Wow! I go to sleep and the thread runs away! Rudy, "Started out with this part here. Kinda went out of control from there... :)" Yes I see... but... you don't get shapes like that already made in Cinema do you? So did you start with a cylinder before you got to that shape or a "Capsule" or did you make that shape with some sort of spline and Nurbs thingie? Is the back of that shape flat? Or is it the negative of the front? "For the Cell-image, the hierarchy got quite extensive and i used groups with very large numbers of children, mainly because i wanted to be able to change stuff later on with ease." "It was only when i completed all the models that i connected parts like the rails for the walkway, walls etc, and managed to narrow down the objects." Narrow down? In what way? "The pipes are both regular cylinders and splines inside sweep nurbs. The B-spline usually give a really smooth curvature so its great for wires." Ah B-splines... I found the bezier splines really easy to work with, didnt find the b-spline quite so easy. I can see I must practice it more. Is there a tutorial on making pipes anywhere? I just tried using a b-spline and I tried all the nurbs on it with no luck, so I just know I'm making the spline wrong. (I also tried making the cell shape starting with a capsule, cutting off the bottom and then... well that's where things sort of went down the drain.) Oh, understand that I don't want to slavishly copy the cell you made, I'd just like to know how you STARTED, so I can do similar things with shapes and then go my own way. But I seem to have a lot of trouble starting off right. " When connecting objects, youll have to have two or more editable objects selected, then in the objects manager, select Objects > Connect. This will make one new single model of all the selected parts. Keep in mind though that the original objects are still there as well, so make sure you delete them or turn them off." Excellent tip, thanks Rochr, I didnt know about that. (and thanks Marc, for asking the question) " No problem Marc. :) Although you cant make objects positive/negative, there are still booleans. You just set the stuff up differently and drop all parts in a Boolean object. Not as easy as Bryce though. :)" Oooh, booleans. How about metaballs though? Now this is where Bryce really scores over Cinema, did you know that you can't get that lovely melded colours effect in Cinema's metaballs like you can in Bryce? I think that's because every Bryce metaball is an individual sphere with metaball properties and can thus be coloured individually - but in Cinema you put ordinary sphere's into a Metaball operator and you can only add colour to the Metaball not the spheres. Incarnadine, " Multi-object boolean is still do-able though. You can boolean with sets of objects if they have been grouped in the object manager. The thought of hundreds of sequential nested booleans otherwise - shudder!" They are? What, in cinema?.... Oh.... Does the same apply to Metaballs in Cinema? Er, no, it doesn't. I just tried it... shame. " I use a tool called Blender to do something on surfaces called 'Discombobulate'..;) if you create primitives, you can import objects into Blender, discombobulate, and then export into Wings, etc." Pakled, you mean the program "Blender" or is there a "blender tool" in Cinema? Bryster, "Greebles can be made in different ways though. You can do it bit by bit or use terrains or even pictures." I've signed up for a bryce course with the Eclectic Academy and I think that's one of the things we're doing in the course. As well as tackling the DTE. Should be good. Pidjy, " @Fran When I use greebles, for a small par of a model, I try to figure why do I need greebles there.. so I build it just as if it has a real purpose.. for bigger parts I try to make it so complex.. that it's not possible to figure out what it's made for.. it's just huge and complex." What, like "its near the engine so it must be something to do with power transfer, or exhaust or... whatever" Like that? I seem to run out of steam (and inventiveness) well before it gets complex enough. " Another point.. try to know what kind of greeble you need.. is it electric greebles? with cables, fuse boxes etc. Hydrolic greebles, pipes, compressors etc. Or mechanical greebles, with fans, gears etc.." Electric I can do, Hydrolic I have no experience with so wouldnt know where to start, and as for fans!!! HELPPP! I don't seem to be very good at symetrical things. " I also think that if a person is use to building, beit mechanical, engineering, industrial or other, it helps the making of greebles or come to think of it, anything when making models. I feel it helps knowing where parts could/would go....." That's probably why I have such difficulties with it. I can create (carve out with a craft knife or scalpul) a rubber stamp in pretty minute detail from a tracing of a design (either from something else - a picture or a photo, or else from a design or drawing of my own) and even if I say so myself I dont think they are all that bad, some are quite nicely intricate. But I was never any good as maths so machinery is a lost world to me... "Rochr is a mechanical, industrial, spacial engineering specialist...... ;)" Can you hear my teeth grinding? " If Bryce was able to freeze a complex boolean into a mesh, I'd be happy as a rabbit in a garden. Yeah, "true" boolean operations, I have heard it called. There are some rumors going around it could happen for B6/B7" Oh AS, it does sound nice, doesnt it - but just how likely do you really think it is??? Funny how the conversations always seem to come back to wishful thinking about Bryce6 or 7, isn't it?

Measure your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)

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