I have created a series of walls (with windows, doors, openings, and subtracted objects) the vertical surfaces of which now need to have different colours at top, bottom, and middle. These walls are within blocks which have been replicated and positioned to form an ellipse. They are all currently the same wall type.
I am wondering what the most efficient method is to a accomplish the tri-level colour pattern, what would work best, and what would not work at all.
Build rhino surfaces (polysurfaces?) on each of these walls and boolean subtract from these coloured surfaces where necessary?
Same as above but attach new surfaces to walls?(Obtaining automatic subtraction at all penetrations?)
Change the wall type somehow to have different coloured surfaces on three different levels?
Copy walls in place twice and assign new coloured wall types to each copy, changing wall z location and wall height for each type? (Would subtractions copy properly and with consistent world z locations? Would va penetration objects and cleanups still work?)
Start from scratch building three different walls (each with a different coloured wall type) stacked on top of one another, each with new partial penetrations and subtractions, to recreate these walls?
Explode the Va objects into rhino polysurfaces and cut them into three pieces horizontally (and lose parametric performance) then assign different colors to each piece?
Hi @djhg I think I’d go for option #3. The walls placed on top of each other could be the same wall style. If you set the material of the interior or exterior layer (the one that you want to change) “By Parent” you will be able to assign the material directly to each wall object. If you want to define this in the style, then option #5 is fine.
By the way, Option #4 isn’t the same as #3? In any case I’d avoid having two different walls sharing volume or being placed one next to the other along the same path. This will lead them to try to solve their intersection and get unexpected results.
Option #1 and #2 could work, but maybe they are a bit more cumbersome.
As a new option, consider using the wall layer offsets (if external layers are very thin), that can be defined By style or By object:
My option number 3 is to change the wall type of any one wall - which is 16’ tall - to have a brown surface from 0’ to 3’, a green surface from 3’ to 10’, and a white surface from 10’ to 16’. I didnt know how to do it, but your new option in your last paragraph seems to show that it can be done. Is that correct? Is there a tutorial on this new feature? If so I am not sure why you would choose your interpretation of option 3, which you appear to interpret as replacing a single wall with three walls.
From looking over what tutorials and threads I can find, it looks like
A) I can assign a different coloured material to each of three different very thin wall layers and assign each a different top offset. Is that correct? If so this is great! Exactly the solution I was looking for in option 3 OF MY O.P.
B) Could I assign each wall layer to a different rhino layer?
Yes, I think I misunderstood you. The option I meant that might work is the one that puts 3 different walls one on top of each other. And you just change the color/material of the external layer on each one.
But if managing this with layer offsets works for you, go for it. You can put wall layers to different Rhino layers, so they can take the color/material by Rhino Layer.
Thanks Francesc. Layer offsets will do very nicely. These are interior walls. Cap mouldings and corbelling mouldings, or other shapes, modelled as rhino objects and attached afterward, will cover any gaps present at the top or bottom of an offset layer.
I had to give up on using Wall layers for this. I could create the layers, but the baseline kept defaulting to the face of the accumulating layer assembly, so with each layer the base wall surface moved off the wall path by the amount of the layer thickness. Moving the wall to counteract this didn’t work because the wall follows an ellipse, so when moved it no longer followed the correct curve.* Attempting to rearrange the layer order or offset to get a baseline at the face of the main wall surface by a variety of methods failed - is there a way to do it?
*would creating the walls from curves with history have made this possible?
You can change the wall alignment offset according to the amount of extra thickness of these external layers.
You can run the _DupEdge command on the bottom edge of the external (or internal) wall layer. (Beware that the edge doesn’t highlight when it is selected on VisualARQ objects with this command.)
Unfortunately VisualARQ objects don’t work with the “Record History”.
