Arched Ceiling Technique?

LarryG on 1/3/2013 at 20:17

Does anyone have a technique for building arched ceilings in DromEd like this one? Or do I need to invent one?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1621[/ATTACH]

R Soul on 1/3/2013 at 21:47

For the vaulted shapes I think you can use lots of intersecting pyramids, similar to using wedges.

The top pyramids should (more or less) touch diagonally, like this:

Inline Image:

http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/ac326/rsoulinternet/Dromed/vaulted1_zps9ece5b19.gif

Once a group is done it'll look like this:

Inline Image:

http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/ac326/rsoulinternet/Dromed/vaulted2_zpsf363bdf5.gif

In this case the pyramids are 8 sided whereas the columns are 16 sided. To cover their intersection, I used a small relief cylinder where the main one meets the lowest pyramid.

This is the mis file with the above brushes:
(http://catmanofiowa.com/RSoul/vaulted.zip) http://catmanofiowa.com/RSoul/vaulted.zip

Good luck with the texture mapping. You could try to make it out of an object if collisions won't be major issue. It might give you smoother lighting too.

LarryG on 1/3/2013 at 22:07

Thanks! I was already thinking of overlaying some non-physical objects to make it all pretty looking, but wanted to have a physical base that someone could bump up against. I was thinking of a subtractive process, but your additive one looks much simpler. Thanks for the suggestion!

Xorak on 1/3/2013 at 22:17

Here's another technique, it's a solid rectangle spanning the space with the air-brush cylinder cutting through. That will create the ribbing along the edges.

Inline Image:

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/4202/vault1.jpg

Eternauta on 2/3/2013 at 11:26

Wow! It's fantastic!

Many times I had tried something like this but my technique was wrong, until now!!!

Thank you! :thumb:

Yandros on 2/3/2013 at 16:39

Quote Posted by LarryG

Thanks! I was already thinking of overlaying some non-physical objects to make it all pretty looking, but wanted to have a physical base that someone could bump up against.

Assuming the player can't get up near the ceiling, the physical brushes could simply be cylinders if you're going to cover them with objects. However you'll need to remember that an object whose centroid is in solid is not rendered.

LarryG on 3/3/2013 at 21:11

I ended up making the "groin" arch and the column as separate objects and assembling them in DromEd. I tried doing them with brushes in DromEd, but I kept running into rendering problems because that forced too many cells to occur, and I couldn't find any way to get the cell counts down.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1623[/ATTACH]

Now I'm going to see if I can make a really big hall this way :ebil:

TheDuriel on 3/3/2013 at 23:03

wow that looks great

lets make the mines of moria ^^

Judith on 4/3/2013 at 10:17

Quote Posted by LarryG

I ended up making the "groin" arch and the column as separate objects and assembling them in DromEd. I tried doing them with brushes in DromEd, but I kept running into rendering problems because that forced too many cells to occur, and I couldn't find any way to get the cell counts down.

Now I'm going to see if I can make a really big hall this way :ebil:

You should really try doing it with static meshes, all the parts. Everything you build in CSG (BSP) is treated by the engine as unique, while static meshes can be instanced many times and only the original piece takes up video memory.

If anyone's interested, try this technique in modeling program of your choice:

Inline Image:

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/3198/vaultedceiling01.jpg

And have something like this instead.

Inline Image:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4791/clipboard01wec.jpg

This was made with 2 meshes, a 148 poly column and modular 144 poly vault ceiling part :)

Ottoj55 on 4/3/2013 at 13:48

the new uv texture controls in dromed 1.19 will help you texture these, the ability to stretch textures and the new alignment modes are very useful. most of the work of this setup is in the texture. if you can find a nice texture for this that aligns to your brushes it will be perfect.