Newbie question regarding first basical age

[Rabenschwinge]

Hi, it´s me again.
After watching a million Blender video tutorials, reading through hundreds of threads and blogs, I´m finally making my first steps in age building.

I´d like to start with a plain, simple "one room" age to avoid getting overwhelmed by the more tricky stuff (skybox, realistic water, etc.)

So - my first question is: what is the best method to build a simple room, especially, with possible expansions in mind?
Would it be sufficient to use a simple cube, transform it, and texture it on the inside, or would it be better to make each room an object of its own (plane, cube...)?

Shorter said: Is it better to have a "one-cube"-room, or a room built from six cubes (four walls, floor and ceiling) or even a room built from six planes?

Rabenschwinge

[Lontahv]

It's easiest to start with a cube and work from there. If you want your ceiling or floor to have a separate material, you can split your cube into separate objects later in editmode (P key).

[Rabenschwinge]

Thanks

Now, I´ve set up my cube, resized it as it seemed to fit - and there is the next problem: I am unable to zoom "into" the cube. I´d like to see it from the inside, so that I can select faces, add materials, bounding and stuff... but when I zoom in, I cant "enter" the cube, I always stay on the outside, regardless how near I´m zooming in ... I guess, I´m making some really dumb mistake here, but it eludes me

[ZURI]

Try Hitting 5 on the numpad. That will change your view between "Orthographic" and "Perspective." I've found this to be helpfull when viewing objects up close, and seeing past other objects on the same page.

Hope this helps.

P.S. You'll also find that writing styles are like fingerprints. I highly advise you to listen to all the tip and tricks that you find here.... but always remember that you may find ways to accomplish the same tasks from various avenues. Hmm, for example, to make your "room," personally, I would probably create a single cube - then invert the normals. Use "P" to separate them, individually texture them then recombine them as a single object. You can also use a single cube, add multiple materials to the faces and not fuss with the separating/recombining.

Hehe, or, you could (as you previously wrote) use multiple planes, texture them, combine them as a 1 object, then "connect the dots." In addition to this, there are a few other ways I can think of to do the same task.

Be creative, and definately don't be shy. Folks around here probably remember me asking tons of questions early on. We're all eager to help new writers, and will help when and where we can. Good luck - and if you don't gain anything else from me... remember one thing... Don't give up!!

Edited for content...

[Rabenschwinge]

Aaaah, that did it, thank you!

[ZURI]

You're most welcome.

[J'Kla]

Use the Z to get to a wirefrme view.

Personaly I would have started by making a floor and then walls from either planes or cubes.

It does look like your thinking like I did to start with, and I ended up with Enobmort. currently there's something like 400 cubes.

I was looking to build in a modular way and I would again now but only because I've spent hours (no months) thinking it through.

I just spent about a day and a half removing edges I didn't need to get my polygon count down.

planes that occupy the same space intefere otherewise why worry it's only digital.

[Rabenschwinge]

Your advice helped me a lot, thanks, guys!

Now I´ve come to the next big obstacle: lighting.

I now have split my cube into six planes, added materials for them, and a lightsource (spot-light).

At first, the age was entirely dark. I tried to flip the normals (not sure, if that worked) and suddenly the room was lit by the lamp.

BUT: Its not like a "spot light" at all, all the room is filled with the same amount of light, only the barely seen shadow of my avatar indicates that there is a spot.

What did I do wrong? Is there anything I have to change with the settings of the light or the materials?

Sorry for my dumb questions, I´ve searched the forum and the wiki for a similar light problem, but did not find informations about that.

[Lontahv]

Sounds like you've gotten quite far. Just try adjusting the intensity and distance of your lamp. I'd set the distance at something like 200 to start with.

[ZURI]

Keep in mind that there are a few different ways of lighting your age. You can go with (what I like to call General) lighting, which is to use a single Sun lamp. Like Lontahv said, you can increase the power of the raise it's power. This will give the lamp itself a greater lighting distance. To fine-tune lighting on specific objects, you can also adjust the material properties.

To do this, you can play around with the colors of the materials, as well as their Specularity and Gloss. (There are other options, but these are the ones I use most frequently.)

You can also adjust the amount of ambient light the material receives. This is done by selecting the object, hit F5 (or click the Shading button), then the Material button. Click on the Shaders tab, then look down to the Amb slider. It is normally set to 1.000. You can adjust this from 0 to 1.000. The higher the number (the further to the right), the more ambient light the material will recieve, and vice versa. I've found this helpful in reducing the "shininess (sp)" of floors walls etc.

You can also use lightmaps. Andylegate has a very usefull tutorial at the GoMa. http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/gomawiki/index.php/TutorialMakingLightMaps

Dunno if this was helpful.