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Why Can't I Generate A New Poly/Face?

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Old Codger:
Hello. It's the world's oldest 5-year-old again. I would really like to be able to make some polys/faces to "panel over" some hollow places in a model I am trying to build. If it ends up being up to snuff a buddy of mine is going to use it in his online web comic "The Gentle Wolf" (shameless plug).

(I have no idea how to inline graphics so I'll just describe what I' presenting to you.)
Shape 1 is (hopefully someday) going to grow up (via copying and pasting meshes) into an inflatable portable building. The rounded parts are where it will be "inflated" with the flat parts the panels between. I think it is kinda cute.

Shape 2 is the same mesh after doing a "shell" operation to give it some thickness and generate inward facing faces. All well and good but I'd like to "panel over" the curved parts (currently quite hollow) and figured on using "add edge" command followed by the "fill holes" command to generate a new face between the 4 edges.

Edges sel is the two new faces added and the 4 faces selected using the right mouse button. Now my understanding of the way the "fill holes" command works is that I select 3 or more edges and either use the edit menu command or a simple "shift" + "J" to generate a new face. Unfortunately I tried that and no joy.

Obviously I am screwing up somewhere. Any ideas where? The plan is to panel over the hollow spots, copy the mesh multiple times, join meshes and merge points. But I really do need to have the interior of the hollow areas paneled over since one version of the buildings are going to be open bay work areas and will need to appear solid.

Old Codger:
BTW, Here is a rough approximation of what I want the finished "structure" to look like. The U.S. armed forces (and doubtless the armed forces of other nations) use portable buildings along these lines right now.

Now I know I would construct a 2nd cylinder the same diameter as the "flat panels" and marry the two meshes. But that way is just so inelegant. And Anim8or itself is so elegant (from an engineering perspective) that doing something so "kludgy" with it sorta offends my sensibilities.

Interior shots will be from "sets" made from the basic exterior model. At least that's how I understand the whole 3D rendering/CGI thing to work. Buildings have exterior models with something similar to sets on a movie/TV sound stage providing interior views. I'm just lazy enough to want to be able to use part of the exterior model for the interior sets.

Ideas?

RudySchneider:
Old Codger ---
Looks something like a quonset hut.

OK, first off, remember that you're trying to create a 3D structure.  The basic structure you've created has no thickness yet (which you're trying to do, but...).  Check out page 58 of the manual.  It  may give you some insight to why you're unable to create a closing face.

RudySchneider:
Old Codger ---
As they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat.  In this case, I'd start with a cylinder, inset the ends, bridge the ends, "scale" the outer rings to create the "inflated portion, copy and join solids, adding edges and closing faces as needed.

I've attached a step-by-step project file as an example.  It consists of several "objects."  Each successive object is a copy of the previous object, which is then modified as described above.

Old Codger:
Hello, RudySchneider. Let me see if I followed your progression.
1) You made a default cylinder and converted it to a mesh.
2) Next you applied the "inset" command to add new geometry just to the ends.
3) Then you used the "Edit-Bridge" command on the original end caps (Normally I just deselect end caps whenever I make a cylinder but obviously this would not allow me to build geometry only at the ends) which both deleted the unwanted end caps and skinned the interior of the cylinder with very simple (non-subdivided) geometry.

One interesting note: Empirically, I found that the "inset" command can also "inset" a face OUTWARDS!  :o So instead of insetting a door into a frame (thus producing a smaller door), I can use the "inset" tool to frame the face I want to use for my door. In the case of the quonset hut I can produce simple exterior geometry with complex interior geometry. That would allow me to produce the appearance of the interior of an inflatable building by the simple expediency of making a single "ring" and duplicating it multiple times.

Thanks for the example. Just trying to figure out how you did what you did helps me learn so much more. I find it highly informative/useful to crib from somebody who actually KNOWS what they're doing. Unfortunately I often go down several blind alleys before figuring out exactly what I'm doing.  For instance, my first pass at duplicating your work was to use the "Shell" tool. Of course that means I had to delete the end caps (which you clearly had not done) and it also produced complex inner geometry which I did NOT want. Finally I figured out your uber-cryptic "inset the ends" meant actually using the "inset" command. Who knew? ;) Again, many thanks for the help. I actually learned a lot.

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