Modular Design Issue...

acealmighty13

I've been messing with a set I designed using 3Ds Max for a modular map I'm putting together. To make sure the pieces fit well, I pieced it together in 3Ds Max and everything fits perfectly, except one spot that is slightly off. I'm not here to ask for someone to fix this but is this common in this type of level design?

Two wall meshes don't quite match up, I've tried to move bits and pieces around but everything should be symmetrical. The level is just the bare bones pieces right now and covering this minor issue by taking out the one wall and placing other structures in the way to break this up a bit. Posting here may be pointless and I might be answering my own question but I'm a tad OCD about this kind of thing and have wasted enough time trying to fix it. Thought I'd come here and at least ease my suffering(ha ha) and get a couple different thoughts on the topic.

My plan was to delete the wall that overlaps and create a couple smaller pieces or some kind of column/pillar to break up the monotony and hide this little issue I have at the moment. This image is from a top down perspective.

Fwap

Are the wall pieces sized evenly?
I'm thinking the offset isn't being created at the area you have screenshot, but most likley somewhere else, we may need more pictures of your scene to diagnose this.
Are you using snaps?

Someone might say otherwise, but regarding your other question if this is normal, i'd say no.
Mainly because at such a simplistic level of modularity it shouldnt be happening, and in a production pipeline this little problems might make someones job hard down the the line.

acealmighty13

I am using snaps. The wall pieces are sized evenly. Each pivot is placed on a corner or edge, attached to the vertex. I've been messing with this for a couple of hours, tweaking it, getting a little better but for some reason it still exists. I know it may be something I'm missing. With the room being symmetrical, I copied and pasted each piece, building out the wall on each end at the same time, meeting here at this point and this is what I'm looking at. I'll go through them again, maybe I missed something. I have a straight wall piece, a 45 degree angle and a 90 degree angled wall piece, the door frames match up to the size of two straight walls. I was very particular about my meshes. The only thing that might be the cause, that now comes to mind, is that the corner pieces might not be sized to the grid and I might need to move some vertices to snap to it. But with Snaps on, I didn't think much of it at the time. Crap. ha ha!

acealmighty13

Here is a top down view of what I'm trying to achieve. Looks almost identical. Maybe someone will see something that I'm overlooking. The plan is to have a center room, with hallways around it, the smaller doors in that center room will act have elevators. There are a couple of spare pieces sitting around that I may use later. The center room may be causing the issue with the overlap and I may need to alter its size to fix the trouble I'm having now.

throttlekitty

Are you sure you put the pivots in the right spots? In your first image, the bottom line is a bit thicker, so some edges aren't totally planar. But we don't know what your model really looks like from that view.

Are those three pieces on the right side stair-stepping all the way down outside of your screenshot?

acealmighty13

I went through my pieces, deleted the straight walls and started over with just one. Went around and have ended up in this position when I finish up....

Lazerus Reborn

There's your problem~

edit: actually re-read above post about you redoing it. No idea.

Edit2: it's the door ways? are they not properly to scale with the rest of them?

Eric Chadwick

I moved this thread from General Discussion to Technical Talk because it's not a gd kind of topic.

I would double-check that the angled pieces fit exactly into your grid, on both ends of each piece. A small discrepancy will magnify as you lay out the "track", increasing the offset more and more.

acealmighty13

I've fixed my right angle corner to fit the grid on both ends. I'm trying to fix my 45 degree angle piece to fit but unsure of what would work to make sure it fits on the grid. I have a straight piece to start then an angle of 22.5 with a second curve of 22.5 on the end.

I forgot about this post and thought I'd finish and get some additional feedback in regards to the previous paragraph.

I went into Edit Poly Vertex mode and highlighted the end vertices, moving them in a direction that wouldn't affect the angle that I want for the wall and snapped the vertex I need into a wall. With that correction, I deleted the angled pieces and used the corrected one and I now have this in the center room...



I'll go through it again and make sure the pivot is placed where they need to be but I post here to ask for tips on creating an angled piece that aligns with the grid if what I did above was incorrect.

EDIT: The gray lines are the grid points, I'm zoomed in quite a bit to show this offset.

Eric Chadwick

It helps to think in terms of boxes for each segment. Unrotated boxes. Each segment needs to fit within grid-unit boxes, with the ends snapped to the grid.

If you're re-using the standard straight segments, but rotated 22.5 or 45 degrees, then you need to make sure both ends line up to the grid when rotated that way.

Better to use new straight pieces just for the 22.5 or 45 angled connectors, so you can make sure they are perfect lengths.

Or you can do like Bethesda did on Skyrim and just hide the gaps with deco pieces. Search the wiki for it.

acealmighty13

Going off the image in 5. Rotation Point, through this link...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130885/creating_modular_game_art_for_fast_.php

I'm trying to create a curved piece that I can use throughout my map to create a soft right angle. Once I meet that right angle, I'll go with a couple of straight pieces or so and build another soft right angle.

Is there a video tutorial for this that may help explain what I may be missing. I've taken a straight wall piece, 256cm long, used the bend modifier at 22.5 degrees, with the original piece beginning on the black grid line(X), copying that piece and making three other duplicates and still ending up a little less than 8cm short of the black grid line(Y).






I know I'm on the right track, I can't understand why this isn't cooperating for me. I have to be missing something. I just don't know what.

huffer

You can try this Bend modifier that works better, snaps to grid, etc: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/advanced-bend-modifier

Eric Chadwick

Also, you can make a full circle and chop a piece out of it, then detail that.

acealmighty13

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Also, you can make a full circle and chop a piece out of it, then detail that.

Using math and 90 degrees as my base and finding some place on the internet to go by the rule of four, I have one piece that's a hard right angle, I have four pieces at 22.5 degrees, and eight pieces at 11.25 degrees. All line up to the grid and meet up at the grid points where they need to connect. Phew

Knowing this now, it should get easier for me. Now I can move forward instead of lingering on in one spot trying to figure out why it isn't working.

I realigned my door frames to be boxed in with the grid and started lining up these new pieces and while there is a gap once I try to connect them all together, that gap is perfectly aligned with one another and that's an easier fix than being slightly off like I was.

Thank you for the help.

poopipe

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Also, you can make a full circle and chop a piece out of it, then detail that.

That.

But also.

using an N-gon shape rather than circle will support more angles

Conbined with loft/sweep/path deform youll get full control over the shape as well as being able to change it later

To avoid angled ends caused by doing the above, extend your path beyond where you want the piece to end and use slice modifiers to chop it off at the grid.

Works great, I do this all the time

acealmighty13

poopipe wrote: »

That.

But also.

using an N-gon shape rather than circle will support more angles

Conbined with loft/sweep/path deform youll get full control over the shape as well as being able to change it later

To avoid angled ends caused by doing the above, extend your path beyond where you want the piece to end and use slice modifiers to chop it off at the grid.

Works great, I do this all the time

This is good to know and I'll look into it for the rest of the work I need to put into this project. It'll definitely help out with pipes I plan on laying out and anything else that I will need.