Attached Link: Ishtar Gate Archway - How to model?

I am building a model of the Babylonian "Ishtar Gate", and the top portion of the gate has an archway (see picture). I am not sure the best way to build a model of that part that I can then apply this texture map to, and have the cut-out gateway line up just right with the texture map. My initial thought was to make a transparency map based on the texture map, and apply both to a solid rectangular block, using mapping on the face of a surface. This did not seem to work in Carrara (Texture looked okay, but there was no "cutout"). Any ideas?

The transparency thing should work. You need to work with the Alpha channel for the negative spaces & not a grayscale image. Try "invert image" in the shader control for mapping style. Another you could do is make the model for the arch in the spline modeler. Best way to do that is start with Illustrater (or Similar vector drawing app) and imoprt image as a template. Then draw your bezier curves, outlines & shapes for negative areas. Trash the image & save as eps. Go to CAR spline modeler & then "import eps file" to cross section. Select negative spaces and outline & "combine as compound" and you will end up with the archway with holes in it to the correct proportions for the map Except in the depth. Just reduce the depth scale Or change it in the spline modeler extrusion length plane.

Forgot to add, not sure how this particular map would work on a modeled arch. You could build it in 2 sections, one for brick & one for the golden colored areaand the use shaders on it. Also, did you check the little box to make "white areas invisible" on your map?

This is how I'd do it: Create a path that matches the texture map arch shape > use the path to make a spline object > in the shaders, convert the shader kind to 'layer list' and select the correct face to apply the texture to, ie. 'face 1' or 'face 0' (This way you won't have to draw or size a rectangle. When a 'face' is selected, it won't try to map to any other side). It eliminates the need to mess around with transparencies which will only 'open' box shape and do not go through it. Willf suggests multiple shader maps. I wouldn't create different 'color' maps to apply but would rather create a 'highlight', 'bump', and 'shininess' map based upon the color map that you already have. That way you can use just a single, rich shader. Mark

Here's an example of an arched gate in obj format: http://www.iaw.on.ca/~jspirko/models.htm It's the last item on the page. I suppose you could take that, model it around to what you want, then use UV-Mapper to get a texture map template for it.

Since I don't know how to post a picture within a message, check out the new message, 'Ishtar Gate' for an easy fix. Mark