Wings 3D Development Forum

Hi! I'm trying Wings for level design/grey boxing at the moment (really enjoying it so far). I want to make lots of little houses. While their geometry can be pretty simple overall I'd like to get some accurate roof overhangs -- no problem with very simple houses but a little harder to do for L-shaped ones.

My current workflow is to
-make the simple house form with gable


- (shell)extrude the roof along normals - here is where it gets wonky because of the normals, see picture


- normally I would now just extrude the small sides of the roof all at once to get the overhang but the result turns out crooked because of the uneven first extrusion...
So instead I use an intersect with a temporary plane along each sloping edge of the roof, one by one.





End result:


The workflow is not so terrible and the end result is good. But it is just a little tedious to repeat. Is there a better, faster way to achieve it? I'm quite new to Wings so there might be something simple that I'm missing.
Thank you!

Hi!mbbmbbmm
Thanks for share the information.
IMHO Wings3D modeling flow is similar woodcrafting processing in the real world.
It's convenient to make a jig (temporary object)for virtualy set and control a vector or position.
So,I think the method using intersect command and a temorary plane is a good idea!! Cheer!

mbbmbbmm Wrote:The workflow is not so terrible and the end result is good. But it is just a little tedious to repeat. Is there a better, faster way to achieve it?

The way I tried it also takes time(it is many commands and steps too).
The current Boolean doesn't support coplaner, so we will manually combine it...

1. Switch Face mode:To Make a jig to select the roof(diagonal by half) and shell extrude to Y up axis
2. Switch Face mode: Apply shell extrude overhang from inside corner of L shape roof.
3. Switch Body mode: Combine two overhanged objects (These were shell extruded in STEP 2)
4. Swith Body mode: Select overhang object and apply Plane cut by MMB(it loop cut)
4-1.(Plane cut) Secondary selection ---- Select a side face of the jig object.
5. Switch Body mode : Select the roof and overhang ,apply weld command to them.

Thanks for the alternative workflow!

Yeah, I guess I found the best way then, it is a little bit repetetive but that also makes it quite fast using Ctrl-D to repeat.

I also tried your "separated workflow" with the Boolean operation in ManifoldLab - which can handle coplanar faces

It worked great but it also took longer because it involves more dissimilar steps.

I really like your comparison with woodworking craft. A limited set of tools that are very flexible and can achieve a lot. It feels like it can be mastered. I am discovering so many cool techniques - the move magnet for instance is super cool and that's not even using Tweak mode...

Anyway, thanks again!

mbbmbbmm, in the workflow you shown you don't need to create a temporary plane. Jus pic three vertex fro the roof bottom. The will define a plane as required by the command.

Oh yes that makes sense.

So my updated workflow after shell extruding the roof:

- connect the edge ring around the house and slide the resulting loop to position
- pick three vertices of that loop and store the selection (have selection groups window open)
- select the edges I want to extend in the same direction
- intersect with plane command, click on the stored selection in the selection groups window to get the plane
-repeat with Ctrl-D for all the slopes until finished
- optionally get rid of the additional edge loop around the house

Cool, now I understand the edge intersect better, it just extends the edge to the plane

Alternative workflow can be used if I want to keep the ends of the roof unrotated. This would involve intersect with Middle Mouse Click option

mbbmbbmm, about the issue you shown in this picture...


... by considering the following steps you have in the workflow, that can be solved by applying the Shell Extrude (Normal) with a distance (offset) of 0.0. Then you add an step by using the Move Y command.
This will be OK for the Workflow 1. (because of the way the roof is not following its inclination, but the ground plane)

Quote:connect the edge ring around the house and slide the resulting loop to position

As you said you are doing lots of houses, if you want some precision in the distance from the top where the roof should "stop", I recommend you to use Inset (RMB) after select the base and side faces of the house (which can be done easily using marquee selection. This way you are going to sliding that "cut" by distance and not by percentage.

Make I-shaped house, extrude roof etc.
Make the reference oblect and "plane cut (RMB)" house by it:

"Loop cut" house, hide/delete cutted part and select that face:

"Mirror"

Repeat if you need more complex shape

@micheus: awesome, thank you!

@ivla: this is also very cool with a clean result! I'll just have to remember to additionally extrude the mirror side of the roof far enough to not get a gap after mirroring.

It's the better way for my workflow 2 result.

Thanks again, everybody!