How do you create floors???

[BandA]

I know, I know, AEC>FLOOR> but...

When I Final Quality Render a room the ceilings (the bottoms of the floors above) are quite dark even with light sources in the room. I have made the initial fill white, but that dosen't help.

Also, from the exterior, the floor shows through to the outside as a grey area. Therefore, we have to create an additional wall of just the siding thickness all the way around all exterior edges of the walls.

Does anyone out there create a floor using another technique? Is there a way to asign a siding texture to the exterior of the wall, a carpet/flooring color to the top surface and stucco to the bottom (ceiling) surface?

OR is the "FLOOR" function really just an extruded slab with only the top surface being editable for textures? If so, WHY??? Couldn't this function be just a bit more dynamic?

I'm all ears...

[CipesDesign]

The floor object is better than a simple extrude, but as you have obviously noticed, not by much. Here are a couple tips/tricks: 1) Unless your building has a "belly band" at the floor line you will probably not want the edge of the floor to show at the exterior. Sometimes I trim the floor (using "clip surface") about an inch in from the wall line and then either make the lower walls taller, or move the upper walls down, and make them taller. In each case you will need to remember the actual wall height (for sections, etc.). 2) For the ceiling inside you might try creating a simple extrude with a texture applied. I generally do this with a 5/8" thick piece, and I create a special class for it to go into ("ceiling" or "sheetrock"). That way I can make it visible/invisible for certain saved views and VP's. Yes, it's more work. But if you do it accurately (I think) it's worth it in the long run. Not only does it allow you to produce pretty renderings, it also gives you the drywall (or whatever) when you cut a section. HTH's

[Peter Eichel]

BandA, create your floor as you normally do, then MODIFY>CONVERT>convert to NURBS. Ungroup the converted floor and you now have six nurb surfaces you can add textures to. Make sure they have their attributes set to solid. If you apply an exterior texture around the "floor" perimeter to match the wall exterior, you will need to rotate it 90 degrees in the OIP. Another useful workaround in VW's.

[Kevin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael K:

I use a slab plug-in made by Patrick Higgins which is posted in the Vector Depot plug-ins...

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Where is this plug-in in the workspace editor? I have it installed in the Plug-ins folder, but I cannot see it in the editor. What is it's name?

TIA

[MKingsley]

"PatWorks" under the Tools choices in mine

[G_Hannigan]

Kevin

Open Workspace Editor, Tools Tab, expand All Tools. You'll find it listed alphabetically (in mine it's Slab). Drag it to the Tool palette location of your choice. When you restart VW, it will be in that tool palette.

George

[ 03-07-2006, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: George Hannigan ]

[Kevin]

Thanks Michael, found it.

[G_Hannigan]

When I use it in VW 12, classes are automatically created for Floor-Finish, Ceiling-Finish, and Floor-Riser for the 3D components, Floor-Slab for the 2D.

George

[ 03-07-2006, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: George Hannigan ]

[MKingsley]

I use a slab plug-in made by Patrick Higgins which is posted in the Vector Depot plug-ins. You can assign the top, bottom and sides to different classes and thus different textures or colors. Great tool.