im noodling around with geometry scripting in unreal. did you know that the shape of cathedrals can be described with math? all the arches are literally just circles!
so i made some tests
this first image is an entire big hall (or nave), but i think the proportions are a little off (too wide), seen from the player's eyes
that was too big and looked ugly, so then i made a hallway, with faked bounce lighting, also seen from player's eyes. windows seem too short.
some details below the thingy
how it works:
i have a box. it has size—all i care about is width (*w) and height (h). i add a cylinder of a radius (r), oriented to the depth of the box. r = w. then the center of the cylinder is placed at x: 1/2 w, y: h. this puts it at the top of the edge of the box. then i take a second cylinder, and put it on the opposite side. an intersection boolean creates the iconic vaulted arch!
next up to add to my generator:
- pillars
- proper vaulting (its unidirectional instead of bidirectional)
- actual windows (currently it's just the hallway scaled down and rotated)
- ribbing?
- flying buttresses
- stained glass/rose window generator
- roof generator
going forward, instead of starting with a box and shaping everything like that, i think i will start with pillars, and then make the vaulted arches from there. this should offer me greater flexibility with regards to where walls and windows appear. having the bidirectional vaulting will also make it look correct, which means i'll get to play around with lighting some more. my end goal is to have multiple generators, and then combine the generators together to create a single parametrically generated structure. a cathedral is nice, but what about a gothic stone shop with only 1 floor?
i might also recreate this stuff in blender via geometry nodes