Ideal Arch Tool

#1 Bare minimum:

Specify the number of brush segments that make up the curve of the arch. Specify ratio of curved part to straight part (arch to support).

Medium: Ability to have different kinds of arches (pointed arch, or circular, etc). Ability to bevel the inside of the arch and support.

Ultimate arch tool: Can make ceiling arches - such as the type in a cathedral supported by pillars. Can remember various arches that you've made, and present them as quick-pick choices in a drop down. Can frame arch with a seperate set of brushes (make trim).

#2 I agree with Jaimi.

#3 Can you make the right/left side of the arch like this?


I appreciate if you can make an arch tool which has oblique edges like above.

#4 I gotta agree with Jaimi and Sun as well i cant think of any other options for arches

#5 Not to sound cheeky or anything, but i think you guys need to fix the constant crashes before you add anything quite yet. really though fantastic tool all around!

as far as archs, I'm pretty old school and have always made complicated extrusions to punch out an arch and create bevels. That type of stuff really seems to crash constructor a lot!

#6 Greetings!

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Jason Lee:
I'll put you down for no arch tool then. :o) Seriously though, if you haven't already please make a new thread in the appropriate section and post the details of your crashes. Thanks.

- LightWave Dave

#7 How about a curvature slider thing, from circular to oval. Or a "pointiness" slider, controlling how much the two sides match up in the middle (think of two overlapping ovals). Or a quick way to do vaulted ceilings.

#8 Dave,

I'd like to see one where you can half the arch in sections and put say a middle straight horrizon type piller in the middle and have both halves on either side would be cool for me plus what Jaimi said. Arch ways like you see in churches overseas and such would be cool too. Makes for a cool Gothic type game setting. Thanks!

Will
Digital Lightstorm
Waskom, Tx
dlstorminc@yahoo.com

#9 Bare minimum: Click drag, set number of segments of arch, hit enter, done.

Would be even more awesome: Being able to set inside of arches to share faces (for textures and smoothing).
Being able to block out hallways with "arch cubes" and then have the arch tool create a series of arches that merge nicely into each other.
Would also be neat to be able to specify at which degree the arch is terminated (out 360 degrees), so if I wanted to create something like a tube cut off by a floor, that'd be very neat.

One can dream: Being able to create different types of arches specified by esteemed posters above.

Cheers!
Fredrik S

#10 A mix of the above. Being able to output piller, column, monolithic type arches a big plus. Also snapping out lines to form a plain for extruding would be great. And to select bevel to round for any area you want.

#11 The core stuff needed as I see it and im probably repeating everyone else here.

"Click n drag" to adjust arch's width and height. Input of arch's segments allowed.

This allows for what I would see as the majority of uses. The segment slider/ number input would automatically allow you make the arch more angular.

The way I see It work is the curve of the arch has intermittent dots. These decide the segments used. Up the segments and up the frequency of the dots on the arch.

A widen/narrow option would be good aswell though not essential. By this I mean being able to change the roundness of the arch between the extremes of basically a rounded rectangle and and a somewhat acute rounded triangle.

Five points make the arch.
2 ground points at both ends of the arch.
1 midpoint at the roof of the arch.
2 roundness points that decides the angle between the ground points and midpoint.

Have some way of changing the location of these roundness points.

Thanks for all the work so far btw David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand ...

#12 I think a good solution would be to implement something like the 2D shape editor that they have in Unreal Ed. Using that you can draw on the cross section of the arch and use that as a brush with which you can create the arch (and all sorts of other shapes).

--Amr

#13 Greetings!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. For the next release I've put together what I'm calling the Bezier Arch tool. It uses a single Bezier curve (either quadratic or cubic in nature as selected by the user) to allow you to customize your arch. It also comes with a few presets to help out, such as making a circular arch.


The above image was made out of two arches. The main hallway and its ceiling were made with an arch using the Circular Cutout preset. The doorways out the sides were smaller arches using a cubic Bezier curve. I modified the two control handles to give an Arabian flair.

This is a first pass at the tool that you'll be able to use in the next point release. There's still some work that could be done to improve it. And of course there is nothing to say this has to be the only arch tool available. :o)

I would have to say however that building a tool that will break up a concave shape with an arbitrary curve into a series of discrete convex brushes was a lot more work than I thought it would be. It's not really due to anything in Constructor specifically -- just an interesting math problem. So be sure to really thank any third party that takes something like this on in the future. :o)

- LightWave Dave

#14 Wow, that's really cool Dave! Thanks for taking this on!

Does it give you the option to keep the positive piece of the arch instead of the cutout?

#15 Sweet, when's the next point release, just our of curiosity, or is there no scheduled date??

#16 This will be a nice addition.

#17 Nice work Dave!

#18 Wow Dave nice fracking work ma Ogre friend.

Yup yup when is the next release and where would we know about it? is there a good place to keep an eye on for new releases? just curious is all, those arches made me drool real bad and I had to wipe my keyboards off. /smiles

DT

#19 Greetings!

Jeff:
For the moment there isn't an option to produce a positive arch piece. It's on my list things to do but won't be part of the next release.

Everyone else:
Sorry, I cannot comment on the release schedule. I just keep working until they tell me to stop. :o)

- LightWave Dave

#20 Haha, it is enough to know that you guys are working on it my brothers, and very well done so far, and look forward to the next few updates /smiles you guy are awesome, but you knew that /winks.

DT