Section 2 - Creating Sloped Surfaces

Select “Dome Room” using the SELECT ROOM button to take a look at the domed ceiling you are going to make. Turn off the FACE EDIT button (if it is on) for a better view. Go to “Dome Room X” (the copy you made of “First Room X”). Notice how the ceiling is stepped like a terraced pyramid. You can easily transform this inverted ziggurat into a smooth dome by following these steps:

1. From the PLAN VIEW grid, select all of the blue squares of your room.

2. Under FEATURES in the Drop Down Menu, select “Average Ceiling” (or you can press F8). Your ceiling should now be flat and at an elevation of 13. (Check the ROOM INFO BOX for this information).

3. Select the entire ceiling and lower it to a height of 12 clicks.

4. In PLAN VIEW, select the center 2x2 blue squares.

5. HOLD DOWN THE “CONTROL” KEY on your keyboard and press the CEILING + button 1 time.

6. Select the inner 4x4 blue squares. Hold down the Control key and raise the ceiling by 2 clicks.

7. Select the inner 6x6 blue squares. Hold down the Control key and raise the ceiling by 3 clicks. Your room should be 18 clicks tall now and have a smooth domed ceiling.

8. Take out the “Wall” columns by clicking on the green wall squares in the Plan View grid then clicking on the light blue “Floor” button of the Plan View buttons. Lower what remains of the wall columns to the floor elevation.

9. With FACE EDIT on view your dome with textures. Don’t be alarmed by the missing textures. If a surface of a square is “broken” up after a square has already been textured, the texture remains on only one triangle of the surface.

10. Check the demo model for lighting effects and place lights in your newly formed dome room. Remember, you can copy and paste the lights if you are in a big hurry!

Finessing the Dome

Time to fix those ceiling triangles and put your newly learned skills to use. First, rotate the room so that you are looking up at the ceiling. The dome ceiling has a fairly convincing roundness, but the “corners” could use some refinement. A few of the ceiling’s corner triangular surfaces are flat (parallel to the floor) and need adjusting in order to smooth out the corners. To make sure you know which triangular ceiling surfaces need adjusting, look at the Illustration below:



The left side of the illustration shows the model before modification. The right side of the illustration shows what your domed ceiling should look after you have modified the triangles. Hold down the control key to get your arrow pointing at the downward corner, then hold down the Control key and use the CEILING – button to lower each of the purple triangles down by one click. (Don’t forget to turn off FACE EDIT)

Finessing the Textures

Once you have smoothed out the corners of the ceiling, turn on your textures again. Some of the triangular surfaces are missing textures. Use what you learned in the Skill Building section to place textures on these triangles. Remember that sometimes it is necessary to rotate the texture several times to get the right orientation, and if the texture just isn’t matching up, double check to make sure you selected the triangle you meant to select from the TEXTURE PANEL…it is easy to grab the wrong one! It can get tricky sometimes, but as with anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets!