Making a Window

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, this is my first modeling class and I am quite a newbie. I haven't been able to get quick response from my professor, so I think he's a little swamped. I apologize if this is super simple and dumb. But I am genuinly lost. 

I have to create a window from a reference model picture he made, to help us some. Here's what he's looking for:

I am a little confused on how to make the window frame set nicely in the wall surrounding it without messing up meshes or having overlapping verts, faces, or edges. 

Here is what I have: 

AND so you can see the two pieces of geometry, also this picture:

So this is what I thought. Build the frame, build the wall, then combine them using the booleon commands so it removes the extra faces/verts/edges. I tried using the booleon commands like union and tried playing around with them to no avail. It usually just makes the mesh disappear or they do not combine nicely at all. I am so lost. 

If anyone could help me figure out what the heck to do, this noob would be very appreciative! You may have to be a bit descriptive with your instructions as I am still lost in the menu's quite often. 

Thank you so much!

-AJ

[_sebastian_f]

ok booleans are not generally a bad thing to use - and i think one reason they fail is the left inner part of your window where the wall is slightly sticking out (also check your normals) - but absolutely not needed here. 

questions you can ask yourself when modeling: even when it´s fictional stuff, how would it be made in reality? will it be one single object or made out of multiple different objects? materials?

so you are pretty much done already. move the wall a bit an thats it. i still attach a quick paintover how i would change the topology to be even better than the example;): 

red: roughly the cutout for the wall like you have it

green: with changing the edge flow of the corners  you save polygons if you want/need to stay low and still get a better flow which allows for additional edge loops (blue) in case you want to have a highpoly/subdivision model (for sure what i did in the lower left corner is meant to be at all corner loops - just in case).

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I sincerly appreciate it. 

I am a little lost on what the green is in your picture. Could you elaborate on the edge flow part?

The tricky part for me is that I am not sure how to make the inner frame set nicely. I can scale the inner frame but it's not accurate enough. I want it fit exactly within the frame/wall. That way nothing is clipping.

[_sebastian_f · Accepted solution]

for the edge flow part i made a picture. in case you should deliver just a low poly model only the first row matters.

for the wall: you can always use snapping to be precise (v for vertex snap, x for grid, c for edges and curves) but you should not place the wall exactly on top of the frame. move it slightly more inside the frame otherwise you get shading problems when the faces are coplanar.

[Anonymous]

Thank you again for the detailed reply. The included picture was very helpful. I will try and see what I can do. It's the only model I need to finish.

Really, really appreciated.