ASAP HELP PLEASE. need to cut out a group and dont want to do it individual

[acohen6]

hey. and thanks for considering and reading!

I really am having so much fun here at 3ds max. but I haven't been using it for a while.

so I'm trying to create a skeletal timber wood for my interior design project.

I created the "skeletal wood" out of lines and extruded them. now I need to cut them out more and shape them. what would be the most efficient way to do so? I have been doing it one by one and there must be an easier way.

there are two ceilings. (the top gray and the pink) and below the pink, I want all the wood out, but to keep it in a certain shape on the side of the wood.

[acohen6]

usually, i would use a proboolean and just cut it out, which is what it did to get the exterior shape. (i multiplied the exterior shape 50 times and cut the wood pieces individually. was very tiring. there must be another way.

[Anonymous]

You don't indicate what type of cut you want.

It could be slice modifier if it is a flat slice. Simply select all objects needed, apply it and adjust gizmo.

If you want something more precise you could use spline shapes and the shapermerge. But you will need to attach the objects that you want to cut before to use it.

[acohen6]

wow! its coming along.

the slice works for some of the parts.

now i created a spline shape. do i attach it to the shape to the already created structure i want to cut out? (when i hover i dont see the funny looking icon) 

thanks so much!

[Anonymous]

There is no reason what you could not use Booleans (no pro)

But you need to avoid the boards intersecting or touching. It can be a very small tiny gap and it is OK, but in the moment it touches no Boolean. In general all booleans, included shapemerge, won't like it at all.. You can create a gap selecting all boards and scaling them using pivot point center and only one axis. I used to cut a extruded spline shape but it could be anything else.