How to show expansion joints in stucco wall finish?

[4hotshoes]

Part of the design of the building is to show expansion joints cut into the stucco layer of a wall assembly like trim. Joints will run from window corners both vertically and horizontally to create a grid. I have an image attached saved from Sketchup.

[Christophe Fortineau]

Hello 4hotshoes,

I use the curtain wall tool to do this because I can change the layout if necessary.

[4hotshoes]

How would you do this with the Curtain Wall tool? What parts would create the joints, stucco? I have a 2x6 stud wall.

[Laszlo Nagy]

You could have a Curtain Wall with invisible frames, so the visible geometry would be just panels. When defining the panels you could specify the thickness of the panels, which would be equal to the depth of the joints, and also the gap between panels, which would be the width of the joints. Then you could just place the Curtain Wall in front of the Wall, and place it on a separate Layer so you can make it visible or hidden, as needed.
AS you may know, you can also simply place am empty Curtain Wall (no pattern), then go to an Elevation, select the Curtain Wall, go to Edit Mode and simply draw the positions of the Frames (invisible Frames, so they would actually define the joints).

[jakubc7]

4hotshoes the curtain wall suggestion is probably quite a good one but I know the tool may be little intimidating if you haven't used it before.

Method I tend to use is to model columns and beams where you want the score lines to be. Make sure the building material has a higher priority than the walls and place it on the hidden layer.

Columns and Beams do not need to be substituted from the walls (ie. no need to use Solid Element Operations) as they subtract automatically when hidden. I find this to work very well.

[Anonymous]

I agree with jakubc7. Columns and Beams are much more simpler and easy to control.
Our good friend Jared Banks from Shoegnome posted a tutorial with this technic sometime ago.
But it is still valid.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, I agree, that is a pretty good solution.

[Richard Morrison]

I've always used the Trussmaker tool, which can be SEO'd, or just use a thin, dark gray material and leave the truss on the surface. It's hard to tell the differences in depth. Beams and columns obviously work, too.