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After the box

GHD

GHD

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Thanks to you all I now have an acceptable surface

The next problem.

I have extruded the surface, but I am unable to select the inner faces:




Edit. I now realise that it hasn't extruded the faces, it has just extruded the boundary edges :confused:

How do I add thickness to a surface? ie. make it a solid?
 
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Hey George,

Go to Polygons, select all Polys you want thickness to, and then click Extrude and drag out, or enter an amount for the Extrusion.

I later found out by Milton that if you tick 'Local' on Extrude, then they all evenly Extrude 'nicely' all around, be it inside our outside extrusions.


Thats how I do it.


Then, for the inside surface, clone the part that you 'started with' (before the Extrusion), and go to Polygon mode, and select All polys that were being thickened on the other part, and 'Flip' the surfaces (bottom of the commands in the Polygon Model, and I believe you have to convert it to a Editable Mesh before you get the Flip Polygons option). This will then provide you with the reverse side of the thickness.
 
Thanks Bill,

I think I now have a solid object.

At least I can see both the inside and outside surfaces :)

 
I should have mentioned this, that if you made the hull to dimension, then you want to 'Extrude' inwards, so your exterior dimensions 'do not' change. Thus you clone the exterior hull, rename it interior hull, save as Editable Mesh, Select all Polygons, click Flip Polygons or Flip faces, what ever it says at the bottom of the RH Polygon window, and then extrude them inwards with Local ticked on..

That is the 'proper' way of doing it, and how we do it with fuselages..


Bill
 
I understand Bill.

What I was missing was the clone step (another tool in the toolbox). I can use that for operations such as creating decks with shear and camber.

I am now going to start on my third incarnation.
 
George,

You want to only use Clone from the top toolbar at 'Edit/Clone'

The other, and Mirror are bugged with FS..
 
lionheart said:
George,

You want to only use Clone from the top toolbar at 'Edit/Clone'

The other, and Mirror are bugged with FS..
Click to expand...

I know what Bill's talking about and Bill knows what he's talking about ... but to be clear, don't use the Mirror button on the toolbar at the top of your gmax screen. Use the Mirror modifier from the drop-down Modifier list to the right of your gmax screen (it's a long list...)
 
Yes Tom, there is an Edit/Clone, but not an Edit/Mirror. I always pick it from the modifier list :)
 
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The "Clone" from the top toolbar works just fine, provided you make certain it's set to Copy and not Instance!
 
n4gix said:
The "Clone" from the top toolbar works just fine, provided you make certain it's set to Copy and not Instance!
Click to expand...

Incidentally if you make that mistake, right click on the modifier stack and select 'Make Unique' to er.. make it unique i.e. a copy not an instance. So glad I've finally found that...
 
Unfortunately that method didn't work. I had two surfaces but not a solid model so could not create decks using boolean ops.

I have restarted from a cylinder and it isn't bad:



The problem is that I would like to add another set of vertices as shown below to further reifine the surface:



Is there any way I can add extra vertices or split a column of polygons?

In anticipation,

George
 
Hi George,
What do you mean by solid?
I don't think you'll ever end up with a solid in gmax, it's all surfaces. There's never any stuffing between the surfaces. :D
I work with Dassault Catia professionally and there you do have solids and surfaces, the solid being the end product most of the time.

As for your question on dividing the edges.
In Max there's a function called Connect and that will divide selected edges into the requested number of segments and create connection edges between them.

There's a plugin for gmax that will give you more or less the same functionality and installation of that should be mandatory on every modellers gmax computer!!! :twocents:
No really, it was the late Gerard vd Harst who pointed us to this magnificent tool back in 2007.
I found it very usefull, so you could give that a try.

It's called Meshtools 2.5, available here:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/meshtools

More info on Meshtools can be found here:
http://ground-studios.com/stuff/meshtools/meshtools_eng.htm

It's a bit of a read, but a bit down the page a description is given of what Meshtools does.

Btw i don't really understand what you meant by being unable to create decks by boolean ops?
Was the problem maybe that your inner and outer skin were still 2 objects? If so, you can attach one to the other. Then you weld the coinciding vertices and you'll have one object.

If you have a symmetrical hull, you can model one side completely and then mirror that afterwards, attach the halves together and weld the vertices along the longitudinal axis (if that's where the split is).

That's how many if not most airplane fuselages are modelled anyway.

Hope this helps.
grt
Willem
 
Thanks Willem,

The problem was that the two surfaces are only 50mm apart so it was impossible to create faces along the open edge.

I was able to subtract boxes to create the edges, but I couldn't add a stern by using a box and subtracting the hull:



I needed to slice the box many times to create the correct shape.



To create decks, I need to cut a horizontal plane with the inner surface. There is no way I could do this with slices.
 
Hey George,


To 'divide Edges' or 'add Vertices', you convert your object to an Editable Poly object, select Edges mode, and click 'Divide' button. Now click away. Everywhere you click, a Vertice will be added.

What I do is create a background line or object to use as a cutting guide. You may also have to hide the backside or click on 'Ignore Backfacing' so that as you are cutting the Edges (placing new Vertices), then you are getting the ones on 'one' side, and not both.

You can then 'add' Edges by clicking on 'Create' (next to Divide) and start adding in connecting lines.

You can add Vertices in the middle of Polygons also. Convert the object to Editable Mesh, go to Polygon mode, click on Divide, and click away. Convert back to Editable Poly to add (Create) Edges to connect to those inner new Edges.

I never did get those MeshTools to work. I'll have to try again.


Bill
 
Thanks Bill,

I have copied your instructions to a text file so I can study them.

Willem,

This is what I mean about solids. Given my outer hullform, I can subtract a box and a "solid" object remains:





I couldn't do that with my thin-skinned shell.

To create multiple shears and deck heights, I thought of creating a tool from a reduced scaled hull. this should leave a "wall" thickness around the edges. What do you think?
 
Many of us have found that booleans are less successful the more complex the shapes we try to combine. One way around this is to separate the area of polys to be cut/merged from the rest of the object and close any holes, do the boolean and then remove the unnecessary polys from the result, then attach them back to the rest of the object. Weld coincident vertices and you should be done.

Bill can tell you about using Cut instead, he's posted about this before. Both methods are effective.
 
A little further progress, bulb and deck clutter added.



I think I will need to start again :o

When I started, I did not have the correct overall height so I need to regenerate the sections. It is also sitting too high in the water.
 
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