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Masonry Wizard and Object Tiling scripts

18

wall_tile_thumb.jpgIf you ever want to create castles and stone walls or, you need to be able to create complex tilings of objects, then these two tools created by dudecon may be just what you need.

dudecon writes:

Masonry Wizard

wall08.jpg

I looked around a bit for a script that would do this, but couldn't find one. It seems that someone must have done this before, maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Anyhow, I decided to make a wizard that will build stone/brick masonry walls, paths, towers, etc.

Object Tiling

tilegui.jpg

I worked up a script to do some complex tiling. It's still very beta, but usable. It makes clones of the selected object and tiles them. The idea is to allow the user to tile objects easily in complex ways (useful for tesselations, flooring, etc).

tile06.jpg

I added boundary sensing, just type in the name of the boundary object and it will be filled (in the local x-y plane). It currently only fills meshes and closed curves, as I figured there wouldn't be much demand for other types of boundaries.

Further details and discussion, along with links to the latest version of the scripts:

18 Comments

  1. This kind of stuff is why we need 2.5's new plugin and UI system. An architecture toolbar with options like this in it by default, with standardised interface integrated with the rest of blender, and everyone contributing to and improving the quality of generated stonework since it's an actual blender feature... Then combine that with a good material library with materials tuned to get the very best out of the renderer... blender would become a even more powerful tool :)

    Anyway, as things stand, I don't bother with individual scripts much as they're so much trouble to use, but this one is definitely worth keeping my eye on. Thanks :D

  2. I think something like "a cad window" would handle this kind of stuff. Cad specific tools (arc, line, ...) also can be implemented here to not to effect other tools (so hotkeys,..).

  3. This is a great idea, but I have one suggestion - allow the specification of some kind of jitter or some (or maybe even more than one) value that can introduce a sense of imperfection into the end result. Not just in terms of placement, but shape as well.

  4. This looks good for building actual (I think?) mesh masonary.

    If you want or need to reduce the geometry or have a simpler layout and could use a texture instead, have a look at Wizard's Tile Texture patch (initially a plug-in). Brickwork is one of the options. I wonder if there's some useful features in one that the other could adopt too. I'm not sure about it's current status (was talk of it going into the official branch) but there are builds on graphicall.org, latest is linked on page 19 of the thread.

    http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=94666 (long thread!)

  5. And here I've been building pieces of castle with curve, cast and array modifiers and plain old fashioned polygon pushing... Oh well, at least I learned something new while doing it. :D

    This will most certainly cut future castle building time down radically.

  6. As a person who is actually a stone mason i would recommend taking a little time to study the basic principles of stone masonry, as several things in the picture at the top of this page caught my eye as being improper, especially the running vertical joints in the section of wall above the columns. Each stone should be held down by two other stones, some people say put one stone on two, experiment with building blocks or legos and you can easily see what makes a strong wall. Also it is preferable to set a stone so that it is longer and wider than it is tall, have you ever fallen down when you were laying down? but you probably have fallen when you were standing up. Also the in the pathway there are places where four stones come together at once, which is mostly an aesthetic issue in a pathway but still it is good practice to break your joints and it will mirror the wall work. Most people wouldn't notice these things in particular, but I believe that it lends an air of cohesiveness and completeness to a project that the lay person will sense if the tenets of masonry are upheld. Search around for images of stonework, and try and find some good articles on stone masonry, a couple hours of research could greatly improve the overall quality of your "stonework".

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