Itoo Software Forum

RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: GeraldW on May 08, 2017, 06:57:02 AM

Title: Help creating facade
Post by: GeraldW on May 08, 2017, 06:57:02 AM
Hey everyone

I need some help creating a facade like this (see attachment).
I tried increasing the Y translation with XSplinePosition, but can´t figure out how to keep the bottom and top straight.

Any solutions?

Thanks,
Gerald
Title: Re: Help creating facade
Post by: Paul Roberts on May 08, 2017, 01:04:57 PM
Hi Gerald,

Thanks for contacting us. Probably the easiest way to create this is using RailClone's vertical deform and clipping features. For example:

1 - Add a simple box to RailClone to represent the glazing panel. In the Deform settings change the mode to Vertical

(http://i.imgur.com/vnXPHZj.png)

2 - Add a spline to the X Spline Input and change the start or end to get the desired skew. The glass panels will deform to follow the spline, but retain vertical sides.

4 - increase the Y size so that array is large enough to cover your facade, extending above and below.

3 - Add a clipping spline to remove the excess facade at the top and bottom.

(http://i.imgur.com/MQH5Unx.png)

Please find attached a sample file to illustrate this technique.

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

Many Thanks,

Paul
Title: Re: Help creating facade
Post by: GeraldW on May 09, 2017, 11:23:11 AM
Hey Paul,

thanks for your fast and detailed answer.
I realize I over-simplified my example. The real project will have a lot of corners in the XSpline and the spline will be kinda long.
So I will end up with a ton of geometry that I clip away afterwards and I manually have to adjust the spline vertices on each corner.

Is there a more flexible solution?

Thanks and best regards,
Gerald
Title: Re: Help creating facade
Post by: Paul Roberts on May 09, 2017, 02:50:59 PM
Hi Gerald,

Thanks for clarifying. Please find attached another approach. Because RailClone use a grid like array, it is necessary to slice your segment so that it can be used in a grid that will be sequentially offset.

I've cut it like this, the important thing here is that both the top and mid section are an identical height.

(http://i.imgur.com/RJho0Zk.png)

Once that has done we need to create the pattern. To do this I have used the Selector operator and an arithmetic expression that uses the modulo function. This is ideal for creating repeating counters that are perhaps more complex that the built-in sequence operators allow. The expression I used was

if(mod(SegmentXCounter-SegmentYCounter,Input1)+1=1,1,2)

Input 1 represents the number of segments over which you'd like the pattern to repeat on the X and Y axis. As you can see this expression is taking into consideration the segment count on the X and Y axis.

Apart from that the rest of the style is pretty straightforward. I've added Start End and Evenly in case they are needed and used a separate generator for this for greater flexibility.

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

Many Thanks,

Paul

Title: Re: Help creating facade
Post by: GeraldW on May 09, 2017, 06:23:20 PM
Hey Paul
Thanks for the help and the max file.
Your solution looks pretty good. Nice idea slicing up the segments, didn´t think of that :)
best regards,
Gerald