Hi Guys After a bit guidance here on the best approach to handle something. I am making a glass dome roof for my current project. Similar to the image below. Making the glass dome itself is a no brainer. But its the frame work that supports the glass that I need guidance on. have been thinking of several options but unsure as to the best approach.

1. model the frame work from scratch. And have the glass dome and frame work occupy the same space.
2. create a texture bump and transparency to match the frame work and apply it to the glass dome. And then wonder if I will get the depth of the frame work through the glass as it would be in real life.
3. create a second dome with no thickness to it with all the maps and place over the original.
4. or any other way someone else can think of.

What I am after is that if you walked up to the dome you would see that the glass looks like panels sitting in the frame work.

Thanks in advance

Incantrix

Hello incantrix I remembered a tutorial that is not the same type of project but I think some of the steps might be applied to what your trying to achieve might have to disect the parts that would relate to your goal hope these help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goM3yyjUhlo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXDVF_PijA&list=PLHr34e1LpWogv8q3Ng2ObrxCvUD-k6wv3&index=14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NhawJgrBKw&list=PLHr34e1LpWogv8q3Ng2ObrxCvUD-k6wv3&index=18

The first link Lobo posted is a very good technique to achieve this. First, add mesh > Geodesic Dome. There are parameters which will appear under your Tools shelf at the left with parameters you can modify to get the look you want from the object. Remove the bottom half of the model, duplicate it (optional), then add the Wireframe modifier. The Wireframe modifier has an option to Replace Original checked automatically by default, but if you remove the check on that option, it will create the Wireframe on top of the original mesh, and assign separate material to it.

Thanks Lobo The one using the ico sphere with poke suited beautifully. Once I set up how I wanted it to look just deleted all the triangular faces leaving me with the frame work in the correct pattern. Then it was just a case of a 2nd ico sphere scaled down by the smallest margin for definition, to act as the glass.

Incantrix

Thanks LuxXeon The first one I think will be referenced a lot for other ideas that I have. I found the 2nd to be rather easy and quick to achieve. And all I need to do is now assign materials to each sphere and see how it renders. Incantrix

Hello incantrix

I am glad one of them was helpful look forward to seeing a render when you get just the right look

I have a quick demo video on Vimeo showing a very similar structure, and how to quickly apply two different materials to the framework and curtain walls using wireframe modifier. Unfortunately, there's no audio, but hopefully, the steps are quite clearly visible.

Thanks LuxXeon This was basically what I did as shown. Except I deleted all the triangular faces then created a 2nd sphere slightly scaled up so as to get the correct amount frame work protruding inside the sphere as well as out side. Mainly because from any I have seen for real, there seems to be more frame work on the inside than the outside, The main difficulty I had was duplicating the frame, Deleting the bottom half of it, scaling it down slightly so that it was sit in line with and directly under the existing one and turning that into a light emitter. Getting to work correctly as an emission object turned into a head ache lol so scrapped it and created a different effect for the emission object altogether. Which works well.

Incantrix