Creating the Building

Building an Architectural Model from a Concept Sketch

Adding Glass and Columns

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials >  Modeling Tutorials > Building an Architectural Model from a Concept Sketch > 

Creating the Main Building

In the next few steps you will use a combination of 2D Booleans and 3D Booleans to create the foundation.

Set up the lesson:

To start from this point, do one of the following:

1. Continue from the previous step, or open your saved file, myrotunda.max.
2. If you want to begin the tutorial at this point, open rotunda.max from the \tutorials\arch directory. You will have to reassign the viewport background as you did the previous lessons.

Create the foundation:

In this procedure you will use 2D Booleans to create a shape and then extrude it to make the foundation.

1. Right-click in the Top viewport to make it active.
2. In the navigation controls, click Zoom. Zoom out of the Top viewport.
3. In the navigation controls, click Pan. Pan until you see the entire two-story atrium.

   

4. In the Create panel > Shapes > Splines > Object Type rollout, click Line.
5. Create a line following the outline of the foundation, as shown in the following illustration. Click at each point, and to end, click the starting point. When you're prompted, Close Spline?, click Yes.

   

6. In the Rendering rollout, turn on the Enable In Renderer and Enable In Viewport check boxes.
7. In the Create panel > Name And Color rollout, enter Foundation.
8. In the Modify panel > Geometry rollout, click Attach.
9. Press H, select Circle02 from the list, and then click Pick.
10. In the Geometry rollout, click Attach to deactivate it.
11. In the Modify panel > Selection rollout, click the Spline button.
12. In the Top viewport, select the Foundation spline.

    

13. In the Modify panel > Geometry rollout, click Boolean.

    By default, Boolean is set to Union. This lets you combine shapes, eliminating overlapping geometry.

14. In the Top viewport, click the attached Circle02 object.

    The Union operation results in a single spline.

    

15. In the Modify panel > Selection rollout, click the Spline button to exit the sub-object level.

    This also turns off Boolean.

16. Apply an Extrude modifier.
17. In the Modify panel > Parameters rollout, set Amount to 1.8m.

    

Create the entrance ramp:

You'll now create a second box and use Boolean to subtract its shape from the foundation, producing an entrance ramp for the rotunda.

1. In the Create panel > Geometry > Standard Primitives > Object Type rollout, click Box.
2. In the Create panel > Keyboard Entry rollout, set the X axis to -51.041m, the Y axis to -20.26m, and the Z axis to 0.914m. Set the Length to 13.7m, Width to 36.5m, and the Height to 4.5m, and then click Create.

   Using keyboard entry lets you create an object of an exact size at a specific location.

   

   

3. On the toolbar, click Select And Rotate.
4. Choose Use Pivot Point Center from the Use Center flyout.
5. In the status bar > coordinate display > Y field, enter −4.0. In the Z field, enter 45.0.
6. On the toolbar, click Select and Move.
7. On the status bar, set the Coordinate Display Z field to 1.0.
8. Press H and select Foundation from the list.
9. On the Create panel, click the drop-down list and choose Compound Objects. On the Object Type rollout, click Boolean.
10. In the Create panel > Pick Boolean rollout, click Pick Operand B.
11. In the Top viewport, click the box you just created.
12. Right-click anywhere in the Top viewport to exit Boolean.

    

    This creates a sloped ramp for the entrance.

Save your work:

• On the menu bar, choose File > Save As. Name the file mybuilding_nowalls.max.