Scenescapes - Roofing Expansion. This set for SceneScapes sees us putting tops on buildings. My original intention was for everything to have flat, terraced rooves, which was fine for one, maybe two, of the images I have in mind for SceneScapes, but it quickly became apparent that I needed some slopey, tiles rooves too. And what I've ended up with is almost one hundred props. There are two main types of prop in this set, which are the actual Roof Sections themselves, and extension pieces for the corners and gable ends, where rainwater pipe and soil pipes are included. I've put the two types in seperate sub-folders under SceneScapes-Roof, to keep everything tidy and ordered. So let's get started by taking a look at some of the pieces and familiarizing ourselves with them. |
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Image 10 - Roof section types (L-R: Gable, Pitched,
Inverse)
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In Image 10 above, we can see the basics for our roofing. From left to right we have a gable end, a pitched end, and an inverse corner, all large versions with a three metre span. Note: span refers to the distance front-back, and width refers to the distance side-side. The pitched and inverse sections only have a few variations each, providing variance in the positioning of the rainwater downpipe, and the span. The Gable ends have much larger number of variants, accomodating surface detail. Because the gable ends include rainwater pipes, soil pipes and chimney stacks, I've made variants using combinations of those features. And as well as having 3 metre and 1 metre span sections, I've also included sections of 1m width, as well as the 3 metre width section shown above. In image 11 below, we can also see some of the straight sections. (For most purposes, gable end pieces can be treated as straight sections). From left to right, we have a one metre wide gable end, a one metre section and a three metre section, both with a one metre span, and a three metre section with a three metre span. |
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Image 11- Roof section types (L-R: 1m Gable, 1m
x 1m section, 3m x 1m section, 3m x 3m section)
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That's the pieces for forming the roof itself, there are 31 roofing props, all variations on the sizes and additional detail shpown above. We've also got a further 60 wall extension props to play with too. These come in three distinct types: Corner extension, Left Gable extensions, and Right Gable extensions. The corners are the same as the corners in the base pack, with variants that have rainwater pipe on either facing side. However, don't throw away the corners from the base pack...at first glance they may appear redunadant, but they will be needed. Because of height differentials between the extension pieces and the outlet fitting level, it was necessary to have the outlet fittings from the gutter, and the uppermost section of downpipe, all attached to the guttering sections. So the highest level of corners will utilise the corners from the base pack. Long gable ends have specific pieces to allow for this top section. We'll deal with this further in an example. First, let's take a look at our various wall extension pieces. |
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Image 12 - Corner extensions.
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Ok, well that's our pieces, and obviously there are a lot more than shown. Now the best way to get more comfortable with something is to get 'hands-on' and get in there and do it, so let's start sticking some pieces together and see what happens. So let's start at an end and work our way from there. Let's open up '1m L Gable 3m span A'. The suffixes on the roof sections are not related to the suffixes on the wall pieces. On the roof pieces they go A-D, and refer to the external pieces on the prop. Type A has soilstack and chimney stack, type B has soilstack, type C has chimney stack, and type D has neither soilstack nor chimney stack. That's our first piece open, and it should be noted that it has a chimney stack. The chimney stacks overhang onto the piece behind, so you only need a piece with a chimney on one side, and they don't need a meeting piece behind. Under that, let's put a gable extension piece, here I've used 'L Gable ext5 -B'. The suffixes on the wall extensions do relate to the suffix convention used in the base set of SceneScapes, in order to match in with all those pieces. Now in choosing this piece we have two considerations to take into account, the rainwater downpipe, and the soilstack. Because the roof sections have the uppermost piece of rainwater attached to the guttering, we want a piece with no rainwater pipe. The soilstacks (on the side) have two variants, one with branches, and one straight through. I've picked one with a straight through section for our topmost piece. Now I want a two-storey building, so I've moved everything up one floor, which is 3.00 on the yTrans dial. |
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Image 13 - Gable Extensions (all shown are left
extensions)
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By adding new pieces in, we can see the progression through Image 15 below. By the far right of Image 15, we've built up a whole gable end. Now generally, a gable end is quite a featureless expanse. As a general rule, buildings don't have doors, windows, extension bits on gable ends, but the beauty of Scenescapes is that you can arrange the pieces however you like. So if you want a small porch like structure sticking out of a gable end as in Image 15, you can have it. I'm forever finding interesting little arrangements of pieces already, and as a whole, SceneScapes has a long way to go yet. It's shaping up to be a long steady evolution. So there's our gable end. Remember, this is just one of a multitude of arrangements, and as long as you keep everything to the movement parameters discussed in Chapter One, then you have the potential for literally infinite variation. Now from there, I've added in more pieces from both SceneScapes sets to form a more extended structure, which we can see in Image 16. I've put a quick render on this one, but under default lights, and with quite a low render setting. |
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Image 14 - Adding pieces.
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Image 15 - Building a whole gable end.
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Further notes. All SceneScapes sets utilise displacements, so you will need to check this on in your render settings for best results. Pieces with glass also utilise raytrace reflections. Whether or not you want to take advantage of this is going to depend on the complexity of your scene, and the rendering capabilities of your computer. |
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Image 16 - Whole building (low/medium quality preview
render)
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I would suggest playing around with a small number of props, getting used to the way it all works. Once you're familiar and comfortable with the positioning and rotation movements, then your imagination, or your PC's resources, are the only limit. I hope you enjoy using Scenescapes, and if you have any questions or comments please either send me a site mail at RDNA ....or...email me: andi3d-3dmodelz@hotmail.com Thank you for your interest in Scenescapes, and I look forward to seeing what everyone does with it. Very best wishes, and happy rendering, Andi |
All images and content ©Andrew Rolfe 2009-2010
Logos and additional images ©Eric VanDyke 2009
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Work in progress - Tin Mine by Andi3d
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