Venetian Blinds

[GeraldW]

Hey everyone,

I like to create some exterior venetian blinds with RC.
Attached you´ll find a simplified version of what i like to create.

Basicly I want to clone a segment alone a spline and also duplicate it in -Z direction.
The number of duplicates should vary for each spline segment. 3-5 different "version" would be sufficant if it´s easier to achive.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Gerald

[iToo]

Hi, for this case is used two nested RC objects: one to generate a single blind of random length, and other to duplicate it along the spline.



1) Single Blind

a) A linear generator with variable X Size, controlled by a Random node.
b) Max and Min random range is exported to parameters, to modify it easily (optional). "Seed" checkbox must be disabled, if not all blinds will use same random seed.
c) Separation between slats is defined by Segment's Left padding. Segment is also rotated 90º to get the desired orientation.



2) Multiple Blinds

a) A simple linear generator, using previous RC object as Segment.
b) To generate different blinds by Segment, it's necessary to enable "Nest" checkbox (Deform settings). If not, only one is used.
c) To get the -Z orientation, i just reversed the base spline.



The drawback of this approach, is that's not possible to use instances for the blinds, because each one is different and must be generated dinamically. Depending of the scene's complexity and the blind mesh detail, this may be a problem or not.

Alternatively, you would create several blinds of fixed lenghts (for example, each one with a RC object) and Randomize them in the main generator (remember to turn off "Nest"). In this way, all blinds are instanced in the render engine. Much more efficiente for large scenes.

I hope that helps. You can find scene attached.

[GeraldW]

Hey Carlos
Thanks for your help. Exactly what i was looking for.

[Pierre]

Hello,
I am also looking to build blinds in front of my windows but with windows of varying width and height.
So I tried a new method that works ... almost!

I encounter two problems:
Alignment: I had to separate blinds that do not have the same orientation. Is there a way to avoid this and to have only one railclone?
the juxtaposition: railclone does not want to create blinds on the splines that are juxtaposed on the same axis. I do not know how to fix that.
can you help me?
Thank you
Pierre

[Rokas]

Hi Pierre

One RC object? Not with the clipping splines.
This perfect style for simple "X spline" inputt only- modify window shape to just top spline of each window rectangle.
Not much more modfications needed- just Y size and X rotation:

[Pierre]

Thank you Rokas for your answer,
the problem is that my windows do not have the same height. Some blinds may go down too low with this method. I can otherwise make a railclone by window height, it is not ideal but it is still a solution
Pierre

[Dragan]

Thank you Rokas for your answer,
the problem is that my windows do not have the same height. Some blinds may go down too low with this method. I can otherwise make a railclone by window height, it is not ideal but it is still a solution
Pierre

That opens the topic of false X/Y splines from clipped spline. As much as I understand it, RC falsely extracts the X and Y splines separately and uses them for positioning segments. If that's the case, it would be great if we could use those fake splines as real splines in the L1S generator: X spline for the Spline Node and Y spline for the Y segment size. This will be huge for my workflow.

[Dragan]

So, how RC read X/Y position of Extended  Clipped Splines.
Is there any tip|trick to combine both Extended and X Spline (Separate or Extracted from Clipping Spline). I did not play with this idea in Beta RC4 but maybe this could work.

[Rokas]

Let's say You have this Clipping spline:



RailClone Fills this spline with Your created style:


and Clips geometry according to your spline:


If You use Extend feature by, 50% then RailClone Fills this larger spline with Your style and clips with original Clipping Spline:


We still have many features planned for both RC and FP, thanks for all Your suggestions, that let's us understand the priority of the future development.

[Dragan]

Thank you for that clarification but obviously, I did not set the question right. 
I do not have 3dsmax here so I can't illustrate 

Let say we have some rectangular splines for windows.
First, we set up A2S generator, Check Extend X/Y Size to Area and connect Segments to Top/Bottom/Start/End..

So, How RC "read" X and Y length/positions on Closed Rectangular Splines?
I guess there are some false breaking of those splines "under the hud" reading bounding box and if so could we somehow use those  False X/Y splines/values for use on L1S.
e.g. RC use just "bottom" segment of initial Rectangular Closed splines for X-Spline Node and for Y-Size to use Vertical Segment of Rectangular.

[Dragan]

... and back to the topic...
 Then we could set up blinds with L1S and get the size for each window/door

[Rokas]

There is no way to do that in RC that i know yet.