Modular Castle - My first big project

Naryanna · February 20, 2007, 11:38:16 AM

Hi all!

First I would like to say that this community is adorable and site wonderful. So I

you all!

Now to the subject:

I am planning (well, actualy I started yesterday) to do a modular castle set. I am perfectly avare that one such set already exist but as much I love it it sadly doesnt meet my needs enteirly.

What I am planning to do:
First a basic pack that would consist of different main (castle) building parts. Those parts should be appropriate to mix them as one would feel suited. Then there would came add-ons like walls, towers and gates in one part, modular cementary with chapel that would fit this castle in second pac, guards and servants housings in third, stables and such things in forth pack. Then I would also like to do some beautification stuff for it. Plus I was thinking about some channels (those that would sourounding "castle grounds" and fit with it) for the last part... but at this point I think that that would be a bit hard for me since I have still much to learn, but when I will get to that part I would maybe cope to do it also.

I was thinking about this for some time now and have a blury picture in mind how would all look like when finished. I believe that I did learn enaugh of batting stuff for this and what I dont know I can learn as I go. I still need to figure out iLive Reader but ok... I guess I can do that to...

So why the heck I decided to open this thread here also? Simply because more minds know more. I will show you all my progress here and I am hoping that someone will be willing to help me with advices if I get stuck or run into problems. I would very much appreciate any advice that any of you lovely and great and nice people can give me - may it be batting one or texturing one or what "features" I should include or giving opinions on what I wil show.

The progress:
First I had some problems with testing how to do stuff that woud connect to each other. On coneccting them some ugly lines showed up but now I understand what LODs are all about and the lines are gone.

For now I have only one wall of first part of main building done and it looks something like this:

This is just a start (as miserable as may be). Anyhow this building would be 2x2 per size. When finished I will add other parts to connect with it. But I am thinking... is 2 tiles enaugh wide or it should be 3? Lenght is not a problem simply because there will be other parts to add.

Anyhow, advice of anykind will be much appreciated. Thank you very much.
Sincerly yours

PS. Forgive my spelling please...

oldrogue · February 20, 2007, 12:20:45 PM

Great Idea....I have the other modular castle set and like you I love it....however it's always great to have options.....will look forward to seeing what you come up with....by the way....I would think tiles is enough.

kwakelaar · February 20, 2007, 03:58:13 PM

Hi Naryanna and great to see that you have started a thread here.
It should not surprise you that a thread about batting castles is very interesting to me.

It is quite a project you are beginning, but hopefully you will enjoy making it.

I must say that your work so far is looking a bit like a childs toycastle and not so much as the real thing. That might be just the thing you want to achive and then you are going in the right direction.
Otherwise you might consider finding some images from different castles that you like and see if you can combine different elements from them. Take a closer look at how window and doors are made, the gabels and colums and all the other elements that make up any particular castle.

Anyway best of luck with your project.

Fledder200 · February 20, 2007, 04:48:43 PM

wow great NARYA!!

if you want more info about castles i can help you..i live i one...well..it's a one bedroom apartment...but its my castle LOL

but i can send you some cool photos about castles if you want!! we have plenty here in Holandia

Love ya -x- Fledder

Naryanna · February 20, 2007, 06:18:36 PM

Hi again!

oldrouge: Hi! Thank you on advice and support.

kwakelaar: Hi! Thank you very much. Yes, it is a big project but I promisse I will definetly enjoy because I find batting acctualy relaxing and ejoy doing it (even if sometimes something doesnt work as planned).

Well, actualy I dont want to achive childish look. I dont know when I choosed the wrong path, it just happened but luckly I am at very beginning of this project and so its not such terrible thing. I acctualy did browse web a bit and found some interesting parts that I will most definetly try to implement into this project but well, there is never enaugh resources. Thank you for speking your mind and advicing me. It is most apreciated.

When I looked at picture that I posted in opening post I already known that I started this wrong way but at that time I simply decided to finish this thingy (1 or 2 days until is done) and have it as some-kind of manor or villa. Then or even before that (maybe tomorow) I will simply start this project all over again and make extra care that I dont follow wrong path again.

Fledder200: Hi sweety! Thank you very much. Any help with pics of castles would be more than helpfull and I would appreciate it very much. =) Love ya back.

huggies

What I have now:

As said before I will most definetly have to start all over again but I find this bat kinda interesting and maybe usefull so I will add 2 more buildings to it and make somekind manor (hm, is this the right word? I always get confused with this one). But please tell me what you think about this (should I finish it or just throw it into -junk drawer-).

So here is a preview pic from bat:

BTW. Side walls have no windows and such because when plopped with other two parts they acctualy wont be visible (but I am sure you know that already).

cameron1991 · February 20, 2007, 06:50:29 PM

Wow great work! I cant wait for this set to come out, I would really like to see more castles in the game!

mattb325 · February 20, 2007, 08:13:40 PM

Naryanna, this is an ambitious project indeed

For this model, there are some things I would check:

1) The roof tiles on the front of the building are not the same size as the back of the building; the roof tiles are also different sizes on each of the gable projections. The tiles should appear to be the same size regardless of where they are: this can be changed by expirimenting with X Y parameters in the BAT

2) The noticeable tiling (by that I mean repeating of pattern) of the textures on the side wall and roof. You can see it most clearly on the side wall, but it is also visible on the roof.

3) Also, the roof line is lacking Barge boards and fascia boards (these are wooden trims that stop the bottom and side rows of tiles from slipping off the roof as well as enabling the guttering to be fixed to the house)

But, that said, your models are really unique and I look forward to seeing what you do here

Naryanna · February 20, 2007, 10:06:59 PM

Hi again!

cameron1991: Thank you very much.

Well it will most definetly need some time until this thingy will come out since I just began, I need to learn a great deal still, I want to make it as good as I can (that will be interesting for me as I actualy dont know to what level I can go

) and well... then testing shall be required. But I can promise you this: It shall most definetly come out. Tnx for support! PS: I actualy have one castle done (6x6 tiles) but I need to do some modifying of the bat and I hate textures... Probably I will release it much sooner as this.

mattb325: Hi! It is ambitius (maybe a bit to much since till now I have done only 2 bats

) but well... I am so much inspired by the work of BSC and other teams that well... hopefully I am grown to task.

1.) I agree about roof tiles size and will most definetly repair that before I render this little baby of mine.

2.) Agree on this part also. I believe that I will also have to play in photoshop a bit to modify the textures.

3.) Hm, this is something that I acctualy didnt thought about. Thank you for bringing my attention to it since adding this should significaly enchant the model. Now I need to do a little research on net to see how should acctualy look since, let us be honets, I have no idea (should look at roofs a bit more).

Well, thank you very much for advices and bringing my attention to thingies that I forgot to think about. It means A LOT and I am very grateful.

About progress:
So, I was playing around with lightning till now, discovered some new things etc. but after 14 hours of work on this baby I believe I need some rest before I continue since my concetration level did decreased significaly. I will update this thread with pic of progress some hours from now (lets say about 10 or so

) so... until then!

Speaking to myself:
Tiny voice in the head to Narya: "I told you that it would be smart to open thread here..."
Narya to Tiny voice in the head: "Yes, you did..."
Tiny voice in the head to Narya: "Yesy-yes... where better place that there where the brilliant creators of the best custom contents dwells... and not to forget the adorable community and kind individuals..."
Narya to Tiny voice in the head: "Totaly agree with you on that! And as much I would love to chatt about superb creation of superb teams... I need sleep..."
Tiny voice in the head to Narya: "We shall continue this talk later... Nighty-night!"
Narya to Tiny voice in the head: "Most definetly. Later. Night."

bat · February 21, 2007, 07:43:41 AM

Great textures! Wonderful building! Fantastic work!

Naryanna · February 21, 2007, 12:53:11 PM

Hello again!

bat: Thank you very much!

About progress:

Well, I had a long sleep but... I have done some modifications to bat or I should say details. I tryed another set of textures and frankly I have hard time deciding what looks better: the one that can be seen on yesterday pic or the one on todays. So I would very much appreciate opinions on that subject.

As seen on a pic, I did manage to make the size of roof tiles more or less the same but I still have problem with tilling.

Anyhow, this is how the bat looks at this very moment and well... please help me with deciding about textures and offcourse any other advice or comment is more than welcome and appreciated.

Thanks for support!

jacqulina · February 21, 2007, 02:04:02 PM

hi sweety,wow this is beautifull work you are doing i love the details,very nicely done

Fledder200 · February 21, 2007, 02:38:37 PM

voices in your head are oke....but if you answer them....that is an other story
anyhoo i love the building! ( looks like my country house LOL)
anyhoo i'll digg in my random pic's to see if i can find any castles do you wanna have medival or renacance castles or fairytail casles? i have them all!!

Naryanna · February 21, 2007, 03:52:10 PM

jacqulina: Hiya sweety! Glad to see you stop by. Thank you very much!

Fledder200: Hahaha, well if I dont answer them then they dont stop talking

. Haha, country house... well, when all pices shall be together maybe this one will be county castle. But I am glad that you like it. Thank you soooo much! Actualy I would very much need them all, so whatever you find it will be superb. Tnx, dear.

About progress: At this point I am retexturing (again) and I did one minor modification. The pic will be posted when I will have a preview...

Thank you for suport!

Fledder200 · February 21, 2007, 03:58:30 PM

your welcome babe!

do you want the pics here? or do you want me to send them to you by e-mail, pm or post pigion?

Naryanna · February 21, 2007, 05:16:26 PM

Fledder200: You are 2 sweet. Well, depends when you want to send it. If tomorrow evening then we can do it over msn but you can also send it to NaryaProduction@hotmail.com . That is e-mail that I have for just everything that has something to do with batting/loting. Pigion would be also nice.

About progress:

So, I retextured the whole thing and this is how it looks at this moment:

So now I am planning to add some night-lights to it if you have no suggestions for future improvements.

Just in case I will say this: This building is not meant to stand by its own since will have its ad-on-buildings that will attach to it (in same maner as walls and such). I am planning to ad 1x2 and 2x2 expansions to it that will consist only of windows so that it will be posible to make it as long as one would wish. Also other parts like corner and such will be done.

Any comment (positive OR negative) and any sugestions are more than welcome. Thank you and see you around.

dioangel · February 21, 2007, 06:45:56 PM

I love anything from the midevial times... an what I'm seeing now your projects. HOLLY COW I LOVE IT!!!!

Naryanna · February 21, 2007, 06:54:18 PM

Thank you very much dioangel.

About progress:

Well, I started to play with night lights a bit and this is what I got:

Can somebody tell me if the lights assigned in bat are acctualy visible in game if I assign this building as a prop? Thank you very much.

bat · February 22, 2007, 06:38:52 AM

Fantastic nightlightning! Great job!

kwakelaar · February 22, 2007, 07:35:31 AM

This is a bat very much with its own charm and I would give you the prize for originality.

Like Mattb said about your textures tiling and difference in size of rooftiles, is something to look into.
The barge boards etc will look better if you find a wood texture and add the colour you would like to it and then use that as a texture for you wooden parts, rather than using a solid color like you have done now.

Nightlights will show up even if you make this into a prop, you will have to change the lights setting in the PluginManager, I think you can get a problem with the nightlights if your building is overhanging the lot.

Naryanna · February 22, 2007, 08:09:32 AM

bat: Thank you very much.

kwakelaar:

Hi! Thank you very much.

I was playing around with textures tilling and size or rooftiles and I am slovely getting there.
I absolutly agree with you on barge boards. I am searching the web for appropriate wood texture and did try it with what I already have but those didnt fit so I used black solid thingy just for preview. Hm, I actually didnt thought about adding the colour to texture. Thanks for pointing that out! =)

Tnx for telling! Actualy is overhanging the lot (or should I say will overhang). I think I will try to export this model and put on the lot just for testing what will happend with lights. Hopefuly there will be no problems but if they will... huh... then I will probably have to do it without the night-lights and rather make some additional props that will be lighted to put them on the lot with building.

Thank you all for stoping by, advicing and encouraging me. =) Pics about progress shall be posted later today.