Cathedral ceiling

[Infernis]

Can't seem to find an decent tutorial or a source map as reference for this. So, I'm hoping by posting this some can either direct me to a tutorial or a source map.

I'm sure most of you know Chartres, now I'm building a cathedral as well. I'm having a hard time constructing the ceiling as seen in Chartres. Here's a screenie of the ceiling part:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/Jugglah/mike.jpg

Any help would be appreciated.

[Anwulf]

I did see the source map for Chartres a few years back when qkq shared it with Team Huh (now deceased). From what I remember, he didn't create the vaulting in the way I would've done it, but I believe there were major sparkly issues and there had to be a certain amount of disguising.

I did have a couple of tuts about making vaulting, but they're no longer available online (or possibly even offline). As far as I recall, you'd take a brush where the major dimensions were in a ratio such as 1:1.6, turn it into an endcap, and then pull down the corner vertices to make the arch pointed. You also needed to pull the vertices back in top view so that the parts of the vault would then fit together. This is the easy part.

Mouldings across the vault could be done, but they were a real pain because of the angles, and the vaulting at the end of the nave, which you can see in the screenshot, is even harder to get right. I've done it myself, but it's extremely fiddly.

[Hipshot]

I know how to do, well, how _I_ would do it. But not how to explain that... maybe I can screen the process later this week... I would start by making the "skeleton" of the arches and all that, well well... can't explain =)

[Infernis]

The real problem are the angled supports. Getting that to look properly is turning out to be a nightmare.

Anwulf, when you take a look at chartres with r_showtris on you'll see that it's really 'sloppy' build. No offense to the author because he must have had his reasons to do so.

Hipshot, if you can find the time please be so kind to do so.

Thanks

[obsidian]

Convert to ASE and then rotate?

[Infernis]

No I mean building them properly in the first place

If I ever figure it out I'll be sure to upload a .map file for this thread.

[Kat]

No I mean building them properly in the first place....

That's the problem, you technically can't which is why Chartres has sparklies all over the place. rotating objects to none standard angles means the object being 'off the grid' which then means that alignment of object to that initial object is going to be out so you either have to over compensate for that or accept that you'll get draw errors.

If you want 'precision' as opposed to the visial appearance of vaulting like that shot then you'll have to do what obsidian suggested and model it.

45 degree vaulting is reasonably easy, doing anything at angles in between that are *very* difficult to pull of.

[obsidian]

Radiant is a bit of a double edged sword... it's shear simplicity means it is ideal for rapid prototyping and most of the level design. Sometimes I wish for more advanced features like in a 3D modeling app, but then we would be sacrificing the simplicity of everything. Can't have everything, I guess.

On a separate note, it should be possible if you calculate the angles and work from there. I'm pretty sure I've pulled it off on some experimental map, but you have to work at a ridiculously small grid size, and you know what happens when you do that...

[Plan B]

Stuff like this will always be very finnicky and you will always have to compromise on some points.

Simplification is the key word, I think.

Basically you have two key structures (the arch itself and the window parts in between) that should first be built and then cloned, rotated and joined correctly.

I whipped up a simplified testmap =>




There's a lot wrong with it, of course;

There are some sparklies.
I used a big ugly cylindrical joint at the top to pull the arches together.
The arches don't tilt but are perpendicular to the ceiling.

Most of those points could all theoretically be dealt with, though, if you are willing to put in enough time and effort (which I am not at the moment ).


Anyway, maybe you find the map file useful.

[Hipshot]

balblalbalbab

Heh, sitting doing one myself =)

[Plan B]

balblalbalbab

Heh, sitting doing one myself =)

A better one, I'm quite sure.

Couldn't be arsed to pull those bevel caps together

[spookmineer]

arsed?

[obsidian]

My attempt. Didn't bother compiling and checking for sparklies. I don't think there will be many noticable ones.

4 sided vault because I'm lazy and didn't bother (couldn't be arsed to) finishing off the windows. You get the idea though. I decided to toss in the light model for good measure (not enough polys... more, more, more).

[lvlshot]http://members.lycos.co.uk/quakeroats/q3wtemp/061012vault.jpg[/lvlshot]

[Infernis]

Obsidian: Care to share that .map file with us?

Spookmineer: Arsed= can't be bothered to or something like that.

Plan B: Thanks a lot, I'll look into your .map tomorrow.

[obsidian]

Boink!

http://members.lycos.co.uk/quakeroats/samples/

vault.zip, BTW.

Such crappy hosting, but I can't be arsed to get anything better. Working on it though.

[Infernis]

Thanks, I'll look into it this afternoon.

Regarding hosting, I've got a ton of space left since I closed LD. I offered this before and I will say it again. I could hook you up.

[obsidian]

I could easily get hosting, just a few clicks away. I just haven't bothered since all my files are in a terrible mess, so if I upload anything it'll just be a big mess on a server. I figure I should organize things locally first before uploading my junk for everyone else to see.

Thanks again for the offer though.

[Infernis]

Instead of creating a new topic, I decided to bump this one. Since all the files and shots are down the thread itself isn't that useful anymore. But perhaps we could share the techniques we use to create vaulted ceilings? Maybe Obsidian still has the files? dONKEY, care to share some of your ceiling expertise?

I've got little to share since I'm obviously stuck. Tried looking up some maps for decompiling but haven't found any with what I'm looking for.

Thanks

[fKd]

it would just be some patch meshes with a little vertex editing no?

[obsidian]

[sock]

The key to any church architecture is planning the walls out first on the grid. It pays to work out how big you want the corridors and rooms to be because once you start creating the vaulted ceiling it is difficult to change afterwards. Creating the vault from brushwork or patches is easy but it depends on how much time you want to spend doing this because brushwork is certainly harder to do.

The groin vault comes in two flavours, square/diamond and circular.

[lvlshot]http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/tsq3_groinvault_patches.jpg[/lvlshot]
The Square vault is easy to create from patches or brushes and as long as the you have a good caulk hull behind the patches it should not produce any sparkles. Also it pays to get a good vault texture in the first place. If you are stuck, I released a palace/church texture set a while ago in hi-res as well.

[lvlshot]http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/tsq3_groinvault_brushes.jpg[/lvlshot]
Diamond vaults are difficult to do with brushes but not impossible and it can be done even with the Q3 grid. Patches are certainly easier and can be adjusted much quicker if the diamond is the wrong size. The trick with diamond shapes is getting the ribs lines to match the texture. This is easier to highlight with brushwork because you can pull the rib lines downward without distorting the overall texture.

[lvlshot]http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/tsq3_circular_template.jpg[/lvlshot]
Circular vaults are tricky and the first step is to plan out the total size with a patch column. This is a good gauge for getting the grid lines right later on. You can use multiple columns to judge what it would be like as you go further out from the center.

[lvlshot]http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/tsq3_circular_lines.jpg[/lvlshot]
The trick to getting the circular shape is to keep to big grid sizes and remember to plan ahead if you are going to have a corridor behind the circular vault. Plan out the key lines first and keep them to the grid. In this example I used a 4to1 gradient to get to the 45 degree angle. Once you have the initial shape project the inside circle outwards using 2to1 gradient lines and that should keep all the brushwork on the grid.

[lvlshot]http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/sp/tsq3_examplemap.jpg[/lvlshot]
Here is an Example Map (don't mind the disco lighting, it is the stain glass windows) made from brushwork and here is a Screenshot of the Q3 bots having fun ... I think ...

[Infernis]

You guys are awesome!
Thank you very much!

Especially that example map is a real eye opener.

[mrd]

stuff

Great stuff sir.