interior design anyone ?

not very clear was I ? I thought that as there was no andquot;outsideandquot; to the room then pov would just let light pass through the whole wall rather than the hole ( <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>) and that I would need to place a second wall outside of the room with a hole cut through it to block some of the light and allow the rest to pass through the hole – there, clear as mud <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

I wonder if I could use this idea to make the lightmaps…. ?

My lil’ old example of this running will be put up online soon (by the end of the week) – so if anyone wants to download it…..I will let you know when it is up and running.

A quick way to get an ‘inside’ made ….

1/ add cubes to your 3DC, resize and position as required – all edges must be touching (I use the grid set to 0.1 and snap on)

2/ object union each part to its neighbour – so you end up with only one object

3/ invert the object

4/ paint the (now) interior

5/ go play ….

hi Alan,

I took the first two andquot;Back to Basicsandquot; tutorials and really enjoyed them.. I figure as I ‘play around’ with the program and do more Amabilis tutorials I won’t need the animated tutorials showing you ever little step.. .but for now, I really enjoyed those animations (very very cool)…
So basically I’m doing every tutorial I can get my hands on right now… andnbsp;so I’ll do the Interior Design tutorial. andnbsp;One question though… how does one set the grid to 0.1 and snap on??? andnbsp;I’ve been looking for those commands but no luck

John

you set the size of the grid under tools/options (in the word menus at the top of the screen)

to turn snap to grid on you need to press the 21st icon from the left in the top row of icons – move your mouse slowly and you get a popup that tell you what each button is.

and the pics ….

I know, I know Alan . . .there are so many variables, though–between different export file formats (.3ds, VRML, directx, etc.) and even in my specific case I guess a different VRML [i:1piym28m]viewer[/i:1piym28m] might have acted differently. All I know is that I did exactly the same technique as you described, and it didn’t work (because the renderer didn’t want me to be andquot;insideandquot; an object).

The technique you describe is the quickest, easiest, cleanest, nicest way to make rooms. It’s the way I like to do it. Very clean, low-poly, etc. It works for almost everything. [b:1piym28m]But[/b:1piym28m], as with anything, there’s a caveat. I hated to make this detailed scale model of a the proposed renovation and not be able to do an interactive tour without significant reworking of the model. I was however, able to do a walkthrough animation in 3DC and subsequent POV-Ray renderings (which were assembled as frames into an .avi movie) to get a movie tour, and that worked just fine and without issue.

Good tutorial on this though, as it really is a useful technique for most purposes, and it is not obvious to a lot of people.

One other thing I just thought of: does anyone know if these one-sided faces (that make up the andquot;wallsandquot; of the room from the inverted objects) react to light well? Specifically, suppose I cut a hole in it to make a window, place a light outside shining through the hole, and render in POV-Ray, expecting to see a light beam shining through the window. Will this be rendered properly, since from the side of the andquot;wallandquot; where the light is there really is no wall (imagine if you move the camera to the light position, you can see directly into the room), let alone a hole in it? I would theorize that it probably wouldn’t work, since most of these types of calculations are based on how andquot;raysandquot; interact with the normal of a surface, and since the normal (generally perpendicular to and extending out from the visible face) points toward the inside of the room, the ray wouldn’t andquot;hitandquot; it? I guess it still wouldn’t be much of a problem, though, since I think it should work if you make a clone of the andquot;wallandquot; face, shifted 0 in every direction and rotated 180 degrees around the Y axis, then subtract your window. andnbsp;Maybe I’ll test this later tonight. . .

I don’t know much about vrml but this does work. (stamps foot and puts out bottom lip !) andnbsp; <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
if anyone wants I can send a quick demo (1 meg) of it running in blitz ? which you can add your own level to by using the above method …..

the thing about this method is it is quick and can save on faces (if you do the 1 cube/wall method andnbsp;then an empty room will have 6 blocks with 12 face/block that is 72 faces (worse case) – this method the same room would be 12 faces ( best case))

While that seems like a good way to do it, I’ll chime in here that it doesn’t work as expected for all applications andnbsp; ???

Specifically, I had modelled a renovation of a classroom for work, and in addition to the flythrough .avi I made, I wanted an interactive walkthrough that could be controlled by the user. andnbsp;I exported my room to VRML, and it [i:9moutbyp]freaked out[/i:9moutbyp]. andnbsp;I eventually determined that it seemed like the collision detection didn’t want me to ever be andquot;insideandquot; an object (like a cube, whether inverted or not). andnbsp;So, no matter how hard I tried, I could never get to the inside of my room. andnbsp;A better solution for that application would be, I guess, to make all the walls out of separate cubes (ie 6 per room) or some similar technique.

That was just my specific experience with a certain file format, but similar problems might arise with other formats/rendering engines (exporting a world model to a game, for example?).

Geeze troub- tried to get light to come through a cut out in an inverted cube- had some strange horizontal shadow going through the center, with render shadows on, and when moving the spotlight got an unrecoverable error, three times.
andnbsp;Just me? andnbsp; KB

ok a quick test….

1/ pov does not put the light through an inverted wall ( there might be a setting in pov to turn this off ?) so we don’t need the outside wall to block the light.

2/kb’s black line appears to be to do with it being on the y axis 0 – move the room up – might help ?

3/more playing is required <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

this andnbsp;is a poved pic….

I think to do what you want – ie in povray – then the best way (I think) would be to just draw a alphamap window on the internal wall and then set up a fake wall on the outside with the hole cut in it to allow light to pass through it ? ( I will have a play with this idea but it should work……)

these pics show light rendered via pov…

[img:9p50nhxs]http&#58;//www&#46;amabilis&#46;com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB&#46;cgi?board=3DCProGeneral;action=display;num=1016505350;start=3[/img:9p50nhxs]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amabilis.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=3DCProGeneral;action=display;num=1016505350;start=3">http://www.amabilis.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/Ya … 50;start=3</a><!– m –>

for a game engine then the best way (again I think) would be to fake it with a lightmap (? shadowmap) ?

Right about #2- I guess moving the light through the axis is what 3DC didn’t like?
Confused about #1- if you pic is povray you have light coming through? I tried it and it does come through-as in your pic-
Yes to #3

Yes- acyually now I do see what you were saying.
BTW did you get my message? Any idea why I’m not getting that appelet? I have VM java installed and donandquot;t have a problem with the others.
One more- if I have an existing animation, can I add a burst operation to it by inserting to the timeline? Have been trying but keep ending up with the burst starting at the beginning-doesn’t seem to work like swish. Can you insert into the time line? or rather andquot;howandquot;-Didn’t really see a time line tutorial.
KB
Whoops-forgot about the table of contents- <!– s:P –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt="" title="Razz" /><!– s:P –>