vaulted ceiling

nick2730

http://z.about.com/d/cruises/1/0/C/R...e_paris005.jpg
http://www.photographyuncapped.com/w...8-11x17-1d.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/o...l/11195558.jpg

Hi guys, im having trouble modeling a ceiling like this, where pillars the the base lead into a vaulted ceiling. The pillars are no problem but the ceiling is getting me, i got a couple ideas how like using splines and lofting?. Any ideas on an easier way? 3dsmax 2010

Mongrelman

This has come up before

Make a cube, with the bottom face on top of the pillar. Scale the bottom face down to fit the pillar, and leave the top face large. Then add edge loops horizontally along the cube and scale them in appropriately to give a curve. Then you just duplicate the cube and move it to the side so it connects at the top to the first cube.

Hope that made sense.

divi

might be worth it to make splines representing the curves and aligning the curve points to it.
another way would be to build a "cross section" of the ceiling between two pillars as its basicly a simple arch, extrude it to the next pillar, rotate a copy by 90° around the center of the archway and then cut or boolean them at the spots where they intersect each other and delete the middle part/welding them together.

will probably be easier the way mongrelman said

nezach

Here is how I would approach it.

alexk

This is a pic of a short tutorial that was posted here on poly a long while back on how to quickly do these. All credit goes to the owner of the tutorial, though, i forgot their name. The white text on the right is just my own notes

JasonLavoie

Much appreciated for the picture demonstrations.

nick2730

excellent guys, thanks. Cant beleive i didnt think of the taper modifier

nick2730

heres what i got so far, thnx guys

Avanthera

not bad, but the arch looks like it could use a bit more lovin

nick2730

shrew81 wrote: »

not bad, but the arch looks like it could use a bit more lovin

i know im gonna just use splines, cant get teh arch right using taper

Ark

You can also do it like this:

Start of with a basic cylinder with plenty of sides.
Delete both end caps and half of the cylinder.
Extrude the bottom edges.
Create two slices at opposite 45 degree angles.
Delete the end polygons.

You should know have something like this:



Now center the pivot on the end vert, clone and rotate three times until you get this:



Now weld the seams, select all the polygons and invert them. Chamfer the internal edges and duplicate and snap together as many as needed.

Viola.



There's also a lightwave video:
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/cathedral.mov

Can easy be transfered to any app if you know your tools.

nick2730

little more work, think the arches look much better now

Ark

Your arches look like they have steps in them. Try distributing your edges more evenly.

Tumerboy

Ya, you'll get much better results using the cylinder method, as your curve will be much more natural.

[Deleted User]

Good tut turnerboy, but boolean is a bit faster than slice plane here. No real cleanup required because all of the edges align properly to begin with.

Mark Dygert

I like Nick's thinkin' but instead of slice I would use two rotated symmetry modifiers on half of a cylinder. Which is a bit like the other methods described.



So the modifier stack goes something like this:
- Edit Poly: Use this to delete the end caps and flat faces on the bottom, as well as flip the polys (or use a normal modifier).
- Symmetry: Rotated so it mirrors the L and turns it into a 4 way.
- Symmetry: Rotated 45 degrees. Creates a L hallway.
/pause (Go into the hierarchy tab, click affect pivot only, click center to object)
- Cylinder: 12 sides, Slice From 180, Slice To 360. Adjust the sides later

Notes:
Keep in mind that you would do the above in reverse order if you're following it like a tutorial.

You can smooth out or optimize the arches by going back down the stack to cylinder and adjusting the sides.

Also if you change the number of sides, you will need to redo the edit poly delete/flip faces on the top of the modifier stack.

Tumerboy

Righto. Never really use symmetry. And booleans hate me to such a degree that I don't trust them anymore, even when it SHOULD be a simple operation.

But the above is just my approach, take what you want from it and ditch the rest.

Mark Dygert

I think booleans would create verts where invisible edges are cut, that could be messy? Also booleans don't like open geometry so it would probably just give a cut line, delete half or not do anything at all. You would have to shell it or use some other kind of closed geo...

nick2730

Eric Chadwick

Coming along nicely. You could show off the model better with some nice lighting.

Maybe like this...

[Deleted User]

Nah guys trust me, booleans work. You just have to give them something to work with. Make a cylinder - don't do ANYTHING ELSE TO IT except scaling operations if you want - copy it, rotate it 90 degrees, do a boolean join operation, and then delete everything below the middle. Viola. No fixing needed because all the edges lined up and you had enclosed geo.

The one time I had to model a vaulted ceiling I did it this way and it worked perfectly.

Eric Chadwick

Symmetry mod is still better.

If you have too few segments, or you want to alter the angles, or you want to add piping, etc., you simply adjust the base mesh and it automatically propagates.

[Deleted User]

I can't really argue with that. Non-destructive is always cool