and for some reason it is impossible for me to move things in the z direction. even when I am in front/side views. and it seems even when I turn snaps off and tellit to move in the vertical direction it does but moves it very far away from where I am.

any ideas? in autocad I'd think it was something with the UCS, but I'm not sure about this program yet. thanks.

The easiest method you need to use if you are essentially extruding plans would be just to copy a cube on top of your base extrusion and then under Solid>Edge>ModeEdge. If you have this a huge amount of times you might wanna check into vbScript off Rhino's wiki. As far as your camera issues; When modeling 3d a good idea is to shortcut your CameraTarget Command to a key so you can immediately snap your camera target and re-fresh your viewport. Also maybe a bad question but your mouse has gotta have a wheel to graphically scroll through axis viewports. Sometimes you can accidentally increase the amount your wheel turn will zoom in out so that can mess with your view.

thanks I'll try that out ks...

and I do have a mouse and can adequately navigate my model, and also reset the target to the object I'm working on, my issue is that for some reason I cant move in the vertical direction.

I would forget chamfering and just make a big block to use as a cutting tool. Rotate it and position wherever you want so that the intersection between your cutting block and your house equals your roof slope, then difference 'em.

Also, they 'slab' command is da bomb when it comes to quickly modeling walls. Just draw a polyline for one side of the wall and then hit slab.

I haven't used the variable chamfer, but the trick is to manipulate the control points after you've selected your edge and hit return the first time. It should give you a little dynamic display with distance readout s when you grab and move the control points.

Moveedge would actually be my preferred method for doing this kind of thing as well. You'll get some unexpected results with the chamfer at first....

moveface works well too....

thanks guys, I saw the move edge, guess I just have to try it.

I fixed everything else, made my terrain and am now blocking out the buildings, I'm going to do the roofs last.

another question now.

I have an undulatn gurban terrain and a 2d cad plan under that... can I project the road lines onto that surface and somehow loft the projected lines? I think I have done this in maya, but I'm not sure about this program yet.
hmm, or I could just extrude them up and trim them with the terrain.
I'm not too worried about this yet though.

Although not specifically fro Rhino, these tutorials are the best I've found online for explaining Arch Vis. The 3 tutorials devoted to site work gave me many really useful tips.

And if you use Vray their walk through the settings is the BEST I have found.

thanks FOG

a good number or rhino commands have a vertical toggle.
type "m" for move, and "v" for vertical. it will be constrained to the vertical now.

'tab' and 'ctrl" are also you're friends.

'tab' locks a direction in while you are drawing

'ctrl' activates the "elevator" mode and allows you to set the z-depth after snapping to a particular point

THANK YOU> that rocks. I was trying to figure out their equivilent of the @0,0,2 in cad... and this seems to be it.

if your roads are still planar you can split the surface of your terrain and then just change the material. Once the surface is split you can then extrude for curbcuts etc.

thanks brent...
fuckin a.
I love this forum.

I'd recommend after doing brents bit, that you then do a quick 'dupborder' and then 'planarsrf' from the resulting border. I've found that once I really chop up a surface with all sorts of road and curb curves that you start to see some bad objects and failed meshing.

also ask at mcneels newsgroup


i know variable chamfer is on the wishlist because i put it there.

V4 has variable chamfer already. Time for an upgrade!

your right, my wish has been granted thats how good the rhino peeps are