Cineversity

Im trying to cut down on my tedious work load and wanted to throw this out and see if there was an easier way.

I have extruded some building footprints which have flat “roofs” but I need them all to have a “pitched” roof.

I found I can do this individually with each extrusion using the taper deformer and simply duplicating the same splines to the height of the original extrusion and then tapering, however, I have over 5000 buildings/splines to do this with and as you can imagine I am not interested in setting up the extrusion and deformer for each extruded spline.

Any one have some tips or tricks that might speed this up?

Thanks!

i have included a sample image of what I am doing with some of the tapered extrusions….

Hi Delancie,

An image is nice, but most of the time it doesn’t provide the depth needed. A simplified scene file would be nice.

I see the spline in the screenshot, that for one building, I guess, based on the Taper.
If not—you can retrieve a spline easily form the buildings (Edge to Spline—for example). Once you could combine them—check out the thread here (the one with the letters)

http://old.cineversity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2720&PN=1&TPN=6

This might create a lot of polygons. An editable version might have an option to reduce it. OR: we can explore options to bake it, but what is the target for it? However, you can take all Splines you have with “Connect” and with a few clicks your city is done. A more optimized option, like the Roof-Maker in Archicad, is not available to my knowledge. (Archicad, so far I know, has no city model automations.)

I have excluded here the option to use the fillets, as they go only partially toward the target.

If you provide a scene file, I have a look into it.

All the best

Sassi

As an alternative, following your idea of an taper-based solution, here is an idea. The only thing that needs to be established is the correct Axis (parallel) to the buildings. At least they should sit in the middle, Axis Center can do it—even with many at once.

The idea is to just create the amount of Taper Deformers and connect them to the Splines via Matrix. The Link List is limited to 1,000 objects last time I checked. How to get 1,000 taper objects, I copy one, then the two, then the four and so on. It is normally nine steps to get 1024 of them. So for your 5K you need five of those set ups.

Which means, a group of Splines needs to be the same amount.

The Iteration works then from 0-999.

The most Nodes in the provided scene file are in an X-Group, just to feed in the P.Y adjustment into the matrix. I have used a group here to make is simple. Click on the XP-null to use the User-Data - slider.

The Selection Object helps to select the Taper Deformers and set up large groups (1,000) at once.

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Once the XPresso has worked, uncheck the Enable option (Attribute manager) and check the result. In the provided scene you will find that “…Spline1.2/Taper2” will create a weird roof. (Perhaps 31 as well, but that is not so obvious) If the XPresso is off, you can move that single Taper. (It moves back if XP is enabled!

The Taper needs to be “Within the Box” and the Extrude Might have two or more subdivisions. The Spline is set to Linear and no intermediate points, compare the file 01 with the 02.

My best wishes

I guess the fastest way would be to avoid deformer all together.

All your spline should be in a Group under a fresh new Null, I avoid the group command always. Just call up a Null and do it manually.

Copy that group. Select all Splines of that Group (Select Children and deselect parent then). In the attribute Manager, go to Scale and set it low 0.001 for example for XYZ.

Then use the Object Manager>Object>Connect [and Delete].

The first group needs Connect as well. Copy it.

All three of them needs to be under a Loft. Set the values as in the example file, vary it. Yes, the Loft needs more segments than needed if modeled.

Move the three splines up and down until the houses shape up.

Make a copy of the Loft editable, switch off the original Loft.

Set the Phong angle low, to get sharp edges. Done.

I hope one of the three options will work for you.

File
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/aek7ayZHdyfacsnxLaS8XVksbPmlHbF2EQDwWfYAs1Q?ref_=cd_share_link_copy
Movie (one minute, feel free to download it, it is nice to use then)
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/j1yqebgWAf1NCM2dRdewZfHTtSHga9q9tJbiI0la4DE?ref_=cd_share_link_copy

First of all thank you for looking into this. the ones you made look really good and are exactly what i need however I am having some problems with how the set up is working with my splines. And I recognize that I probably do not really understand how it is you made that setup….

I have included the file you made with a sample of some of the splines i have. they are very crude footprints are not not perfectly linear so maybe thats my problem to begin with?

But the way my spline gets extruded seems to be way off not sure how these heights could be so different…

Hi Delancie,

You’re welcome. :o)

I hope one of the three will help to do in minutes instead of days. Even if you need only ~8 seconds for each, non stop, that would mean ~40K seconds or 11-12 hours.

I have added a one minute movie clip in #3. Have a look, it seems to be the simplest one.

There is no file in your post. If you submit, check always if it has worked. Often it does not, Mime type, too large , etc.

If you refer to one suggestion, would you mind to specify it, post number, or the file name, etc. Thank you!

The XPresso version need some more back ground—is it that one? Let me know what is the problem.

Have a good one

OK. Ignoring the sometimes “kind-of” overlapping roofs—if there is an U shape house… try this:

Place the Connect spline for all in a Loft, no caps, but N-Gons! Copy it, switch the original to off. Make the copy editable.

Select all polygons (CMD-A in Polygon mode) then press M~T to Extrude, one time for the walls, the second time for the roof. Keep the selection active!

Now go to the Mesh>Transform Tools> Normal Scale and scale the selected polygon close to a zero size. Done.

I guess this is the fastest way. The clip below is realtime, one minute.

Perhaps, one more step, use “Optimize”, to eliminate all points in the tip, to leave only one.

Enjoy

Movie (one minute, download if you like)
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/h8dC-mlMs6jb5sqzJIrdTktQc-7bxUv0XRmiIo8d_K4?ref_=cd_share_link_copy

Its the Simple things in life that are so magical… You my friend are a genius!

Thanks again for the feedback, Delancie.

It is like searching for the lost keys, when you found them, it becomes clear “why” they are there and no-where else. ;o) Something like that.

I hope your project will have success. Let me know if there is something else.

Have a great weekend.