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Author Topic: [WIP] Stadium/ Arena seat positionning + "Wrapping" question  (Read 1954 times)

Pixelab

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[WIP] Stadium/ Arena seat positionning + "Wrapping" question
« on: September 29, 2015, 02:50:27 PM »
Hello,

I'm struggling to make an Array 2S to work in the corners of seat rows

An image to explain what I'm trying to do. 3dsmax 2013 file attached



I'd like to position a seat in the corner of the spline (or eventually 2 with a spacer bewteen them to make a pseudo fillet), within the row (maybe an expression, but is there an automatic way to do it?), and to remove the overlapping default seat (instead of slicing them - unchecking the slicing box in defrom panel doesn't help)

Exact postition of the seats doesn't matter, it just has to be more or leass believable.

BONUS : Is there a simplier way to do the 1 color/row expression ?
« Last Edit: September 29, 2015, 10:32:41 PM by Pixelab »

Paul Roberts

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2015, 04:03:45 PM »
Hi!

Thanks for the question. I've attached a revised version of your file with some changes to improve the corners.



I've made the following changes.

  • Set the Generator > Y Mode to Free, This allows each row to calculate the number of seats needed to populate the length independently. It should make the corners work much better.
  • Set the Generator > Default Segment mode to Adaptive, This will rescale the seats subtly to ensure they fit the path without overlapping the ends. It also disables Bevel Mode which is fine for this example
  • Added a new Transform operator for the corner segments so that you can adjust the padding around the corners and change the position if necessary
  • Set Generator > Limits to 1 so that the objects will only appear on splines with this material ID
  • Edited the base spline to add new sections where you want the gaps to appear and then set the Material ID of these sections to 2. I left the booleans in the corners as they are since they don't go all the way back to the perimeter of the stadium

To simplify the expression you could try a modulo command that will return the remainder of the YSegmentCounter divided by the number of Materials

mod(SegmentYCounter,Input1)+1

The +1 at the end is included to ensure the value never returns a 0.

I hope that helps, please let me know if you have further questions.

Kind regards,

Paul
Paul Roberts
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Pixelab

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2015, 04:11:49 PM »
Thank you Paul, this is incredible support as always !

I thought that I was understanding RC better and better but it looks like I've got still a lot to learn !


Paul Roberts

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2015, 04:16:51 PM »
No problem at all,

Learning is all part of the fun :)

Actually here's another version that handles the placement of chairs a little better around the larger clipped areas by using a 3rd material ID.



Many thanks!

Paul
Paul Roberts
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Pixelab

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2015, 07:34:37 PM »

Actually here's another version that handles the placement of chairs a little better around the larger clipped areas by using a 3rd material ID.


Great, I'll check that out. I managed to get a nice results with your explanation only.

About the boolean (clipping) vs spline ID, I understand that the spline ID method preserves somehow a better alignement, but I guess I can still combine both techniques if I want to have special "cutouts"for stairs, etc. ?


Paul Roberts

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2015, 07:43:50 PM »
Absolutely, feel free to combine both techniques. The difference is the order of operations, the base splines are able to control the precise start and end points of an array whereas booleans are applied  as a final step and can only remove already distributed objects.

Many thanks,

Paul
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Pixelab

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2015, 07:57:10 PM »
Next problem : ( But I think I have the answer :) )

If I want to do some special color  patterns like this

(this is not my screen but a image found on the internet - Olympic basket Arena London 2012 )



I would have to do 2 RC generators, one for each color, and 2 complex clipping splines (not overlapping each other) ? Or maybe you have a feature allowing to check if the item is inside a spline (obviously not the same a the generator's main clipping spline)


Paul Roberts

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2015, 08:16:08 PM »
Hi,

In this case I think you would have to do as you suggest and duplicate the RC object to use clipping splines. Just set one generator to Include and the other to Exclude the objects.

Looks like an interesting project!

Thanks,

Paul
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Pixelab

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Re: Stadium/ Arena seat positionning - help needed
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2015, 09:57:44 PM »
Hi,

In this case I think you would have to do as you suggest and duplicate the RC object to use clipping splines. Just set one generator to Include and the other to Exclude the objects.


Great project to work with railclone indeed !

I've progressed furtur in the modelling and stumbled unpon another problem, for the "wrapping" of the stadium this time.

It's related to the XSplineCoords.z forumla, but I can't manage to make a flat bottom without flattening the top (even with a small number like 10 cm)


Paul Roberts

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Re: [WIP] Stadium/ Arena seat positionning + "Wrapping" question
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2015, 09:31:11 AM »
Hi,

Unfortunately the Flatten Top and Flatten bottom don't work well with this trick because the distance measurement is taken from the base path upwards, and the segments are completely below the spline. That's why even the smallest value deforms the whole mesh.

Fortunately there's an easy solution, just rotate the RailClone object so that it's upside down. That way the spline is below the segments and the deformation modes will work as expected, except to the viewer the top is now the bottom and vice versa.

Hope that helps.

Many thanks!

Paul
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 12:26:41 PM by Pixelab »
Paul Roberts
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Pixelab

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Re: [WIP] Stadium/ Arena seat positionning + "Wrapping" question
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2015, 12:26:51 PM »
Hi,

Unfortunately the Flatten Top and Flatten bottom don't work well with this trick because the distance measurement is taken from the base path upwards, and the segments are completely below the spline. That's why even the smallest value deforms the whole mesh.

Fortunately there's an easy solution, just rotate the RailClone object so that it's upside down. That way the spline is below the segments and the deformation modes will work as expected, except to the viewer the top is now the bottom and vice versa.

Hope that helps.

Many thanks!

Paul

Ok, that's awesome ! Many thanks

Strangely, you have to put the Z pivot to automatic to make it work.