Flysimware Simulation Software

Step 1

Step 2

How to use the 4 main views

Choose keyboard to change views in window

Step 3

Press the snap tool since the letter "A" is a custom assignment for my Gmax.

Step 1

The point of this lesson is to show how you can build walls without having 4 separate pieces and this model will be for an interior and exterior model! Most buildings just need a box and this is not the point of our lesson. And this allows you to make a floating roof in case you need an overhang. Most hangers do not have an overhang!

The next few lessons will show how to cut out shapes from walls and preserving your tools for doors so you do not have to make another. So save your work since you will need it to learn texture mapping and cutting out doors.

Even if a simple box is all we need for a door this method would be important on complex shapes. This will all be in Lesson 3 - Cutting out shapes. Textures always go last!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Under Parameters you can type the exact size so the box will scale by itself. If you create a box and use the scale tool and then try to input numbers in parameters the size will be wrong. So don't use the scale tool from the upper tool bar.

Step 2

Over to the right click on create tab and select box. Left click in the left view and move the mouse slightly to create the thickness and click once more to finish. Now you have a box.

Make sure you right click on the box to get these options to convert to poly and not the background.

Step 3

Turn on modify tab next to create. You can choose to make a floor later on when I add one in a few lessons. I find this will make this lesson more confusing. But if your good with Gmax or 3DS feel free to follow the tip on the example.

Select the polygon shown in red on this example. Be very careful selecting walls because some time you can select a face on the back side. Holding shift allows you to select multiple surfaces. You can also select ignore "Back Facing" from the check box below polygon in the selections area. This prevents you from selecting a hidden wall.

Step 4

Self explanatory

Step 5

On this step you still have the new box selected which will be our new inner walls. But right now they are facing outwards and the same shape as our original box. You can see the red box on the right tools.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For this next step we need Element selected which should highlight the whole box no matter how you select the faces.

Step 6

This tool allows us to take a flat plane into a box by thickening the surface. We will do all 4 walls at the same time.

Step 7

We need to flip the walls or the new box will extrude from the wrong direction and be facing the wrong direction as said before. We want the outer wall to stay matched with our original box in this scene so we can weld it the 2 boxes together.

Flip is located to the far right under surface parameters.

Step 8

Since we already added a face extrude we have to set the parameters. This will not give even thickness on all walls since we are extruding all at once. Get as close as you can by eye using the arrows to increase the AMOUNT. Later you can select vertex and adjust the walls from the top view if you need the precision.

Step 9

This attaches the 2 boxes as one but does not seal seams. Welding seams prevents users from seeing light or background that comes through cracks. We will do this on the next step.

Step 10

If you are using US standard, you can change to metric and use and easy number that works for this method. You could use standard but you would need to find a good safe range so you don't weld poly's that are far away from others. On a complex part you might want to weld by hand or know this method well. Sometimes it can backfire and a couple of polys you were not expecting to weld are welded. Now you need a doctor like me to go in there and fix this scar. This can be time consuming and frustrating, so be careful or use an older part which means re work! if you catch this mistake right away click undo.

Who has the time to select each vertex and weld. I don't!!! So highlight all the vertex in the scene and use this method to weld poly's that are the correct distance we set under the "weld" parameters. If 0.001 does not work adjust the size using the arrows until it welds. If a message appears and says nothing to weld your number is too small or if you over weld lower the number. Most of the times the 0.001 is perfect if we are in the correct scale.

Step 11

Remember to use the green arrow on your move tool so you do not move horizontal and just vertically.

Step 12

Same as last step, just use the red arrows.

You should see your roof not aligned like mine. Move the vertex's from one side at a time using the red arrow to spread the roof.

Step 13

Now you might feel like a pro and want to learn more. Try our "Cutting Parts Out" tutorial on lesson 3 coming soon.

Oh and ignore my good friend below! The fact is an exterior building can just be a box and this is what he meant. But this lesson will continue into a nice hanger like KCEC on Flysimware's freeware page! This lesson was engineered to teach you important features and shortcuts for making complex parts. This prevents talking more time than needed.

Thanks for taking the time to learn Gmax from Flysimware's bacground experience of 9 years and over a decade of mechanical drafting, mechanical engineering, custom fabrication, plastic fabrication and Auto cad experience!