Itoo Software Forum

RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: Anthony Lester on January 24, 2014, 11:33:49 AM

Title: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Anthony Lester on January 24, 2014, 11:33:49 AM
If anyone could help it would be most appreciated.

Having looked at the parquet floor tutorials on the site I was inspired to start using RC for our flooring, I have used the Linear 1S right from the beginning and am fairly used to the parameters in that but working with the Array 2S I am having problems. Whilst I understand the principles putting it into practice is proving quite tricky.

I have attached two image one showing the parquet flooring style that I am trying achieve and a second image of what I have been able to put together.

Could anyone advise as to a way of achieving this?

Thanks in advance.
Anthony
Title: Re: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Paul Roberts on January 24, 2014, 12:45:19 PM
Hi Anthony,

There are a few ways this style can be created To do it in a single style use two compose operators to create sets of horizontal and vertical planks. The vertical planks are relatively straightforward but the horizontal ones take a little more work, to position them use Fixed Y-Translation to move one above the other and then left and right padding to make them overlap. A tip here is that if the sum of a segment's left and right padding is >= its width, then the segment will disappear, so to resolve this split the segment's width measurement between the current and preceding segment's padding. To illustrate, if a 300mm long segment has a left padding value of -150mm, the preceding segment would need a right padding of -150mm too. Below is a screengrab of the node tree for this technique.

(http://snag.gy/7lsrp.jpg)

Alternatively a much simpler approach is to nest one RailClone object inside another. To use this technique create a simple RailClone object with the number of segments you need for each panel, in my example I used 3. Add the material ID randomiser to this style too.

(http://snag.gy/AEJ50.jpg)

Then create your floor style and select this RailClone object as a segment. Make sure you turn on "Nest" from the segment's properties to allow the Material IDs to be re-seeded every time the segment is used. The finished style should look like this:

(http://snag.gy/x8MDo.jpg)

I've attached a file so you can have a look at both these techniques in more detail.

Hope that helps,

Kind regards,

Paul
Title: Re: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Anthony Lester on January 24, 2014, 12:51:02 PM
Thanks Paul, as ever it's great to get such a quick and informative response from you guys!

I will take a look through the files and let you know if I have any further problems.

Anthony
Title: Re: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Anthony Lester on January 24, 2014, 02:37:58 PM
Paul,

Once again thanks for the tips, and file, I have it sorted now. I think I had the idea right but didn't know how to implement it, with your help I have now resolved it.

Just one final question (for the time being :) ) I notice that you have two numeric parameters for the expand and z rotation, how do you implement in the array, by default there doesn't appear to be any sockets for those 'variables'?

Thanks again
Anthony
Title: Re: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Paul Roberts on January 24, 2014, 04:59:12 PM
Hi Anthony,

Glad I could help out  :).

To reveal these inputs just right click on the node and go to the Export menu, here you'll see a list of all the parameters that can be exported. This will work for most nodes.

(http://lonelymonk.com/forum_images/0082942f4c6b4f3c94bd7b41f42ffdb1.jpg)

Thanks,

Paul
Title: Re: Setting up a parquet floor
Post by: Anthony Lester on January 27, 2014, 10:59:07 AM
Thanks Paul, got it.

BR
Anthony