Hi folks. I was wondering if I could get some advise. I'm trying to construct a series of houses with tiled roofs, much like you would see in ancient cities. What is should seem like a simple thing to do in Bryce is putting up a fight for me. Creating a simple roof with two angled roof lines / is not a problem but what do you suggest I do for the type of roof pictured ( a gable roof ?) I'd hate to make it a boolean obj. as I may create many of these in different configurations. Any suggestions? THANKS in advance!!

The only thing i can come up with is to use 5 cubes: one positive and four negative cutters, one for each slope of the roof. Oops. Lets try that again: one positive cube rotated so it looks like a diamond shape (as in the playing card suit). Squash it vertically and cut off the bottom half. Use two other negative cubes to cut the sloping ends. Add cylinders for the seams. How's that?

you would be better off modeling something like that in wings and importing it into bryce as an object. You could then resize in bryce to the desired sizes you need.

Attached Link: http://www.wings3d.com

In Wings 3d..yeah..I think you could create a cube, maybe inset it about 100% on the top face, then connect the corner points to the inset, then raise the center portion..that'd give you close to the shape. As for the individual tiles, not sure of an easy way, you could just use cylinders, and replicate them. (if you want to get technical, you could cut a cylinder lengthwise, then intrude the two ends, and you have..one tile..I'm thinking if there's a way to distort a grid, you could do the whole megilla at once..maybe ask the folks in the Wings forum..if you need wings..

Attached Link: http://sketchup.com/eval/

Go to the site above and download the demo of Sketchup. It`s the full thing and you get to play with it for 8 hours working time. It`ll take you about 2 minutes to make a roof like that and then you can save it as 3ds. No modelling experience needed. It`s a piece of cake. Before you do anything go look at the tutorials on the site. They play in media player and are an example of what a tutorial should be. The only downside is, when your eight hours are up, you`ll want the prog and it`s $500. Let me know what you think if you try it. Good luck.

Wow what a cool set of tuts!

Here is some tile for the roof, tongue in cheek:P

Seems to me that it would be a fairly easy terrain construction.

You could model it with a crapload of cylinders. Then use the top down view. Do an elevation render. Then use that render to make a terrain. (Easier to manage than a ton o' cylinders.) The other option?... Use Wings3D and Uv map it.

Hope this helps! I did a quick height map in Illustrator. . . . used the texture posted by PerryMcK in PS. . . . .I'll post the images for you to use if you like! Also- The texture original was a little pixelated. You could always apply your own texture if you need to. Enjoy! : )

Here's the height map.

Yeah, the crapload of cylinders (easy to deal with, just do one, tilt it, then multireplicate your column and rows. Might be easier to just do an initial top render and then work it into the shape you want in your 2D editor.

Here's the texture.

Had the wrong roof shape. . .so here's the other! This texure looks a bit better.

. . . .the map

. . . the tex

Thanks Nuski, saved me a bunch of fiddling in PSP.

lmao... when I first started reading this thread, the first thing that popped into my head was, "I bet nuski could whip up a grey-scale height map for this in no time..." ayup!! 8D

Wow!! I knew I came to the right place for help! Thanks all. And thanks Nuski. That's it!! Actually I tried again to make something similiar but I like Nuski's one piece terrain better. I created a triangular terrain map and fitted four of them together. It still needs tweeking to line up all the edges. It's a rough draft. Anyway...Again thanks guys, you saved the day!

You're welcome. I'm glad i could be of no help. ;o)

Just as a useless bit of info for you to file away in recesses of your craniums all the above pics are of "hipped Roofs" gable ends are an extension of the vertical wall.:o) Cheers GG

decadence, really would have liked to use something like your shake shingles in this concept sketch I did for a friend last year. He was going to redesign and build an existing cabin. The modeling was all boolean. It took forever and it was only a sketch for the architect to springboard from. I've learned a great deal reading here in the forum. Thanks to all for sharing experience and friendship.