 days off.

I see I have a lot of work to do here.

This is amazing. I didn’t know texturing can be so precise.
I am going to have to practice all this to see how it works.

I very much appreciate this little lesson and thank you very much.

[b:1xnhfpn7]EDIT: Oh my gosh! You’ve opened up a whole new world to me just after 30 minutes of toying with the above information. [/b:1xnhfpn7]

OK…pleased it helped, practice, practice practice <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
The textures you apply can make or break a model.
The best model in the world with poor textures will always look poor, however even a very basic model can be greatly improved visualy with some good textures.

One other tip…
If you press the Alt key when selecting faces this will select ALL faces on the model facing in the same direction. This can be a big time saver but with models more complicated then this you can end up selecting faces you don’t want.

Bazza

Bazza