Modelling vaults in Blender - The Roman Arch

This video is the first of a miniseries  and represents my attempt to streamline the modelling process for some of  the most common type of vaults . Being originated either from the circular, roman  arch or from the typically gothic pointed arch , we'll go through a handful of them . In this  first episode, we will focus on those coming from the classical circular arch . So, without  wasting anymore time, let's get into it. . In it's basic variant we could just get away with  it wit h a half circle and a single extrusion, but what it 's actually interesting about the barrel  vault is the de the decorative coffering structure that usually comes with it. So, I'll do something  different and start with a cube, resize it , select the edges at the four corners and bevel  them to get this kind of eightfold shape. I still . I still want to have a nice square though as the base as it will conform better to what we'll do next, , as such I'll extrude a few vertices to create the  four corners to be then filled with faces. I'll . I'll then inset, extrude, inset and extrude inward  again , add a bit of a bevel to the edges and remove the faces that we won't need . At this point, I'm going to add an array the X axis with "merge" turned on the Z axis still with the "merge" option ticked .  Let's now add a simple deform to the chain set on "bend" and by pushing the angle up we can get back  the semi circular shape we were looking for. . This system is quite flexible as we can use the  array modifiers to dinamically alter the length and width of the vault while everything stays  in place ; still, we can push it a bit further. . I'll duplicate the square at the base of the  mesh and make it a separate object . I'll then remove the edges in excess and bring one of my  custom rosettes into the scene . I'll parent the latter to the newly created square, and enable the  "instance on faces" option