How to insert an object like a window into a wall?

[repGoneRogue]

Hi everyone!  I built a window and want to insert it into a wall.  I have no idea how to go about this.  I tried using booleans but there are a ton of problems, especially when considering the shape of the window, the vertices left behind from the boolean, and the mess it will be during retopo.  Any suggestions on how best to go about this?   You can see the screenshots below as my example of what I'm trying to do.  

I also tried duplicating the faces on the outside of the arch, and booleaning them through the wall.  The problem comes with the massive amount of leftover verts that now would need to be merged.  How would an architectural modeler handle this?  

[damaggio · Accepted solution]

You don’t need a boolean for this, just draw the shape with the multicut tool, you only need about 10 vertices around the window, then delete the hole out and extrude the plane to a desired thickness or no thickness at all if the camera is never going to be inside the building.clean the mesh afterwards 

[repGoneRogue]

Awesome this worked perfectly thank you!

[repGoneRogue]

Quick follow up question actually: I would be going inside the building. Would I therefore just leave it as two meshes, one of the window and one the wall with the cutout? And a second question, the wall and the window need to line up. Is there any way to do this and make them part of the same mesh? Do I just need to merge the vertices of the wall cutout with a few vertices from the shape of my more defined window? A final question as well: the wall has what would be non planar faces prior to cleanup. How can I make the wall and window align perfectly in that situation?

[damaggio · Accepted solution]

In that case you will need to model the thickness, probably better as single mesh  although you can have as a secondary interior walls specially if the material finish is different. The wall and windows should align by hand , there’s really no special tricks here if I understand your question correctly.you are not supposed to merge the vertices of different items in the building, Windows, doors , roof etc they are all different parts of architecture. I don’t understand how you would have non planar surfaces while modeling flat architectural shapes, but if you do somehow just ignore the warning, it’s not relevant in most cases. Also make sure you are modeling in real scale it it’s not a cartoon style building.In the example attached , every major piece is a different object, glass, window frames, doors,arched windows, columns, rooftop , cornice details, rococo details, air conditioning , etc. If a low poly asset is needed then you can have the whole thing as one mesh and control the realist appearance by using texture maps.

[repGoneRogue]

Awesome this is exactly what I was wondering about. Thank you as always for your answers and speed in replies!