Castle
 

Here's a castle I've been working on. It still has a long way to go. I need a window where the balcony is, some stuff in the windows, something to go on top of the roofs, a better grass texture, a night time back ground, and an orange glow for the castle. I have lights streaming from the front windows right now, but they are only visible when the scene is darker. I'll probably add some plants and a garden somewhere, too as well as an entire foundation underneath the castle itself which will basically be the first floor. I will then make the front gate on this new floor and have a drawbridge possibly going over some water. I have plans for this scene I tell you! PLANS! Expect to see a picture of my mother in here as well. I'm actually doing this for her. Keep in mind also that I totally STINK at textureing things. I am not pleased at all with the textures. The towers look too much like brick, the grass is too bright, and the castle stone unfortuanatly is not a repeating texture. Maya shader library doesn't have the look I want and I don't think you can crop images in paint effects. You see, I'd like to take an image I have, open it up in Paint Effects, crop a specific stone from it, then use it to make a repeating texture. Anyway, this is merely the beggining.

Any suggestions for the flat rooftops? I'm not sure if this is an elegant castle for the king and queen or a war castle holding up the last line of defense.

I almost forgot - the background image is from ZooRender.com under the nture textures section.

One other thing I want to add is a flag or a few of them. If I decide to make this a non-combat castle you can expect to see banners as well. Anyway.....

Great start bud=)

oh its pretty. lets see some animation.

I think your stonewall textures are either srinked too much (For better detail) or just not large enough. It's repeating too much...

Might do a touch-up on them, make some variation or such..

Here's the update. The one thing that bothers me the most now is how the front lights illuminate the water and ground so much. It's an easy fix, though. I also am going to have to spend an unholy amount of time softening up the edges of the cliff where the water draws near. And do ya' see all those little torches on EvErY single one of those towers? I have to light them all, save the few I already have.

DukerX - The front walls of the bottom section have an enlarged version of the stone texture used on the top section. You said it might look a little better if the texture was enlarged. Anyway, what say you?

EDIT* - Uploaded brighter image and re-spelled all the misspelled words.

Jpegs are so blurry...

looks cool, why not enter it in this months' competition?

Alan

Great work,
some of my thoughts though.... medieval architecture
could not suport actual full stone roofs. most of them was
made of wood.(not 100% sure). Anyway most castles probably had open space in the middle...
maybe the wall edges could have corridors and holes for defence ( from where the all prosperous-surrounded-for months-happy-people could try to defend themselves.)
you also need a gate :) (+leave the crocodiles hungry :)) )
The torches up at the roof could not possibly support fire like
this in the open air, considering the strong winds.
I like your two small + one big arches windows but i believe that the wall between arches could be a little thiner and finer.

Keep up the good work.
Konstantinos , Greece

Ps your mother will be the Queen ?? :)
This automatically makes you a prince , doesn't it ? :)))))

Hi,

Maybe adding a keep would add realism ?..:)

Pure_Morning - Believe me, I'd love to, but I don't think it would go over well considering I have the advantage of an extra week and a half of modeling time on my side. I believe the medieval challange info was released on the 5th or 6th. I began modeling this castle just a few days after Christmas. I could always create a new medieval scene, but that would slow the work on this project. Anyway, thanks for the idea.

Konstantinos - Thanks for the suggestions. I do plan to modify the windows, add a gate, and create several other items for the scene. I know I said I would do all this a few posts ago, but mid-terms at school are forcing me to take time out to study, so my time is limited for the moment.

Septentrio - Yep. I have thought about making a keep, but I haven't taken the time to figure out exactly what I want it to look like. I also am not that knowledgable about the placement of such things as keeps and torches, so I'll have to read up on some information or something.

Lately, I have been spending more time learning more about Maya than working on this scene. Because of this, I now know about instance duplicates. Instance duplicates use less memory than true duplicates, but the main difference is how they relate to the original object you duplicated it from. When you modify the original object, all instanced duplicates recieve the modifications as well. This will be useful in this scene because I have so many towers and, as you can see, the top level of the castle is made up of four duplicates of one square-like building. Basically, I plan to backtrack, delete all duplicated things, and instance duplicate them instead. This means that I will have to reposition many, many things. I really wish I had known about this feature earlier, but oh well.

I'm pretty sure that most castle I was dragged round when I was a youngster all had full stone roofs. I can't be 100% sure but I'm pretty sure that they did.

Just my two pence worth

The roof thing intrigues me. First I though there "had to be" a wooden roof, but then I though of the interior stone (apparantly) floors of a palace in italy I once saw. But a flat roof would rise a question of how to shelter the building from the rain.

If you feel the roof is a bit big and empty, I guess castle owners would use this space for extra buildings.

Reminds me of the times I played role-playing-games. Drawing castle plans was great fun.