I bought the TFP SW in early Dec. so I qualify as a newbe, although I have used CAD SW for years. I realize I should start with simple projects but I'm faced with two big things.
1. I'm on the envelop committee for the ski area condo building. It's large (75 units, 3 floors, lots of levels and built on a hillside) and requires new siding, windows, exterior doors and roofing. The existing building is dark brown cedar clapboards with blue 1x4 trim around windows, exterior doors, and blue fascia, 1x12 footer board and entry trim. The blue on brown breaks up what would otherwise be very plain. As we consider various proposals I'd like to model them and see what it would look like. That means I'd like to put the trim on the window or door in one place then insert it 150 or 200 times. For the next proposal I want to then change it one place and see the color and trims all over the mode. Is that possible? If so how?
2. I am looking for a new house and I expect to have to add to it an attached shop, pool room and greenhouse. Each house is on sloping terrain (I will be moving close to the ski area) and may or may not have a garage. So I want a way to roughly model the exterior of houses on something that is visually like the property. Then I want to draw the addition and connect the existing roof to the new roof. In general that means an addition that wraps around a corner of the existing building and has a roof that extends beyond the walls of the addition to make a dormer-like connection to the existing roof. I can't figure how to do that. When I add 'roof by perimeter' I get hip things with lots of illogical valleys. When I try to convert hips to gables I get all kinds of strange things including at one pint a peak that ran diagonally across the addition. Specifically how do you start with a roof that has two offset but parallel peaks and add a peak that is perpendicular to one of those peaks, but where the width of the roof spans the existing overlap? Note the second point is not disconnected from the first, I can get the roofs right on the condo either.
Thank you in advance, and if it's been covered previously I will be delighted to follow a suggested link.
Hi!
I'm another newbie here as well though I've played with various IMSI software for years.
1. Never tried a project that big before. For window trim go to your wall properties trim tab and select exterior openings. I would probably add a new casing element (right click on whichever one is the closest size) with the new size and colours. Then you only have to change it for each wall instead of each window to try different ones out.
2. I just upgraded to TFP Pro, largely to make it easier to play with the roof on a project. I don't use roof by perimeter for anything complicated, it's easier to go point-by-point, or even do in peices. From what I've seen browsing the forum if you throw a sample picture in the help discussion someone can probably help you out.
Good Luck on both projects.
Abhann
Hi Tom (and Abhann - Welcome to the forum by the way!)
Just another point on question 1. You can predefine a wall with the trim and colours you want and then all you have to do is select one of the walls, right click and choose Select All Similar and then on the right click select Replace. As long as ALL your exterior walls use the same wall type, then ALL the selected walls will be replaced with the new one (with its new Trim and colours) in just the one step.
On point 2, Roof by Picking Points is the way to go as Abhann said and also as he mentioned, a photo does wonders for getting some tips on how to do things. It is very hard to follow a written description - as they say a 'picture (or rough sketch) is worth a thousand words' ! ;) Sometimes 'additions' work better if they are put onto a separate location.
Since you project sounds big I would suggest you do some experimental projects first to find the best way to do things.
Allan
This is to try adding pictures. I tried to add 3 pictures, two showing the condo building from front entrance and from the back while the 3rd is a roof I'm struggling with.
The two condo pictures show about 20 to 25% of the building elevations and 3 of the 5 floor levels. I will dig into the help text to understand how the advice on walls works. The roofing complexity is similar to what is shown in the house example except the problem occurs about 10 times over the condo.
I added a house with two existing sections (plus a porch that still needs a shed roof) plus an addition I would add if I buy the house. The large section without a roof is the addition and it needs a roof. The peak should be centered and parallel to the long axis of the addition. The addition is on a separate level that is between the height of the first and the second floor floors. The actual height will have to be set to excavation efficiency. (Allow dirt to be pulled out of the hill on one end so that it fills the other end.) The roof valleys must be well suited for snow and drainage and I can change the wall height as need.
Finally there is a hole in the wall between the two sections of the existing building. I think that is because I first made one part of the house than added the second part with walls that left and returned to main house walls but did not make a self closing path.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Welcome.
You have to be careful with how overhangs relate. If they encroach / conflict, you will get some very odd results. I call them 'yikes' roofs, "yikes what is it that!"
You must also either extend an existing wall or add an elevated wall in order for Auto Extend to fill a gable end. If you don't need a window in the gable you can use the Display Gable option.
You may be interested in my training videos on roofs. See link below for more info.
Jack
Quoteblue 1x4 trim around windows, exterior doors, and blue fascia, 1x12 footer board
As Abhann said...When you select a wall/ right click Properties go to the Trim tab.
Under 'Exterior' as opposed to Right or Left , under the Opening option you can define the Window and Door trim. If you add new , you can create a trim the exact size you want.
Jack
Spent the weekend figuring out the SW instead of skiing while conditions were super. I have some more questions and probably some misunderstandings.
1. I figured out most of the roofing issues although I did change elevations to make it easier.
2. I have been trying to do the 'wall properties' thing all day. I've been going to the 4" Exterior wall element making a new element then editing it to add to the external side 'opening trim', 'baseboard trim' and window and door sills. Although they are all in the element model, and colored vividly for test purposes, it seems like the SW will only generate one trim. I've tried lots of combinations but none seem to work, for example I see the bright red baseboard on the element list sample image, but only the green opening trim shows up in the test building.
3. I may not understand the 'replace' command. If I edit my new wall to change a trim color then select the wall and enter 'replace' I get the chance to select the replacement. If I select the same wall name it does not seem to replace the wall (the color displayed does not change to the new color in the element list.) But if I change it to a completely different wall, then change it again to the original name the new color does show up.
4. I have a need for a triple casement window. (Three single left-side-hinged casement windows.) When I put the three windows in a wall, squeezed together so there is no wall between them, then the trim is still applied to the inside seams. Is there a way to create a new category of windows, 'multiple unit casements' where the displayed entries would have 3, 4 or 5 unit casements that created only one opening?
5. I noticed that the 2 x 4'11" single casement has the panes pushed toward the outside while the 4 x 4'11" double casement have the panes pushed toward the inside. All measurements in the 'details' section are identical. That seems to be a drafting error but can it be corrected?
6. I've been playing with modeling the terrain but so far I don't get it. I've played every bit of the landscaping and terrain training video several times but so far nothing seems to come out looking like what I see on the ground.
a. What file format should be used for an imported contour map?
b. Is there any terrain treatments that look like fields and forest?
c. How do you keep track of where the terrain zero level is? Is there a way to create section views through terrain?
d. Is there any way to put in a retaining wall then cut out the ground on one side? On a contour map that would mean several contour lines converge on the length of the wall but I can't see how to manually move contour lines to get that effect. I also can't seem to get the retaining wall to follow the terrain and there does not seem to be 'stone wall' type retaining wall. Can one be created and of those operations be done?
e. I have to put the first floor building sections on about 10 levels and then have 2 or 3 stories over the 1st floor units. How do I make the terrain cut around all those first floor
levels?
f. How do I control the uphill boundary between a slope and a hill or plateau?
7. Many of the houses in this area are sided with vertical grooved plywood. I could not find that material anywhere. And even if I had found it I could not see how to add it to any existing wall. Just how much of element parameters can be changed? (Also what is the difference between and exterior and a shed wall?
Tom B
I'll try on a couple of simpler points:
2-3 - You need a new materials element for the casing and a new wall element for testing (see pictures). In larger picture I can replace the blue peice with red or I can select all similar and turn all of the red blue but I can't change both blue and red at once because they aren't similar with the different colours done this way.
4. Edit a casement window to increase the number of horizontal panels and you get a triple or more
5. If you put in a window from the outside the panes are out, put in from inside - in. You can change by right clicking and using "flip opening"
7. Under wood there are some vertical panels.
Good Luck,
Abhann
Thanks for the quick reply Abhann. On changing wall/window stuff I see where you are coming from. I was trying to follow the Allen route (I think) where I customized a wall element with baseboard, door and window trim and sills. Somewhat surprisingly, nothing really worked all day yesterday but when I started the SW this morning everything sort of fell into place and all the trims worked. It must relate to needing to close down the program then restart it to get the library changes properly instantiated. The triple casement worked exactly as you described and I've already put it into the model. I did not think I had put windows in differently but I must have. I was probably trying too many things at once.
Where did you find the vertical plywood material and how could it be used? I found under the 'wall-appearance-select' a vertical siding but it had no lines. Then I tried adding a line pattern to it but when I put it on the building it was just a featureless flat surface. (And I did restart the SW to see if that effected the test.)
Tom
Hi Tom,
I had already written this and you replied before I posted it so it may not address exactly your latest reply to Abhann.
Below my earlier reply:
I will add a couple of further points to those already covered by Abhann.
2-3 What you need to do if you want to replace the wall with one using a different colour trim is first to create (for example) 3 new walls, one with red trim, another one with Blue trim and a thirsd one with green trim. Now when you right click and change the wall you select Replace and choose the 'red trim wall' or the 'blue trim wall' or the 'green trim wall'. You need a separate wall for each colour to use the Replace option the way you want to do.
6a. Use an image file JPG or BMP or a 2D DXF.
6b. Not sure what you mean by Terrain "treatments"? Do you mean grass etc? If so you will find them under Landscape Materials. You can also add in your own photos of grass and low growing plants. You could not very well use a "forest" image as trees are vertical of course not on the ground. Use the Trees and plants for that.
6c. Setting / Program Settings / Terrain if where the Terrain level is and the default is zero. Anything you do to the Terrain will build on zero unless you enter a minus figure. You can move the whole terrain, whatever its shape, up or down to suit the building, by changing the default setting. The normal Section tool will create a section through the Terrain also.
6d. If you drag the mouse over the Terrain you will see the countour lines that you have drawn (presumably) using the Plateau tool. Once you see the countour lines select the one you want and drag the nodes to where you want and repeat the process with the other lines so the all align along you retraining wall line. It is not possible to get this truely vertical - you sometimes have to infill using the Floor tool and give it the same texture as your Terrain. Floors can be any shape thickness or texture but cannot slope.
If you need a Stone wall just change the texuture on the Appearnce tab - there are dozens of Stone textures in the Materials Library that can be used on walls.
6e. By default the Terrain is cut around the Ground Floor location. If you have multiple locations that are affected then you could simply create a new one and draw a wall the shape you want to cut out and just use the View Filter to turn that wall off.
6f. Sorry but I do not understand this question. Normally, I only use the Plateau tool. If you have a contour plan then the Plateau is all you should need. The only other tool I use (rarely) is the Slope but only if the site is just one single direction slope. The plateau does all the rest. If there is a hollow area in the terrain, then just use the Plateau with a negative dimension.
7. Under Siding and Wood there are dozens of panelling/siding images. Any can be rotated to be vertical. On the Appearance Tab of Wall Properties you can change the texture for the Exterior, Right side interior, left side interior and openings. The Exterior surface will only appear on walls where all walls join to make a continuous unbroken outside surface. Anything in Wall Properties can be changed. There is no difference between a shed wall and any other wall - you just set the wall Properties to what you want them to be.
Hope that helps,
Allan
Thanks to both of you for the help. For me this has been like trying to take a sip of water from a firehose, but I realize that is what I needed to to do to get this model working by Jan 19. Now I'm going to put my head down and just go at it.
I found the stone and the vertical wood paneling. Its all a bit more processed than what is used in my mountain area, but for now it will have to work. For right now I can't put in a photo of meadow or a rock wall because everything is covered in snow, but maybe next summer I will have time to learn that process.
Tom
Finally found time to sort my BIM files into catalogs and found some stuff - better read some old threads on catalogs and BIM's if you want to use them or you'll end up with a mess, I sure had one :)
Both from GreenHome3D website:
Pre-made multi-casements: Jen-Weld Windows
Vertical exterior panelling: Hardie
Sounds like you're making progress, way to go!
Abhann
Quote from: TomB on January 07, 2013, 04:02:49 PM
I found the stone and the vertical wood paneling. Its all a bit more processed than what is used in my mountain area, but for now it will have to work. For right now I can't put in a photo of meadow or a rock wall because everything is covered in snow, but maybe next summer I will have time to learn that process.
Tom
Suggest you search around www as there are many sites for 3D models and textures; often Google will find what you want; such as search by "images" and the common name for your textures. Or search for free stone textures.
This forum has some links posted; try a search within this forum (look near top of page) for textures or for other help as many people using this SW run into similar problems and the solutions are posted here.
Hi Tom,
Quote from: TomB on January 07, 2013, 04:02:49 PM
For right now I can't put in a photo of meadow or a rock wall because everything is covered in snow, but maybe next summer I will have time to learn that process.
Actually changing the background photo is a simple process. Just go to Settings / Program Settings / Background and choose an image that is there or right click in that images list and Add your own photo.
When you can get a photo of the siding and stone you want, post it here and we can turn it into a texture for you if you are not comfortable doing it yourself. The photo must be taken at right angles to the surface.
Hope you are enjoying the snow! We have been experiencing day after day of 40+ degrees Celsius (105 degrees F) for the last few weeks and more to come apparently. One place today had 50 C (122 F)! A bit of snow would be great at the moment!! Guess it would last long!! ;D
Allan
I've created my big building model (it's too big to upload) and now I'm trying to create models in different color schemes. (As was suggested, I made custom elements for walls, windows and doors but because of slight differences from floor to floor or with siding type or with trim I have about 100 top level elements used from 1 to 60 times each.) Just editing the color of all the elements takes most of a day. I tried making a new copy of custom elements in the catalog, i.e. creating a brown group a maroon group, etc., then duplicating all original elements into in each group. However it gets very confusing because the hierarchy of elements does not separate well. For example I just found when I change the window jam to brown for one first floor element it also appears in what I though was the completed maroon model. I ignored that problem and tried to select a first floor wall and then replace it with a first floor wall from a different group, i.e. one with a different color trim. The replace action seemed to focus on the element name and use the first element with a matching named rather than the element in the selected group. (I know that's not clear but it's hard to explain and it did not do what hierarchical directories are supposed to do so it did not help me.)
Now I'm thinking about: (1) Creating 4 catalogs where each catalog duplicates custom elements except with a different color scheme. Additionally I will make four copies of the model. (2)Then I can open a model / catalog pair and spend a half day doing 'select all similar' and 'replace' from the new catalog. (Is there a way to direct a model to just refresh all the included elements from the current catalog that does not involve hundreds of 'select all similar' and 'replace' operations?)
Before I spend another two days on a dead-end, two more questions: (1) will it work? (2) is there a better way?
I'm sorry for asking so many questions. I do appreciate the answers and boy do I wish I never volunteered for this task. Its clearly too big for an early project and probably too big for a volunteer effort (3months and counting)
Tom
Hi Tom,
I am not quite following your reasoning on the 4 x 4 model (sounds like a 4 wheel drive! ;D ). Are you indicating you have just 4 colour schemes (one in each catalogue) and then propose to update 4 copies of the model so that each colpy has its own colour scheme. If that is what you mean, then it should work, but you still have the problem of select all and replace for 3 of them. I can't see any way around that.
How many actual textures are you using? Just thinking (haven't fully thought this through but...) you could also do it by renaming textures. Say you save your window framing texture with a non-specific name like Frame (say the origianl one is green) and apply this to all the windows. Now copy the other window frame textures as say FrameR (Red), FrameO (Orange) and FrameB (Blue) or whatever your colours are. What you could now do is change the original texture you named Frame to FrameG (Green) and the one you called FrameR to just Frame. TFP will now find its texture as it is still called Frame but the colour is now Red not Green so it will show Red instead. Every place you used the original Frame texture (even if it was on the doors, door frame, fascia etc) it will show as Red instead of Green because (as I understand it) it picks up the texture from the Textures folder on your computer - only a link is saved in the catalogue. That is why, if you send the model to someone else and you have used a custom texture, it will just be white on the other persons computer. You may need to open and close the model for it to pick up the new textures.
This may be more work than changing all the materials in the model but I don't think, so unless you have a huge number of different colours also. Probably the main colours would be Trim, Exterior Wall, Roof and Facia in which case you would only have to rename 4 colours. Obviously there are going to be more than that but it does not sound as bad a changing each element that uses the colour. You would have to use a naming convention so you do not get confused, as the name of the texture in the model must stay the same even though the texture itself is different. IF you decide to experiment with this PLEASE do it on a copy of your model and a copy of the Textures folder. Copy the textures folder and rename it TexturesOriginal for example - the one the model is connected to must have the same name Textures.
I hope you can follow that and that it helps - it may not but I cannot think of any other way. There is no way to update it all globally to a new catalogue.
Allan
This part 1 or two part response to Alan's suggestion.
Your first paragraph was correct, except I'm having trouble with the replace that goes beyond the amount of drudgery required. (see part 2 note.)
I'm trying to generate four sets of building colors. (Any more than that would be too much work for me and it would offer too many choices to Board of Directors and Condo Owners.) Each scheme has a basic siding color and perhaps a second color for the gables. The basic color is used for both horizontal and vertical siding. Then the building will have a trim color used for baseboards, window trim, corner boards, fascia, soffits, columns and custom trim elements. Windows have a sach color and frame color. Finally there is a roof color. I have a feature scheme matrix (attached) that lists rows colors or characteristics and columns as schemes. I plan to make jpegs of the four color schemes each with a common view and distribute them to the members. At the final selection meeting I will show them normal tour type views. I expect that people will want to see what things look like if x was changed to y and my questions related to 'fast updates' were thinking ahead to that point.
The idea of using non-specific names seems really good and I have wondered just how that could be done. Where do the names go? I have tried at one point to make use of the 'favorite colors' on the Microsoft Custom color wheel but then I it does not work with textures. So far I have found the list of 'texture's to be about useless. It is very long list, with no categories and search does not seem to work. (I type in something for search, say 'vertical siding' it gives me a list of four places to search but no selected item.) However, it there was a single step 'model update' and it was combined with manipulation of textures it would be 'really really really' good feature.
Tom
This part 2 or two part response to Alan's suggestion, but it mostly tries to clarify the issue with replacement that has been frustrating me for the past week.
I originally drew the building with brown cedar siding and light blue trim as that is what now exists. I have tried several approaches to organizing the color replace over the past week. This AM I make a copy of the catalog, edited my custom walls to have Grey siding and Maroon trim. Made a copy of the model and tried to 'select' a first floor wall, 'select all similar' and 'replace' the Brown wall/Blue trim wall with the new Grey and Maroon wall. The walls changed to Grey but the window and baseboard trim stayed Blue.
The process I use to make the new custom wall element is I expect pretty standard: (1) select a Brown and Blue custom wall from the catalog, make a copy, then in the copy (2) select the 'trim' tab, (3)edit the external side to have properly sized baseboard, opening trim and window sills. As I select the trim board sizes I edit the color of the boards for example to Maroon. Then (4) switch to the 'appearance' tab, select the 'external surface' and finally (5) edit the material to the Grey color siding. When all walls are done I changed to the element manager and (6) moved the new walls to a special group. That gave me one catalog having two groups with different colors. I tried to replace and found nothing seemed to happen. This led me to think, perhaps erroneously, the SW was using the custom wall name without qualifying it with the group name. Based on that I reordered the groups but that did not help. Then I made a copy of the catalog and in each copy I deleted one group and its members.
What is confusing me is when the software is programmed to instantiate things. As a retired computer scientist I see a five level hierarchy: (A)Wall in building, (B)Custom wall in catalog, (C) Appearance or Trim look for left, right or exterior side, (D) Materials for siding, baseboards, openings and window jams, (E) Colors for Material elements. At each level the SW could be programmed to store either a link to an element at the next lower level or a copy of the lower level description. I have yet to figure out what is stored at each level and I'm pretty sure the choice is not consistent. When I had a Brown and Blue wall then created a Grey and Maroon wall it was noteworthy that when I went back and looked at the Brown and Blue wall it had become Brown and Maroon. So the siding color had to be in the wall description, while the trim color was a link. Further, when I replaced a Brown and Blue Wall in the building with the Grey and Maroon custom wall from the replacement choices, I got a Gray and Blue wall. That action implies that trim specification 'links' are converted to 'descriptions' when copied from a catalog wall to the building wall but only when a wall is created. When the wall is updated by a replace these descriptions are not recreated. However, even that does not fully explain behavior. I have first floor walls with baseboards and second floor walls without baseboards. So I tried replacing the 1st floor wall with a 2nd floor wall and the baseboard disappeared as it should have. But them when I replaced the 2nd floor wall sans baseboard with the Grey and Maroon baseboard catalog wall I got the Grey and Blue baseboard wall back. Hence I'm fully confused and really don't have clue about how to proceed.
Footnote
** I'm also not sure if replacement choices are updated when the catalog wall is updated or when the program is started but I don't think it is when I select 'replace'. Due to this concern I find that I often close the program then restart it just to be sure the replacement list is updated. However, I don't know if it makes any difference.
Part 3 of 2. A solution
I just found a solution but have no idea why this worked and the more logical alternative approaches did not work.
1) I opened the Grey/Maroon (but with blue trim left over) building then selected a 1st floor wall.
2) I edited properties for the baseboard, openings and jams trims to use Maroon things. It said I had Blue things to begin.
3) Closed the properties edit and the wall looked correct in the model.
4) Used the catalog/element manager to copy the edited wall back into the catalog.
a. In the course of the copy it said wall already existed
b. I selected the ignore
c. It put the wall in with the same name plus a '[1]' but it put in the old Brown and Blue Group that had been deleted when the catalog was copied????
5) Selected a different section of 1st floor wall, selected all similar and replaced with the new FirstFloor[1] wall.
6) Suddenly the correctly edited wall appeared all over the entire building.
Sorry to have filled up the thread with the other lengthy querries but I'd still like to understand what is really happening. Thanks for the help.
Tom
Hi Tom,
What you are trying to do is no simple process as TFP allows almost unending combinations of elements and textures.The only way to be sure you cover everything in a modified element (eg Wall) is to right click in the Catalogue list on the right of the screen, select Add New and create a wall of your choice and name. Within that wall, on the Trim tab, right click on each element you want to include and again select Add New and name your new trim, selecting the texture size etc. Do that for any part of the wall that needs to be changed. When you replace the original wall with your newly created one it should also include the newly created trim and other elements. If you have part of the wall with windows sills and/or door sills and others not, then it would have to become another wall type. They must stay in the group where you created them. If you move them later it will not find them.
It is possible in Catalogue Manager to change elements for a selected number of elements all at once. For example you can select a number of walls and change all of them at the same time to a certain trim for example. You still of course have the issue of replacing the elements in the models. Once an element is in the model it is it is no longer connected to the catalogue - changes to the same element in the catalogue will not change it in the model. The catalogue change has to be done before it is inserted (or replaced).
I am not sure how you planned to do your presentation but here is a how I have done it previously and some suggestions:
My previous presentations have been to groups of between 100 and 500 and were done using Powerpoint with images all from the same angle but in different colours. It looks very professional to see the identical view suddenly wipe over from one colour to the other. I have ended with the screen then split into 3 (I never give more than 3 choices) so that all schemes can be compared at once and it is possible at that point to get a show of hands as to which they want. I found it best though to print some of each scheme, name them and distribute a 'voting sheet' so each could nominate their 1, 2, 3 preference. This meant that some were not influenced by others and their second preference was taken into account. Usually there was a very decisive choice for one scheme.
Now to answer your other questions:
Quote from: TomB on April 03, 2013, 01:23:59 PM
The idea of using non-specific names seems really good and I have wondered just how that could be done. Where do the names go? I have tried at one point to make use of the 'favorite colors' on the Microsoft Custom color wheel but then I it does not work with textures.
Rule 1 - do not use colours - they do not always work - use images (BMP not JPG) of the colour - this is what the Paint textures are. These render consistantly. If the colour paint you want is not there, then use a photo editing program to make one. From the Microsoft colours choose what you want and use that colour as a tiny image (note the size of the Ben Moore paint colours in the Textures folder). You will find this under the same directory on your computer as the Catalogues folder.
The Textures folder on your computer has nearly 10,000 images in it, only a few of which appear in the lists in the catalogue. Within the Textures folder they are usually grouped because they are named similalry. All the Paints for example starting off with Ben M... and a number for each colour. If you name yours consistantly they will be together.
You need to create the textures (colours) first or, if you are using an existing 'paint', select the one you want in the Textures folder (if you use the photo editing program browser you will see all the textures as thumbnails), and save it with your own name (eg 1FrameG, 1FrameR, 1FrameB etc or 1SidingBrownV (for Vertical), 1SidingBrownH (for Horizontal) etc). The number before the name is just so that it will list first in the Textrues folder rather than being mixed through it alphabetically.
Now is where you get to the tricky bit as you have to change the texture names. Your initial colour has to be named 1Frame (for example and we will say that is the blue one) and that is used everywhere that you need that colour in the model. Once the model is ready with all its generic names you go to the Textures folder on your computer (not the catalogue!) find the 1Frame texture and change its name to 1FrameB (the blue one). Now go to 1FrameR and delete the R so it becomes 1Frame instead and so 1Frame is now red (and should show that in TFP after reopening the model.) To change the colour of 1Frame you would go back to 1Frame and add an R (so you know it is the red one) and now select 1FrameG, delete the G. 1Frame is now green.
It is still going to be tedious but not as much as changing every part of every element.
DO NOT do the whole thing - just try it with one colour to be sure the process works. I have done it before but on a very limited scale. Prove it works on a test model first!
Allan
Thank you Alan. I'm now off to incorporate all that info. (The real textures I need to use come from Certainteed via the 3D Warehouse and a trip through Sketchup. I was planing to use JPG to pass the samples from Sketchup to TFP but I'll figure out how to generate BMP format.) All of your info is useful but two sentences were surprising.
Quote from: Allan Chesney on April 03, 2013, 07:25:12 PM
They must stay in the group where you created them. If you move them later it will not find them.
It does however correlate with some of what I discovered. On its face it does seem to make the capability to "create new group" a somewhat useless feature. New groups are born empty and if everything needs to stay where it was created then there is no way to populate a new group. I had hoped to use groups to organize information in much the same manner that I use file directories. Not having that capability is a disappointment.
Tom
How should I move textures from 3D Warehouse to a new siding? Certainteed has put up files that look about like the sample displays they bring me. A backing and what looks like all the colors in a specific series. I've download one and attached. Howver the size sis so big it blows the question budget. I will continue the question in the next section.
To continue I used SketchUp to read the Certainteed file then exploded it, cut and pasted one sample to a second SketchUp instance. In that instance I pinched the window down to as tight as I could then exported it as a BMP file. (Attached). Finally I created a new siding with the texture taken from the BMP file Made a wall with that siding and put it on a small file. (Also attached)
The wall comes out with horizontal stripes that Seem to come from some of the boundary area. Is their a process I should be following that will avoid the problem? Is there a way to fix the problem?
Hi Tom,
First. If you move an element to the new group and insert them from there you should not have any problem. If you insert the element into the model and then move the elements to a new group in the catalogue, you will probably find when you try to Replace, that it will not find it, as it is looking in the original group.
I have never tried importing SKP material this way, as it imports it as a 3D model. If you particularly want the Certainteed texture why not just copy the one you want from their website? Under Products it shows all their siding in different colours and you can enlarge each one. Just use the Windows 'Snipping Tool' (Start menu) to cut out part of the texture only from the screen and Save it to the Textures folder on your computer. Now you can select it from within TFP and bring it into the catalogue material list. This way you bring in only the ones you want. The Snaipping Tool saves as a JPG but saving a texture as a JPG is OK - saving a plain colour is best as a BMP. If you are using a vertical siding, make sure the cutout is on exactly the same position on each side of the image (eg Half way through the board on both sides or half way through the gap between the boards). TFP will join the two edges of the image, so they must not double up any part of the boards or gap otherwise the duplicated line (eg the Gap) will be repeated all over the wall and look wrong (as with the white lines on your example).
I cannot see the texture you have used in your model as it is not on my computer, so it just shows white but the sample you have posted has white lines across the top and bottom, so these will naturally be replicated across your model as mentioned above. If you crop the lines off, then they will disappear from the model.
It is natural that you would want to use the actual texture in the model but there are many so close to yours and already in the catalogue, that it may not even be worth the effort trying to import new textures if you are not really familiar with photo editing software. In the end, if you are just presenting the results as a Powerpoint presentation or printed, no one will really know whether it was the Certainteed texture, or one that just looks the same. Colours vary (considerably sometimes!), from screen to screen and printer to printer or even different papers in the same printer, so I have learnt over the years not to become too concerned if I did not use the actual texture, (unless it is a specifically patterened fabric or wallpaper) because no one will ever know.
Allan
Should work and better to have multiple catalogs rather than one large one. You can open/close catalogs with one project open whole time.
You could make each catalog smaller by deleting unwanted items...could be a lot of work tho.
No easier way I can think of just now.
How do I get rid of interference patterns?
Hi Tom,
They are just the interaction between the shadow lines of the siding you used and the lines of pixels making up your computer screen and there is nothing you can do about that other than change the size of the siding or resolution of the sceen. That will not stop it either , it will just alter the pattern. It is the same effect you see on TV if someone has a striped pattern on a shirt or suit. One of the side effects of the digital age! ;D
They should not appear when you are closer to the siding or when the you render and print the image.
It is certainly a big building and obviously represents a lot of work!
Congratulations!
Allan
Allen - Thanks for all the help you have offered as I went through this. What the picture shows is something between 1/3 and 1/2 of the building. I plan to make the set of jpegs for distribution to the members today and then I probably don't want to see TFP for a bit. (I drastically reduced the interference by scaling the siding texture replication factors by 3.)
At the beginning of the thread I asked if TFP was suitable for a very big building documentation effort. Having done it the best I could I would now say the answer is no. I found that the program has too many 'un-understand-able' operational quirks. I'm done and don't want answers to any of these issues, but here is about a dozen problems I encountered, any one of which can delay progress by a week or more:
(1) There simply is not way to figure out how the building descriptions of major elements (ex. wall) correspond. I have walls in the building, the replace display and the catalog, that are suppose to be the same thing yet the image generated matches none in every detail. In my final delivered jpegs there are window sills with a texture/color that is left from December experiments and it will not change from red to what I want to use. (2) The buildings have lots of roofs and mostly they push up against a wall or another roof. Sometimes they cut around other parts of the building causing some small part of a wall to escape up to the next overhang but sometimes they block a wall's extension to the roof resulting in a 'wall hole'. (3) where a wall wraps around a staircase and includes a window at the landing level the window can be half trimmed or its presence can trim a baseboard on another building level. (4) If you put in a wall then elevate it (as was needed to create cantilevered dormers with boxed in trim and gables) the action of replacing the wall to get a new color and/or siding) will delete the elevation. (5) the wall described in #4 if it attaches to the building will cut strips out of the building's wall when it is elevated. (6) again for the #4 wall I needed a 45 degree 4x4 post to support the 'cantilever'. There is almost no way to position it because if you create a special elevation view 'selection and move' won't work. But even making the support is problematic in that you use 'custom member' to make either a horizontal of vertical beam and then you need to rotate it either 45 or 135 degrees. The rotate angle widget will not accept typing and instead I had to click on the up widget 45 or 135 times. (7) How elements are dependent upon underlying templates is a mystery. Sometimes you can change the dimension in a window detail and sometimes you can't. (8) There is no way to actually control the inheritance tree. The approach suggested about using a dummy texture name did not work for me. I'd do one thing 'here' and then discover it had an effect 'there'. (9) 'Select all Similar' works mostly - but fails in mysterious ways. I have 20 or 30 first floor wall sections (different building levels or different sides of section) and all were put in with the same custom wall that included baseboard, opening trim, and window/door jams. Select any one of 18 or 28 and select all similar and all but two sections will be highlighted. Even if I replace the two 'different' sections from the same catalog element as the others they still remain, for no apparent reason, different. (10) Roofs are never 'similar'. My Building has 25 some of which had to be broken up into multiple surfaces and every one had to be selected individually to change the color. (11) To use a 'gable' color on two of the four jpeg color sets I needed meant changing properties of roofs and gables in 3 places for each and every roof section had to be addressed separately. (12) Terrain manipulation is too difficult to describe and fills and retaining walls don't. My land included 43 feet of vertical elevation change under the building and about 20 feet of additional elevation change. I had a survey map accurate to a foot but it had hundreds of contour lines. I could not map from it to the 'plateaus', the pitch on the side of a plateau is not really controllable (think about steep and gradual sides) and plateaus drawn on a hill do not seem to have flat tops.
Perhaps I was using the wrong program. I bought the TFP Home & Landscape Pro and maybe I should have bought Envisioneer. (It would not be the first time I was lead astray by lower cost.) Overall I think it is a excellent SW and I have also done a couple of tentative house additions with it. At the scale of a house the shortcomings I described are completely tolerable. At the scale of a house you might encounter a shortcoming but it takes only an hour to circumvent it. At the scale of this building every shortcoming had to be circumvented a dozen times and it gets too tedious and too hard to remember how you fixed it last time.
Again thanks to all who helped me. I do not expect an answer to these issues.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Your particular project has certainly been unusual although I have seen many big projects over the years, such as retirment villages, appartment blocks and in my case office blocks and a convention centre, but apart from those most of my projects have been smaller ones, which are obviously easier to handle.
Actually many of the issues you have raised are possibly due to lack of familiarity with the program - except the widget in point 6. We have been asking for that to be fixed for years! The developers probably do not use it except in testing so do not realise how irritating it can be!
Do not regret having not bought Envisioneer for this project. The 3D part as you have used is identical. Envisonerr takes over in its 2D capabilities by producing the construction drawings "automatically". The one advantage in Envisioneer has at the moment, is the new Terrain tools. They would have made that part of the project easier. They should flow into TFP in its next release but that is too late for your project of course!
I hope your presentation of the project goes well and that the people involved appreciate the huge amount of work you have obvioisly put into this project! Somehow I suspect they won't have any idea!
Allan
Here's a great tip for creating vertical siding (re point 7 of your list). Just choose the siding you want, then click on the 'Mapping...' button (in the 'Material' area of the dialog) and rotate the siding 90°. Then apply it to your project. This should work for any material or texture. The project I'm working on also uses vertical siding and this solution looks pretty good to me. See my included screencap.