facades - need help

[BosPil]

hello. my team is looking at using cityengine on future projects. we create a lot of streets in big detail and we need a lot of different buildings that we have to build based on what our client need. we are thinking about creating the best workflow.
but there are not a lot of good tutorials on the official sites. i am suprised that there is not a single tutorial for nodes.

my team likes to model the windows and tiled walls in max and maya. my first question is if we can import obj models and convert them to rules so that we can then use those models to build buildings. i know that we can create facades with the facade wizard and then save them out as rules.
second question. can we import doors and add them to the first floor of the buildings.

our hope for the workflow right now is :
-get google earth image form the client. model simple 2d planes based on the google earth image. export into cityengine and use as shapes to grow the building
-model parts of the facades in max and maya.
-import models as obj and save as rules
-create buildings

is there a site where we can download some preset rules for doors,windows,facades,roofs,.....

thank you for the help

[BosPil]

am i in the wrong section? should i ask under CGA shape grammar?

[BenLeslie1]

I agree tutorial data are not easy to find on-line.  Here's a link to an old version of what I believe you want to do:

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/pdf/cityengine/10.2/tutorial_7_facade_modeling.pdf

A newer version I could not see, I think maybe you get the option to download them when you install a trial version of the product.

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi Bos,

Sorry for the late reply.

Yes, the tutorials are online here:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/cityengine/10.2/index.html

There's also a video version for them.

The videos were recorded on CE2012. The GUI did not really change since 2012, so we decided to not record new vids for 2013.

Please find also more info on how CE works in the FAQ thread in my signature.

* * *

You'll find that one can not 'create rules from models', but that CityEngine is a procedural modeling application, where you always start on a shape ( usually flat, but can also be a 3d mesh ), to which a rule is assigned to get the model. Check especially tutorial vids 1,2,6.

Ok as a start ?

Matt

[BosPil]

Hi Bos,

Sorry for the late reply.

Yes, the tutorials are online here:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/cityengine/10.2/index.html

There's also a video version for them.

The videos were recorded on CE2012. The GUI did not really change since 2012, so we decided to not record new vids for 2013.

Please find also more info on how CE works in the FAQ thread in my signature.

* * *

You'll find that one can not 'create rules from models', but that CityEngine is a procedural modeling application, where you always start on a shape ( usually flat, but can also be a 3d mesh ), to which a rule is assigned to get the model. Check especially tutorial vids 1,2,6.

Ok as a start ?

Matt

thank you.

maybe a strange question. when we buy cityengine do we get a pdf document with some basic rules that we would use every day?

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi !

There's many example cities available and more content is produced.

It's tricky to create rules that make everybody happy since everybody needs something else ..

[[
So in general, it's still the best to learn CGA yourself, then you can create many many very efficient rules with it. I personally rather create code from scratch then taking somebody elses code..
]]

m.

[BosPil]

in videos i see a lot of ngons. is it possible to use quad polygons?

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi Bos,

I'm not sure what you mean .. Do you need resulting meshes that are pure quads only in the end ?

Let me know ..

Matt

[BosPil]

yes. is it possible to writte rules with only quad meshes?

thanks

[MatthiasBuehler1]

Hi,


well, if you start on a polygon with 5 sides it's already difficult. 🙂

there's no specific way to convert the resulting to quads, but you can export triangulated, then quadrangulate e.g. in Maya or so.

but if you work consistently, it should be possible to do what you need.

ok ?

matt