Jennifer's Classroom

[pappou]

Yes, it is getting pretty crowded within the original setup. When Jennifer recovers her sanity, we are anxious to hear her decision.

Meanwhile......

Thank you Jojon for your help. By focusing upon Boolean > Difference, it has made all the difference. That is exactly what i needed.

Now This .......

hollow set studies 3.png (98.66 KiB) Viewed 3363 times

I have run into a stubborn material in one of my walls which refuses to give way to hammering, drilling or dynamiting [A]; you can see around on the [D] tube, how the same <Difference> tactic has worked there, as well on this end of the long square sausage, opening into the big volume, and on its sides.

hollow set studies 4.png (116 KiB) Viewed 3360 times

But that wall at [A] has been frustrating. I have attacked it with with several types of small and large hexahedrons (for instance, at [C], a long one was supposed to open up three different places along its length, but had no effect; and a small one, similar to [B] likewise).

The last time i made a new [C] cubelet, and tried to <Difference> upon a hole in the wall at [A], what i got was a thin little slot, at the second floor. You can make it out if look closely. And yes, that mail slot was made by the cubelet [B], applied similarly to the one at [C].

I suspect you cannot help me much with this, Jojon, because i am probably doing something wrong. But.............. if you have a magic solution, it would be appreciated.

Meanwhile, thanks for helping me over the big hurdle.

****************************************
EDIT: 07may08
I think this must answer at least a couple of my problems:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Booleans

If more than two mesh objects are selected only the active and previously selected object are used as operands.

However, the attempted cut at [A] was just a pair of selections?

[Sophia]

Well... it may not be visible, but I managed to remake make the pillar with a LOT less vertices. First of all, I found out I used the wrong sphere, I should have used the IcoSphere where I should have used the UVsphere. No wonder my vertices when bananas! I haven't found out yet how to smooth it out, and when I looked at it in Uru it looked horrible The flutes are not visible at all! But at least it looks good in Blender

Show Spoiler

Improved pillar

Pillar1.jpg (100.3 KiB) Viewed 3346 times

[Jojon]

Beautiful pillar, Sophia!

@pappou:

Your problem with selecting an object that is entirely enveloped inside another one:
When there are two or more objects/vertices/edges/faces really close to where you click, Blender will usually resort to selecting them in turn. In this case, I suspect the first click selected the larger cube and the second click, the one inside and that this worked out well for you, since you could simply do the order: click -> large cube selected -> click again -> small cube selected -> shift click -> large cube selected, with little cube remaining as secondary selection.
You could also have selected the cubes in the outliner list.

Half related: Sometimes in edit mode, you may find it nigh on impossible to select a perfectly visible vertex from some angles, winding up with antoher one selected, halfway across the mesh instead. In these cases, just hit U, to undo the erronous selection and press the little box icon that makes meshes see-though in the view - that seems to help with stubborn vertices.

About the pipes in the example rough Gestoypahts rotoscoping project: Uhm, you lost me there, I'm afraid. Some artifact in the worn concrete texture? The 1' gap between the map and the (soaring) walls? No idea. ...I did speculate at one point, as to whether the temple roof might be some sort of AC/humidifier jobbie, mind.

The failing cookie-cuts: Humma.. no idea. There is this thing that I have not read up on: often when you transform an object, it is not REALLY scaled/rotated/sheared/ whatever, but there is just a modifier that tells Blender to draw the object with these things done to it. Maybe you have some of these going on and maybe have to "make them real" so to speak, before doing the bits of logic exclusion. You do this in the Object mode menu: Object->Clear/Apply ( hotkey: ctrl-A ).

Another thing: If you haven't got this already; jump into prefs: View&Controls->Display and tick the "Object info" and "View name" buttons.
This will print the name of the selected object in the bottom left corner of view windows and the view orientation (top/front/sides/user/camera) in the top left.


@Jennifer: You did mention you were busy, so I figured you wouldn't mind if I barged in - relieved you didn't. :7

[Junee]

Heekity, you're like six pages ahead of me! It looks as I have some serious cathing up to do. Been much too busy playing GW lately.
I have no classes on Friday so I think I'll set aside some time for this instead of just studying the whole day like I planned. Because this is studying too, right?

[pappou]

I suppose i should not lay out a bunch of messages in serial order here – so, i hope none of these get trampled upon.

[1] I agree with the notion of putting each Lesson in its own page; I suppose that replies to Lessons would be attached to that same page as well.

[2] My hope too, Jojon, is that Jennifer is not miffed by your sitting in during her absence to attend finals; i know that some teachers become deeply offended if anyone crosses over into their territorial prerogative. But i feel quite certain that Jennifer has a large threshold of tolerance in these matters.

And i particularly, am appreciative of your being the doctor on call during her diversions.
Thank you very much for 'subbing'; i seem particularly bogged down in questions these days.

[3] Also, along with Jojon, I appreciate Tinuviel, Teedyo, and another one or two well intended folks for chiming in with helping tips from time to time.

Thanks to all for this help atop Jennifer's excellent pedagogy. I seem to be gradually overcoming my helplessness in the act of 'selecting'.

[4] Particular thanks, Jojon, for the <U> key undo alert;

[5] As for the pipes in the Jojon's perspective plan of Gestoypahts, you can see them in this detailed blowup:

Jojon Map of the Island dtl of 1.png (167.93 KiB) Viewed 3286 times

You can see that they run down the whole series of cubes, like they were pumping coolant (maybe sewage?) between houses. Interesting bit of utility planning there, Jojon.

NEW PROBS

[6] In General: I am wondering how to view the interiors of the hollowed out cubes. Normally in architecture, we cut vertical sections through buildings to see how things play out. Jojon has mentioned taking a tour of his model of Gestoypahts, but i am far from knowing to gear up for that lovely little prospect.

[7] So, all i have been able to concoct as a means for viewing interiors is to lift the lid off the building. Here is a case where i took away the whole front wall (actually, it is a brass box, but the architectural problem is the same).

brass box w papered back wall 1.png (134.02 KiB) Viewed 3286 times

While being a case in point for [6] above, what i am speaking to here is that back wall.
I have been wanting to color some walls differently from the rest of the cube. It is not all that easy, it seems. So far, i have been unable to color a wall when it is <selected> separately from the cube. I guess that this is the <Materials> problem, where the cube insists upon claiming the same color, all over.

In this case (of the brass box), i followed Jennifer Lesson 9, texturing a plane, and I brought it into close proximity with that wall inside the cube. Close proximity is an apt description. It is definitely NOT part of the cube.

So, [7a] How do you attach this newly decorated plane to the cube;
and [7b] Is there a better way to slip in an accent wall?

[Jojon]

[4]

Note that "U" only does undo in edit mode! In other modes it's ctrl-Z. Annoying, yes. :7 A bit more: Shift-U will REdo something you just undid and Blender remembers more than one "level" for undo:ing - you can set how many user actions it should remember, in the prefs: EditMethods->Undo. It defaults to 32.


[5]

Aah, the pipes, the pipes are ca-alling.... Those are the edges of the back walls being partly drawn, despite not being visible... I'm sure one can define whether or not that should happen, somewhere... somewhere....
...Wish I HAD had that city planning foresight though. :7


[6]

- you can limit viewing to a single object, using menu: View->LocalView. The division key on the numeric keypad will toggle between Global- (show all) and Local- (just show selected) viewmodes.

- Same menu->SetClippingBorder ( Alt-B) will let you draw a rectangle in the view - the rectangle within the view is a cut-section, where, now ,anything that is within that rectangle, projected tangentially from the viewplane, is drawn, while the rest of the scene is not. The menu item will be replaced with "ClearClippingBorder" ( still Alt-B ), which returns to full view.

- It is possible to exclude objects/faces from being drawn; just select them and hit the "H" key. Alt-H will make all hidden objects visible again.
You can also hide them by by clicking their respective little eye icons, in the outliner.

- If you feel like, you could position the viewpoint inside the object, switch to perspective view, and zoom in sufficiently, to visit the room and work on it in place. Numpad 5 toggles orthagonal/perspective view mode.


[7]

This will surely be covered soon enough in the tutorials, but I'll try a quick writeup:
It is possible to have several materials on a single mesh, assigned on a per-face basis (Blender is apparently limited to 15 per mesh, though). In edit mode, there is a section among the editing buttons, in the LinkAndMaterials panel, where you have a group of buttons pertaining to this; look for a numerical button that says "1 Mat 1". That is "There is ONE material(s) in use on this mesh and the currently selected one is number ONE". Here you can click the "new" button below, to add a material to the mesh - then jump to Shaders->Material->LinksAndPipeline to select a material to go into this slot, or create a new one (you should, in fact have gotten a copy of the first material, the moment you hit the "new" button).
As you may see, there is a "n Mat n" button in the Links&Pipeline panel too - it does exactly the same thing as the other one.
Now, from the Editing/LinkAndMaterials panel you can make choise faces use the second material: make sure it is the currently selected material (material name will be shown above the "n Mat n" button), select the faces in question and then click the Assign button (the one on the right! [the one of the left assigns vertices to vertex groups])

Note that in Blender's realtime view you will not see the change - for that to happen, you have to assign another texture to the faces in UV-mapping mode (..which you may want to do anyway, to make sure the mapping is correct, so that you don't have 3 by 1500 of those notes stuck diagonally across the wall) -- when you render a picture or export an age, however, it is the material that counts. the UV-map is used, but if the material says that's BluePage_01 on the wall and you have RedPage_03 showing in Blender's view, because that's what you picked in the Image/UV editor, it is BluePage_01 that will show up in your exported age.

[Chacal]

- It is possible to exclude objects/faces from being drawn; just select them and hit the "H" key. Alt-H will make all hidden objects visible again.
You can also hide them by by clicking their respective little eye icons, in the outliner.

The best way I've found is to select them and hit "M" to move them to a different layer.

[Nadnerb]

However, you can't move verts inside a single object to different layers.

[pappou]

Wow, Jojon:

That View > Perspective trick is beautiful! That is what i was looking for. Finally, this makes the static architectural section passe without resorting to animation.
I think i am finding certain difficulties when many complex arrangements of boxes are on the screen, but this View > Perspective trick opens up the individual box for inspection like bustin' open a water melon (said with a Texas twanggg). Yee Haw!!

Tell me: Is there an equally easy way to translate the view circle (the 3D candy cane circle) so that once inside, you can go through a door into another box?

[Excuse me, please. I have to go make spaces that i can visit. Yee Haw!]

[Jojon]

Tell me: Is there an equally easy way to translate the view circle (the 3D candy cane circle) so that once inside, you can go through a door into another box?

Actually that circle has nothing to do with view navigation. It is the 3D cursor, which may be placed at any arbitrary position in 3D space and is used as a peg you drive into the ground, with a tag attached, like: "lay cornerstone here". Want to find a place dead centre between two points? -Just select the two vertices in edit mode and hit shift-S, to bring up a menu with snapping options -- one of them is Cursor->Selection. Since we have more than one vertex selected, the cursor will be placed at their mean X,Y,Z coordinates, when you use it. Now we can put up that "Half done/half left" sign in the right place. Good for aligning stuff.


The view aimpoint, or observation focus, or whatever one might call it, is invisible, unfortunately, and... lets have a recap on view naviagtion...
Rotate the view a bit... zoom in or out a little and rotate again.

You already know that it is you and not the entire world that is moving around here. Now, you may also notice that you are not turning around in place, but rather walking around some fixed point in space, keeping a constant distance, determined by the zoom. In perspective mode, our zooming is in other words not so much zooming as it is "moving closer".

When we pan, we are in effect translating both the viewpoint and aimpoint, parallel to the view, so if you pan inside that room, you are really doing a crab-walk inside it, which one may argue invalidates the terminology... Alas I know of no way to pan (or rather dolly, perhaps?) INTO the view, other than to turn on that rather finicky "Flymode" ( shift-F, instructions at the bottom of the view window ), so in your place, I would be walking sideways through that door -- maybe somebody else could chime in with better tips? :7

Btw, menu: View/ViewProperties brings up a window, where you can swap the view lens, if you think perspective mode it's too much of a fisheye experience -- there you can also set clipping distance, if you find you can't see far enough.