Due to some completely unforseen circumstances, our teacher is going to be unable to attend class this Saturday. Rather than put up the lesson but be unavailable to her students for questions, she has agreed to postpone her first lesson to the date that we had agreed would be her second lesson.
So, as you will see in the first post of this thread, our first class has beem moved two weeks and will now be at the same time (noon central standard time) but on the new date of April, 28th.
I sincerely hope that this doesn't cause anyone any inconvenience. I am going to try to post on each Zoo U student's Sim Page, but that really doesn't work as well as it used to as a communication tool!
Register me please! I'm not certain I'll be able to make it live as the international dateline is a PITA, (I'll check again with the meeting planner, but IIRC midday US central is about 1AM the next day for me,) but I've a keen interest in learning more about building in TS3, so I'm registering my interest here for this and future courses.
Register me please! I'm not certain I'll be able to make it live as the international dateline is a PITA, (I'll check again with the meeting planner, but IIRC midday US central is about 1AM the next day for me,) but I've a keen interest in learning more about building in TS3, so I'm registering my interest here for this and future courses.
We're glad to have you, saint_gambi, whether you can be here "live" or not!
If you will look at the fourth post of this thread you'll find the lessons for the first two Zoo U courses if you are interested in them!
I will add you to the class roster and Welcome to Zoo U!
I apologize for postponing the class date....I have some things going on in real life that are making things difficult for the next couple of weeks but things will settle down by the 28th. Looking forward to the class very much and hope that it has some useful info for everyone.
Don't worry about it, Ruthy! I know we all understand about real life. I am so happy to have you teach this class for Zoo U that you could basically put it on ANY day and I'd be there with bells on!
I think this class will be really fun and informative, too, and thank you again for your hard work on this project!
Register me please! I can make this lesson! I sent you an email too but you can just delete it because I couldn't find this thread lol
LOL! I was just about to reply to your e-mail but I came here to get the link for you first!
How are you, Trees? We've missed you around D.N.A. and hope all is going well with you!
I will add you to the class roster and Welcome to Zoo U!
By the way, if you will go to the first post you will see a link to the Zoo U Master Thread. If you bookmark it you will always be able to find us. I add all new course links to that thread.
I bookmarked it lol Thats how I found this thread lol I'm doing well. How are you guys doing with all of those requests lol?
We are doing awesome, but the current wait time for our customers is about four weeks or longer.
Everyone is busy and we have, as of a few minutes ago when I counted them, 51 unclaimed requests. That is a new milestone for us! We just hired some new folks and we have one really fast builder with a broken laptop, if that gets fixed anytime soon we will see a drop in that number.
Still, we aren't going to deliver some shoddy rush job, so it just takes as long as it takes.
I saw Imoger on the list and I was like "My lanta they are getting top notch builders!" lol I heard about Rawr's broken laptop lol I've been creepin. How is the world domination going for you lol. I'm so weird! Why would I even think about that lol?
51!!! That is a lot for a build team. I was going to put in a little request, but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I didn't feel like making my child sim's future wife lol.
I saw Imoger on the list and I was like "My lanta they are getting top notch builders!" lol I heard about Rawr's broken laptop lol I've been creepin. How is the world domination going for you lol. I'm so weird! Why would I even think about that lol?
51!!! That is a lot for a build team. I was going to put in a little request, but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I didn't feel like making my child sim's future wife lol.
LOL! I've never heard 'My lanta' as an expression before, but okay! I DO agree about the builder quality of my teammates.
You could go ahead and make a request, we won't be overwhelmed by that if we are not overwhelmed already. Just be prepared to wait. The wait times for a Sim or pet are significantly less than for a build.
I saw Imoger on the list and I was like "My lanta they are getting top notch builders!" lol I heard about Rawr's broken laptop lol I've been creepin. How is the world domination going for you lol. I'm so weird! Why would I even think about that lol?
51!!! That is a lot for a build team. I was going to put in a little request, but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I didn't feel like making my child sim's future wife lol.
LOL! I've never heard 'My lanta' as an expression before, but okay! I DO agree about the builder quality of my teammates.
You could go ahead and make a request, we won't be overwhelmed by that if we are not overwhelmed already. Just be prepared to wait. The wait times for a Sim or pet are significantly less than for a build.
See if I have never left you guys, you would have never have hired all of those new builders lol It was a blessing in disguise. My mamaw uses My lanta all the time lol I think I am going to run over a put in a little request lol
I saw Imoger on the list and I was like "My lanta they are getting top notch builders!" lol I heard about Rawr's broken laptop lol I've been creepin. How is the world domination going for you lol. I'm so weird! Why would I even think about that lol?
51!!! That is a lot for a build team. I was going to put in a little request, but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I didn't feel like making my child sim's future wife lol.
LOL! I've never heard 'My lanta' as an expression before, but okay! I DO agree about the builder quality of my teammates.
You could go ahead and make a request, we won't be overwhelmed by that if we are not overwhelmed already. Just be prepared to wait. The wait times for a Sim or pet are significantly less than for a build.
See if I have never left you guys, you would have never have hired all of those new builders lol It was a blessing in disguise. My mamaw uses My lanta all the time lol I think I am going to run over a put in a little request lol
Still plenty of time to register and join us in the next ZooU course!
Remember that we'd love to have you join us "live", but you can be a part of the class even if you can't make it on the 28th. The course will be available later as an online tutorial.
It is a model home village that has several homes in need of roofing and we will discuss all of them in Class 1. If yhou cant load the lot for whatever reason, no worries. There will be plenty of pix in the thread for you to see and you can build a quick shell yourself to give some of these techniques a try.
So...let's get started! The first thing you need to know is that AUTO ROOF is NOT your FRIEND. Bleh! Turn that thing off and leave it off. You can always do way better than auto roof.
Secondly, realize that roofs are not just a way to cover up what is underneath them. Roofs add a lot of interest to your house and can really change the look of a basic house.
Take the basic box house we all start out building:
If we left it like that, it kind of looks like a kid's drawing, right? And having the roof go the other way is not much better...it still looks kind of boring and the roof overwhelms the little box it is sitting on, doesnt it?
So, dormers and interesting angles are a way we can break up that big hunk of roof and make things interesting. Let's give that a shot. If you downloaded the practice lot, you can use this house to practice adding things to the roof with this house:
We are going to go ahead and add the basic roof like we had in this picture:
Then, go down a level and add some walls as shown in here:
If you are wondering why the walls go in so much at each end, you can go in, make the wall go straight all the way across and you will see why We are adding a dormer but we dont want it to overwhelm the roof...so we bring in the walls we want to hide and leave out the parts that will be the dormer. We need balance. A larger dormer would look wrong. Try making it too big and you will see what I mean.
Now we are going to start on one corner and cover the deck with flooring so that we have ceilings if we decide to use that space. It also helps us see where we need roofing.
We are going to use the half gable roof...which is a fance way of saying the straight angle roof seen here:
You will need to draw the roof one extra square beyond what you can see in the decking. For instance, if the decking shows 2 squares deep...make sure you draw the roof on 3 squares deep. This is important to get a proper seam.
Do it on each side and you should have something that looks like this:
Now use the lower roof tool....the individual roof tool...not the one that lowers all of the roofing at the same time. (I almost always use the individual roof angle tool exclusively because it gives more control and you can mess up things accidentally using the other)
Lower each side until to seams meet nicely.
The you can go in and add the siding and find a window that will fit. You should have something like this:
Much better already, yes? We have an interesting shape on our box without having touched the box itself. But we can do a little more if we want. How about a small porch?
I suggest always adding the decking for a roof before you draw it. It really helps you to see where the roof needs to go and keeps you from over drawing or underdrawing the roofline.
And there we go. We did not change the floorplan of this house one bit...but we added some roofing that gave us some angles and interest to make the plain house more charming. See how roofing can enhance your build? :-)
Going back to our original box...it is important to know that the pitch of a roof is based on the width of what it is covering. What this means is that if a roof is covering a large space, the roof will always lean more as it covers that space.
This means sometimes your roof **leans back** farther than you would like. Sometimes you want the roof to be more upright but cant do that because of the whole width/angle thing.
The solution to that is to break up the roof into smaller sections so you can get a more upright angle on the part you want.
If we put the same roof on the box but in a smaller section, we cn get a more upright angle on the roof like so:
Then we have to cover the rest....we can do it like so:
But wait! IF we do that...there is that messy little section on the side where the roof cuts into the wall. I hate that. It looks bad. :evil: We need to do something to fix that, dont we?
This is where roofing can sometimes mean changing your floorplan just a little. Nothing to be concerned about and I do it all the time. In this case, to avoid a harsh cut off of the roofline and to make it look more polished, we are going to want to take in the back section of the walls one square.
This gives that back roof a nice place to finish that doesnt show:
So...there you go! The basics on dealing with your simple box shape. It doesnt have to look simple at all. It can look charming and interesting if you play around with the roofing a bit. Try messing around with the box example in the practice lot ( or build a quick box in your game) and let me know if you have any questions.
The next style we are going to tackle is the barn style. This is a great style for adding softness to your build and it does not have to be used for rural or barn buildings at all. Barn roofing looks like this:
And here is how it looks when you use it on a house:
This is very easy to accomplish. We will be using guide walls to construct this roof. First, cover the surface you want to roof with your decking so you can see what you are working with. For the barn style, we will draw guide walls one sqare in on each "long side" where you want the slanted roof:
Draw in your gude walls like so:
Now, using the half gable ( straight wall )
...we are going to add a roof like so:
We are going to use the individual roof angle tool to raise that roof to just **under** the edge of the wall. You should see a little bit of the wall sticking out over the top.
The reason for this is that when we had the top section, that little wall bit will be covered..but if you raise the roof to completely cover the wall, when you add the top roof you might see the side roof sticking out over the top and that doesnt look good:
So bring the roof just almost to the top of the wall and then do the same on the other side
Now using the gable roof add the top. Use the individual roof angle tool to flatten out the top until you get an angle that you like:
So...that is the basic barn roof. You can incorporate this roof into a build without making the whole thing barn style. Just follow the same basic steps. On this example, we have one section that is not barn...so we add the decking for the part we want to "barn out" like so:
And then we draw our guide walls the same way:
And complete it the same way:
We can then go in and add some dormers if we want to dress it up even more:
Not bad? We need to check out our roof from all of the angles and make sure we dont have any messy spots. And here we see that we do :evil: so we have to fix that!
This is easily solved by bringing out the wall a sqaure or two. That gives the barn roof a place to end that doesnt show on the outside.
Ready to give this a try yourself? Find this house in the hands on lot and try adding barn style roofing to it. Dont be afraid to change it up and add dormers, or to make only part of it a barn. The idea is to try it and play with it. As you go along, if you have any questions, let me know.
Another style that can add to your build and is made in a similar manner is the mansard. If you are thinking" What the heck is a mansard??" no worries! Here is an example:
Yes...there is a mansard style in the roof tools...but if you play with it, you will see it doesnt give you the more "upright" angle that a true mansard has and the flat part is replatively small...which makes adding the decorative fencing at the top problematic. Since it is pretty easy to make your own mansard, forget about the tool and do this instead:
Just like with the barn style, we are going to make wall guides. Place decking on the surface you want to cover and then we are going to go one square in **all the way around** and draw in the guide walls. Like this:
Now we are going to use the hipped roof:
Draw the hipped roof 2 squares wide so that it is exactly **centered** on the guide wall. The peak of the roof should be lining up with the wall:
Then, use the raise all roofing tool. This is one of those times where using the "all roof" tool makes things easier. Just remember that you will have to be careful if you add other types of roof after the mansard to the same build. Once the mansard is in place, only use the individual tool so that you dont ruin your work.
Using the raise all roof tool, raise the roof until it comes to the top of the wall. Unlike the barn, make sure the wall is completely covered...no wall sticking out this time.
Work your way around and add the rest of the roof sections. Make sure you start drawing at the exact corner. If you dont start at the full corner, you will see gaps like this:
If that happens, demolish that section and redraw it starting a little farther out. If you do it right it will all match up nicely like so:
Work your way around and add all of the roof sections. Then select a floor tile and cover the top....I tend to use the basic white carpet because it colors well and doesnt have an obvious texture. For a polished look, color the floor as closely to the roof you selected as possible.
Now you can add your decorative fencing along the top. Keep in mind the scale of your house and the look you want. Some fencing is small and doesnt show much....which you might prefer:
And other fencing is taller and makes a more dramatic statement. It is up to you completely:
The house does not have to be a square to use this roof. You can do it on any straight sided shape...just follow the same basic steps. Put your decking down and add the guide walls one square in all the way around and follow the smae steps:
As with the barn roof, this style also lends itself well to dormers. Just draw in the walls like so:
You may notice when you add the roofing to the dormers that the roof sticks out a bit on the flat surface of the rest of the roof. Lowering the angle of the dormer roof softens that a bit...and the fencing will hide it a little too...but that will happen and there is nothing we can do to make it go away altogether.
Think you are ready to handle a mansard roof? Find this house in the hands on lot and see what you can do. I did add the guide walls for you, but I didnt make it completely easy....it is a complicated shape, but just stick to the steps. If you feel like a real challenge, demolish those guide walls and do it all on your own! Let me know if you have any questions!
Ok! Now that we are all warmed up...let's try something a little more complicated.
Most of the houses we build are not just simple boxes, are they? In fact, we dont WANT them to be boxes because the more angles and variety on the shape, the more interesting the house looks. But that can present a problem all of its own. What do you do when you make a great floorplan and then you have to roof a very irregular shape?
How about something like this? Intimidating?
The very first thing to do is to put on the decking ( as I have done) so you can see what you are working with. Then find the biggest square/rectangle of roofing that touches all four sides if possible. It is not always possible. In the example...we can see a big hunk here:
but look at the left side there....we have a one square wide little strip that is not covered. That is not going to work well. Lets try another big hunk instead:
This works because even though there are bits on the sides, they are large enough to cover well and we have the main body of the house covered in one section.
So lets go ahead and cover that section.
Now we are going to slowly work our way around the house and deal with each section as it comes up. Remember that the leftover parts DONT have to be covered in a single section at all. We might have to use multiple parts. Lets start at the front. We have two different shapes here so we will need two different bits to cover it.
Lets do the straight part first like so:
And since the bit that is leftover is curvy...how about a curvy roof to match?
If you are asking yourself, does it have to be curvy? I show you this picture by way of saying..yes, it does!
Now...back to the curvy roof. We want to look at the proportions and make sure it looks nice. Right now, the curved part is a bit cramped looking in the gable, isnt it?
If we raise the angle of the roof behind it we can give it more room and it will look nicer:
Do you see the difference?
Now that we have that part taken care of, let's move around to the next part. Wait a minute! Whats this?
We have an unfinished line along the side, dont we? When we made that section we didnt bring it far enough back. This is why it is good to look at things from every angle. Let's fix that!
Much better! And then we can cover that little bit sticking out as well:
We can cover this back bit fairly easily in one big hunk as well:
But what is this??? The angle of the back section doesnt match the first main section so there is a bit of a lip showing. Messy. :evil: But that is what porches are for!
Now that is hidden! :-)
Lets move to that next section on the right:
This roof seems like it might be a good choice, but looking at it in place, it doesnt seem to go well with the main ( first) roof section at all, does it? Let's try something else?
Yeah...that really doesnt work either does it? I show you this to demonstrate how sometimes you have to try several different things and just see how it feels and looks before you find one that works. When you find one that you think is right, you will know it. Let's try again:
I like this one because it echos the shape of the main section, still joins that part to the house and is a smoother transition. Does that make sense?
Now we have the little sections done, we have to look at the house as a whole. Before, we were looking at each section...but now we want to look at it as a single thing and make sure our proportions are pleasing. Doing that, I thought a dormer over the front porch would add some interest and balance things out. But....looking at it again...I see way too many peaks in the front. It makes it sharp looking. We want to soften out one of those peaks
How about this instead?
Now we have good variety and no one particular shape is overtaking everything else. It has balance.
Find this house in the practice lot:
It is not as complicated as the example I just demonstrated but I want you to practice bringing a bunch of different shapes together. Follow the same steps and remember to look for unfinished edges and for the overall shape. I also want you to consider the style of the house. Sharply peaked gables worked on that yellow house because that was a cottage. Will that work on this house? It as a different feel entirely. How will you accomodate that? Work around the house and see whay you can do. Ask me if you hit a rough spot.
***I am going to stop here for today because I dont want to flood you with too much info. We still have wrap around porches to cover and that can take a while all by itself, so that is where we will start next saturday.
Also...if you have a personal project that is giving you a hard time, be sure to load it saturday so I can download it and help you work through it.
The Final lesson will be Victorians in all of their hair pulling frustrating glory!
Comments
Due to some completely unforseen circumstances, our teacher is going to be unable to attend class this Saturday. Rather than put up the lesson but be unavailable to her students for questions, she has agreed to postpone her first lesson to the date that we had agreed would be her second lesson.
So, as you will see in the first post of this thread, our first class has beem moved two weeks and will now be at the same time (noon central standard time) but on the new date of April, 28th.
I sincerely hope that this doesn't cause anyone any inconvenience. I am going to try to post on each Zoo U student's Sim Page, but that really doesn't work as well as it used to as a communication tool!
Thanks in advance for understanding.
Zoo
We're glad to have you, saint_gambi, whether you can be here "live" or not!
If you will look at the fourth post of this thread you'll find the lessons for the first two Zoo U courses if you are interested in them!
I will add you to the class roster and Welcome to Zoo U!
I think this class will be really fun and informative, too, and thank you again for your hard work on this project!
LOL! I was just about to reply to your e-mail but I came here to get the link for you first!
How are you, Trees? We've missed you around D.N.A. and hope all is going well with you!
I will add you to the class roster and Welcome to Zoo U!
By the way, if you will go to the first post you will see a link to the Zoo U Master Thread. If you bookmark it you will always be able to find us. I add all new course links to that thread.
We are doing awesome, but the current wait time for our customers is about four weeks or longer.
Everyone is busy and we have, as of a few minutes ago when I counted them, 51 unclaimed requests. That is a new milestone for us! We just hired some new folks and we have one really fast builder with a broken laptop, if that gets fixed anytime soon we will see a drop in that number.
Still, we aren't going to deliver some shoddy rush job, so it just takes as long as it takes.
51!!! That is a lot for a build team. I was going to put in a little request, but I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I didn't feel like making my child sim's future wife lol.
LOL! I've never heard 'My lanta' as an expression before, but okay! I DO agree about the builder quality of my teammates.
You could go ahead and make a request, we won't be overwhelmed by that if we are not overwhelmed already. Just be prepared to wait. The wait times for a Sim or pet are significantly less than for a build.
DONE! Welcome to Zoo U!
DONE! How are you, Kerryn? I've been researching your build. I'm anxious to try my hand at a modern. Welcome to Zoo U!
Thanks!
See if I have never left you guys, you would have never have hired all of those new builders lol It was a blessing in disguise. My mamaw uses My lanta all the time lol I think I am going to run over a put in a little request lol
Request away
Remember that we'd love to have you join us "live", but you can be a part of the class even if you can't make it on the 28th. The course will be available later as an online tutorial.
Hope to see you there!
register me plz
DONE! Welcome back to Zoo U!
Just post the words "Register Me" to register and be added to our class roster.
Feel free to post any questions you have here or on my Sim Page (as a comment on my status post). Hope to see you Saturday!!
*** If I am not around and you have a question, just add a comment to my status page and I will get back to you....or drop me a line on facebook***
As I work through some of the basics, you can follow along with this lot:
http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=5669309
It is a model home village that has several homes in need of roofing and we will discuss all of them in Class 1. If yhou cant load the lot for whatever reason, no worries. There will be plenty of pix in the thread for you to see and you can build a quick shell yourself to give some of these techniques a try.
So...let's get started! The first thing you need to know is that AUTO ROOF is NOT your FRIEND. Bleh! Turn that thing off and leave it off. You can always do way better than auto roof.
Secondly, realize that roofs are not just a way to cover up what is underneath them. Roofs add a lot of interest to your house and can really change the look of a basic house.
Take the basic box house we all start out building:
If we left it like that, it kind of looks like a kid's drawing, right? And having the roof go the other way is not much better...it still looks kind of boring and the roof overwhelms the little box it is sitting on, doesnt it?
So, dormers and interesting angles are a way we can break up that big hunk of roof and make things interesting. Let's give that a shot. If you downloaded the practice lot, you can use this house to practice adding things to the roof with this house:
We are going to go ahead and add the basic roof like we had in this picture:
Then, go down a level and add some walls as shown in here:
If you are wondering why the walls go in so much at each end, you can go in, make the wall go straight all the way across and you will see why
Now we are going to start on one corner and cover the deck with flooring so that we have ceilings if we decide to use that space. It also helps us see where we need roofing.
We are going to use the half gable roof...which is a fance way of saying the straight angle roof seen here:
You will need to draw the roof one extra square beyond what you can see in the decking. For instance, if the decking shows 2 squares deep...make sure you draw the roof on 3 squares deep. This is important to get a proper seam.
Do it on each side and you should have something that looks like this:
Now use the lower roof tool....the individual roof tool...not the one that lowers all of the roofing at the same time. (I almost always use the individual roof angle tool exclusively because it gives more control and you can mess up things accidentally using the other)
Lower each side until to seams meet nicely.
The you can go in and add the siding and find a window that will fit. You should have something like this:
Much better already, yes? We have an interesting shape on our box without having touched the box itself. But we can do a little more if we want. How about a small porch?
I suggest always adding the decking for a roof before you draw it. It really helps you to see where the roof needs to go and keeps you from over drawing or underdrawing the roofline.
And there we go. We did not change the floorplan of this house one bit...but we added some roofing that gave us some angles and interest to make the plain house more charming. See how roofing can enhance your build? :-)
Going back to our original box...it is important to know that the pitch of a roof is based on the width of what it is covering. What this means is that if a roof is covering a large space, the roof will always lean more as it covers that space.
This means sometimes your roof **leans back** farther than you would like. Sometimes you want the roof to be more upright but cant do that because of the whole width/angle thing.
The solution to that is to break up the roof into smaller sections so you can get a more upright angle on the part you want.
If we put the same roof on the box but in a smaller section, we cn get a more upright angle on the roof like so:
Then we have to cover the rest....we can do it like so:
But wait! IF we do that...there is that messy little section on the side where the roof cuts into the wall. I hate that. It looks bad. :evil: We need to do something to fix that, dont we?
This is where roofing can sometimes mean changing your floorplan just a little. Nothing to be concerned about and I do it all the time. In this case, to avoid a harsh cut off of the roofline and to make it look more polished, we are going to want to take in the back section of the walls one square.
This gives that back roof a nice place to finish that doesnt show:
So...there you go! The basics on dealing with your simple box shape. It doesnt have to look simple at all. It can look charming and interesting if you play around with the roofing a bit. Try messing around with the box example in the practice lot ( or build a quick box in your game) and let me know if you have any questions.
And here is how it looks when you use it on a house:
This is very easy to accomplish. We will be using guide walls to construct this roof. First, cover the surface you want to roof with your decking so you can see what you are working with. For the barn style, we will draw guide walls one sqare in on each "long side" where you want the slanted roof:
Draw in your gude walls like so:
Now, using the half gable ( straight wall )
...we are going to add a roof like so:
We are going to use the individual roof angle tool to raise that roof to just **under** the edge of the wall. You should see a little bit of the wall sticking out over the top.
The reason for this is that when we had the top section, that little wall bit will be covered..but if you raise the roof to completely cover the wall, when you add the top roof you might see the side roof sticking out over the top and that doesnt look good:
So bring the roof just almost to the top of the wall and then do the same on the other side
Now using the gable roof add the top. Use the individual roof angle tool to flatten out the top until you get an angle that you like:
So...that is the basic barn roof. You can incorporate this roof into a build without making the whole thing barn style. Just follow the same basic steps. On this example, we have one section that is not barn...so we add the decking for the part we want to "barn out" like so:
And then we draw our guide walls the same way:
And complete it the same way:
We can then go in and add some dormers if we want to dress it up even more:
Not bad? We need to check out our roof from all of the angles and make sure we dont have any messy spots. And here we see that we do :evil: so we have to fix that!
This is easily solved by bringing out the wall a sqaure or two. That gives the barn roof a place to end that doesnt show on the outside.
Ready to give this a try yourself? Find this house in the hands on lot and try adding barn style roofing to it. Dont be afraid to change it up and add dormers, or to make only part of it a barn. The idea is to try it and play with it. As you go along, if you have any questions, let me know.
Another style that can add to your build and is made in a similar manner is the mansard. If you are thinking" What the heck is a mansard??" no worries! Here is an example:
Yes...there is a mansard style in the roof tools...but if you play with it, you will see it doesnt give you the more "upright" angle that a true mansard has and the flat part is replatively small...which makes adding the decorative fencing at the top problematic. Since it is pretty easy to make your own mansard, forget about the tool and do this instead:
Just like with the barn style, we are going to make wall guides. Place decking on the surface you want to cover and then we are going to go one square in **all the way around** and draw in the guide walls. Like this:
Now we are going to use the hipped roof:
Draw the hipped roof 2 squares wide so that it is exactly **centered** on the guide wall. The peak of the roof should be lining up with the wall:
Then, use the raise all roofing tool. This is one of those times where using the "all roof" tool makes things easier. Just remember that you will have to be careful if you add other types of roof after the mansard to the same build. Once the mansard is in place, only use the individual tool so that you dont ruin your work.
Using the raise all roof tool, raise the roof until it comes to the top of the wall. Unlike the barn, make sure the wall is completely covered...no wall sticking out this time.
Work your way around and add the rest of the roof sections. Make sure you start drawing at the exact corner. If you dont start at the full corner, you will see gaps like this:
If that happens, demolish that section and redraw it starting a little farther out. If you do it right it will all match up nicely like so:
Work your way around and add all of the roof sections. Then select a floor tile and cover the top....I tend to use the basic white carpet because it colors well and doesnt have an obvious texture. For a polished look, color the floor as closely to the roof you selected as possible.
Now you can add your decorative fencing along the top. Keep in mind the scale of your house and the look you want. Some fencing is small and doesnt show much....which you might prefer:
And other fencing is taller and makes a more dramatic statement. It is up to you completely:
The house does not have to be a square to use this roof. You can do it on any straight sided shape...just follow the same basic steps. Put your decking down and add the guide walls one square in all the way around and follow the smae steps:
As with the barn roof, this style also lends itself well to dormers. Just draw in the walls like so:
You may notice when you add the roofing to the dormers that the roof sticks out a bit on the flat surface of the rest of the roof. Lowering the angle of the dormer roof softens that a bit...and the fencing will hide it a little too...but that will happen and there is nothing we can do to make it go away altogether.
Think you are ready to handle a mansard roof? Find this house in the hands on lot and see what you can do. I did add the guide walls for you, but I didnt make it completely easy....it is a complicated shape, but just stick to the steps. If you feel like a real challenge, demolish those guide walls and do it all on your own!
Most of the houses we build are not just simple boxes, are they? In fact, we dont WANT them to be boxes because the more angles and variety on the shape, the more interesting the house looks. But that can present a problem all of its own. What do you do when you make a great floorplan and then you have to roof a very irregular shape?
How about something like this? Intimidating?
The very first thing to do is to put on the decking ( as I have done) so you can see what you are working with. Then find the biggest square/rectangle of roofing that touches all four sides if possible. It is not always possible. In the example...we can see a big hunk here:
but look at the left side there....we have a one square wide little strip that is not covered. That is not going to work well. Lets try another big hunk instead:
This works because even though there are bits on the sides, they are large enough to cover well and we have the main body of the house covered in one section.
So lets go ahead and cover that section.
Now we are going to slowly work our way around the house and deal with each section as it comes up. Remember that the leftover parts DONT have to be covered in a single section at all. We might have to use multiple parts. Lets start at the front. We have two different shapes here so we will need two different bits to cover it.
Lets do the straight part first like so:
And since the bit that is leftover is curvy...how about a curvy roof to match?
If you are asking yourself, does it have to be curvy? I show you this picture by way of saying..yes, it does!
Now...back to the curvy roof. We want to look at the proportions and make sure it looks nice. Right now, the curved part is a bit cramped looking in the gable, isnt it?
If we raise the angle of the roof behind it we can give it more room and it will look nicer:
Do you see the difference?
Now that we have that part taken care of, let's move around to the next part. Wait a minute! Whats this?
We have an unfinished line along the side, dont we? When we made that section we didnt bring it far enough back. This is why it is good to look at things from every angle. Let's fix that!
Much better! And then we can cover that little bit sticking out as well:
We can cover this back bit fairly easily in one big hunk as well:
But what is this??? The angle of the back section doesnt match the first main section so there is a bit of a lip showing. Messy. :evil: But that is what porches are for!
Now that is hidden! :-)
Lets move to that next section on the right:
This roof seems like it might be a good choice, but looking at it in place, it doesnt seem to go well with the main ( first) roof section at all, does it? Let's try something else?
Yeah...that really doesnt work either does it? I show you this to demonstrate how sometimes you have to try several different things and just see how it feels and looks before you find one that works. When you find one that you think is right, you will know it. Let's try again:
I like this one because it echos the shape of the main section, still joins that part to the house and is a smoother transition. Does that make sense?
Now we have the little sections done, we have to look at the house as a whole. Before, we were looking at each section...but now we want to look at it as a single thing and make sure our proportions are pleasing. Doing that, I thought a dormer over the front porch would add some interest and balance things out. But....looking at it again...I see way too many peaks in the front. It makes it sharp looking. We want to soften out one of those peaks
How about this instead?
Now we have good variety and no one particular shape is overtaking everything else. It has balance.
Find this house in the practice lot:
It is not as complicated as the example I just demonstrated but I want you to practice bringing a bunch of different shapes together. Follow the same steps and remember to look for unfinished edges and for the overall shape. I also want you to consider the style of the house. Sharply peaked gables worked on that yellow house because that was a cottage. Will that work on this house? It as a different feel entirely. How will you accomodate that? Work around the house and see whay you can do. Ask me if you hit a rough spot.
***I am going to stop here for today because I dont want to flood you with too much info. We still have wrap around porches to cover and that can take a while all by itself, so that is where we will start next saturday.
Also...if you have a personal project that is giving you a hard time, be sure to load it saturday so I can download it and help you work through it.
The Final lesson will be Victorians in all of their hair pulling frustrating glory!