Tricky Geometry Help!

_Montee_

I currently work on a scene based on The Dolat Abad Windcatcher in Iran. But I am finding it tricky to think of a way to do the geometry for the high poly model of the ceiling. If anyone has any ideas or tips on how I could go around it that would be great .

Here's an image of what the ceiling looks like:



There is a few other images on my Pinterest board: http://pinterest.com/monteemontana/environment-for-futures/

Plus here is a 360 view of the interior I'm modelling: http://www.360cities.net/image/dolat-abad-garden-badgir-night-yazd#-53.37,-5.81,80.0

Thanks in advance.

Adam L. Gray

Mostly think you'll find it tedious rather than hard.

And bleh for trying to model this on a laptop's touchpad.. So pardon my inaccuracy in the shape here, but here's a quick description of how I would go about it.

So, taking a peek at the ref image we see that it could be divided into 4 major repeating parts, as nicely illustrated here on the left:



Then, taking a sphere, cutting off the bottom half to get a dome, and reshaping it into the rough shape of the ceiling. After which we cut off 3/4 of it, and cut out the parts where the arches will go, we get something like this on the right.

As you see, the tile itself could also be mirrored to save some time. All that remains at this point is cutting in the lines of the ceiling as displayed in green, and cleaning up/removing the previous ones that you will no longer need (will still need some extra edges to get the curved shapes in though)

And once that's done, all which remains is modelling in the inset shapes, some chamfering and yada yada.

JamesWild

I'd suggest modelling the rough shape (the cylinder + dome the pattern decorates) and then adding the pattern using retop. Breaks it down into two separate problems (getting the shape, adding the pattern)