Creating the Hall of a Mansion - Introduction

Now we will add some detail to our walls, but first we must select the polygons we want to add detail to. Switch to Polygon Mode by hitting “ctrl+h” on your keyboard, then hit “w” to bring up the Polygon Statistics Panel. At the bottom of this Panel you can choose to select polygons by what surface they are carrying, check picture 9 and you’ll know what I mean.


So select the Wallpaper Surface there, and then hit the + to select them. Close down the Panel and we’re ready to continue.

We will use the Bevel Tool on these polygons to add doorframes, and some frames that will follow the floor and ceiling.

First we need to change the surface for these polygons, so bring up the Change Surface Panel by hitting “q”, select the “Walls_Wood” surface in the pull-down menu and then click OK. The selected polygons should now turn into a brown colour in the perspective view. Keep the polygons selected. Activate the Bevel Tool by hitting “b” and then bring up the Numeric Panel. We will perform 10 bevels here, so enter one of them at a time. Here’s a tip on how to use the bevel tool. Bring up the Numeric Panel, enter the values for the first bevel, hit “Space”, then hit “b” and then “n” again, then proceed with bevel number 2. Here are the 10 bevel values.



When you are done with the 10 bevels, keep the polygons selected and bring up the Change Surface Panel, and set the surface to “Wallpaper”, then click OK. Activate the Knife Tool by hitting “shift+K”, and then bring up the Numeric Panel. Use the following settings.

Axis: Z



Once the Values are entered, close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to perform the operation. This will split the selected polygons 1m up on the Y axis, and this will become wooden panels later on, but first we need to deselect the upper part. Working in the Back View (Bottom Left Viewport), drag a lasso like in picture 10. Picture 11 shows the selected polygons after the lasso tool.



With these polygons selected, bring up the Change Surface Panel and change the surface to the “Walls_Wood” one, then click OK. If you look at the perspective view now, the selected polygons should have turned into a brown colour.

With these polygons selected, we will now perform another 13 Bevel operations. Activate the Bevel Tool, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following values, one by one.



You can deselect everything now and that’s it for the Level 0 Walls at this point. Save the object as “MansionScene.lwo”, and now it is time to build the Level 1 Walls.

Building the Level 1 Walls

Keep the Level 0 Walls in Layer 1 and then switch to Layer 2. Activate the Box Tool, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following settings.



Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to create the box. Bring up the Change Surface Panel and select the “Walls_Wood” surface, then click OK. Switch to Layer 3, activate the Box Tool and bring up the Numeric Panel again, then use the following settings.



Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to create the box. Bring up the Change Surface Panel and set the Surface to “Wallpaper”, then click OK. Switch to Layer 4 and activate the Box Tool once again, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following settings.



Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to create the box. Activate the Move Tool and bring up the Numeric Panel, then use the following settings.



Once you’ve entered 4m on the X-axis, click Apply and the box should move. Activate the Mirror Tool and bring up the Numeric Panel, set the Axis to X and keep the centre values at 0, then hit Space to perform the Mirror Operation. Activate the Box Tool again, and then bring up the Numeric Panel. We don’t need to change anything here so just close the Numeric Panel again and hit Space to create the box. Switch to Point Mode and drag a lasso around this new Box in the Top View to select its points. Activate the Move Tool and use the following settings.



Click Apply to perform the Move Operation, close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space.

Bring up the Change Surface Panel and select the “Walls_Wood” surface, then click OK. Layer 4 should look something like picture 12.


Now it’s time for 2 Boolean Subtracts again, so switch to Layer 2 and put Layer 4 in the background. Activate the Boolean Tool and select the Subtract Operation, then click OK. Merge the points when finished, 18 points should be eliminated. Keep Layer 2 as the active one and put Layer 3 in the background, then perform another Boolean Subtract operation. Merge Points when finished, 20 points should be eliminated. You may now delete the content of Layer 3 and 4; we don’t need it anymore. Switch to Layer 2 when done. We will now repeat a few steps that we made with the Level 0 Walls. Switch to Polygon Mode, then bring up the Polygon Statistics Panel by hitting “w” and select the Polygons that have got the “Wallpaper” surface attached to them. 4 polygons should be selected. Give these polygons the “Walls_Wood” surface for now, then activate the Bevel Tool and bring up the Numeric Panel, use the following settings one by one.



Keep the polygons selected and give them the “Wallpaper” surface when you are done with the Bevel operations. We are going to create wooden panels for these walls to, but not all the way around. First of all, we need to cut the selected Wallpaper Polygons along the Z-axis, so bring up the Numeric Panel for the Knife Tool and use the following settings.

Axis: Z



Close down the Numeric Panel and then hit Space to create the cut. Now it’s time to deselect the polygons above the cut we just made, so drag a lasso around these like in picture 13.



Keep the polygons selected and activate the Knife Tool, then bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following settings.

Axis: Y



Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to perform the cut. Then activate the Knife Tool again, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following settings

Axis: Y



Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to perform the cut. Now deselect the polygon between these two cuts we just made, check picture 15 to see if you got it right.


Before we proceed with the bevelling, we need to change the surface of these Polygons, so bring up the Change Surface Panel and set it to “Walls_Wood”, then click OK.

Perform 13 bevels with the values shown below, one at a time.



Deselect everything when you’re done. The object should look something like picture 16.


Now we are done with both the Level 0 and Level 1 Walls, so hit “s” on your keyboard to save the object. Note, all the objects we create will be saved in the “MansionScene.lwo” file, but the Layers they are in will be preserved. Every time we are done creating something new, we will just save over the object file and thereby update the information in it.