Whilst I currently have a head cold and the old grey matter is not functioning quite as it should I am trying, without much success to create a family of 'natural stone quoins' which I need to look convincing in rendered views of a farmhouse building which we are preparing a planning application for. The issue is firstly to create a shape, like a normal regular quoin with a short and a long side, but with a sufficiently irregular outline that can be changed from quoin to quoin such that they do not appear the same and create an obvious pattern.
I have tried manipulating a number of reference planes all perpendicular to the faces of the stone and created a couple of solid extrusions, joined at the corner, with outlines stretching between their intersection and in some cases locked to them. By using 'instance' parameters I have produced a reasonable but not convincing attempt (see attachment) that can be manipulated slightly but not sufficiently.
I wonder if someone out there might have some suggestions as to how I might use reference lines (some curved perhaps) to create something a little more realistic and malleable?
If the final purpose is to produce convincing renderings, instead of modeling stone by stone, is it not easier to just model the outline of the whole area that is going to be covered with stone, and paint that area with a realistic material that uses a bitmap with a photo of the material?
No I don't thing so. The purpose of rendering is to create something convincingly realistic surely. These quoins should have highly visible joint beds and stand proud of the general wall surface. I'd like to follow my instincts on this.
Well, you said in the original post that you were preparing a planning application for this project. That is why I suggested to go with a bitmap because modeling stone by stone will take considerable time that you might need for doing other things that might be more relevant for your planning application. But if you still want to model stone by stone probably you need a family that uses adaptive points that you can move around to create different shapes for the stone family.
Thanks Alfredo. Yes I am preparing a Planning Application and want it to be as convincing as possible. Adaptive points might be the way forward, I have used them before on an unusual roof shape but never in a family. I will report back.
Alfredo, I respond again having investigated WikiHelp for Adaptive Points and not understood a word of what is said. Are there any tutorials or videos that you (or anyone else, come to that) know of that can help me out further?
I have some videos in my channel in Youtube (the Planta1.com channel) that make use of adaptive points to resolve certain objects such as railings and curbs. None of them is exactly the object that you need but I hope it can give you an idea. This is the video about the curb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsJNn0pi994