Modify Wall – a video exploration of a great function
It’s time to demystify walls AND make your coworkers think you have magical ArchiCAD powers…
Do you hate when walls don’t join properly or when hatch patterns in elevation randomly don’t align? In this video I talk about the Modify Wall menu and how it demystifies those issues. I won’t promise that the Modify Wall menu will solve every one of those problems. BUT once you are familiar with its abilities, you will always understand WHY those problems are happening.
In all these videos I try hard not to do too much with key commands. I want everything I do to be clear. But I have to admit I use two key commands a lot in this video without mentioning what I’m doing. One is Intersection (for me CMD+I), which will extend or shorten two walls so that they connect. The other is Undo (and redo, probably). Sorry about not mentioning that. So when you see things happening on screen as if by magic, it’s probably one of those two commands. Hopefully it just highlights the importance of key commands!!!
Master Script
great video, going where no man has gone before! I definitely have learned something here.
Actually, you can align textures of slabs and walls by using Design/Align 3D texture in the 3D Window.
Jared Banks
Master Script,
Thanks! Half way through recording the video I thought to myself “Oh I should mention align 3D textures…” but as the video was already running long, I kept quiet. I’ll half to do another video soon that covers the other ways to align textures in 3D (using align 3d texture, moving the cover fill on a slab, tweaking a material, etc.). Glad I taught you something! 🙂
Scott
I never knew about that palette! I’ll definitely be giving it a place in my default layout.
For large scale composite wall changes, I can see those commands being helpful. Also, like MS mentioned, 3D textures can be aligned.
You’d mentioned placing an extra ‘siding’ wall around your buildings to harmonize the exterior. How would you make your openings span between two different walls?
Matching blank openings?
Jared Banks
Scott,
It’s funny. For every video I make, I feel like it spawns 3 more! To get openings to span between two different walls, I throw an empty opening in one wall to receive the window. Or figure out a way to rework the walls so the window doesn’t span 2 walls.
Laura Yanoviak
Jared — To get around the “vague arrow icon”, I add the “Walls & Beams Reference Lines” command to my toolbar and make “Modify Wall” a sticky popup menu underneath.
Jared Banks
Laura, great idea. Never thought of that. Thanks!
Jared Banks
Laura,
Looks like this can also be solved by setting the tool bar to “show name and icon selectively”
There’s a discussion about it (caused by this video) here: http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=200647#200647
Archicademy
To follow on from many of your comments regarding the option of using ‘align 3D textures’ its important to remember, as Jared pointed out, that what was shown in the video were not textures, but vectorial 3D hatchings. Yes you do of course use the same tool to adjust both textures and 3D hatchings, but a great tip when wanting to adjust vectorial hatchings is to adjust your 3D window settings to ‘Internal Engine’ with vectorial hatching turned on. This way you can benefit from being able to see what you want to adjust.
Note: by adjusting the origin of 3D hatchings you are at the same time adjusting the origin of textures. Your 3D window settings simply only allow you to see one or the other.
There is a great set of notes accompanied by a few exercises I wrote for my classes quite some time ago, which covers everything from 3D window settings, projection settings, textures vs 3D vectorial hatchings, material settings and shadow diagrams to 3D documents.
Archicademy
Forgot to say thanks for the video. I have not used the ‘invert direction’ option before. Great tip Jared!
Jared Banks
Archicademy,
Thanks. Sounds like I really do need to devote a video to 3D textures! Do you have a link to those notes you could share?
Greg Kmethy
Great video, Jared! Thanks for sharing!
Jared Banks
My pleasure!
Chad Conrad
Jared –
Great tip that I have not used yet! Keep them coming. I get something out of all of your work.