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Thread: Castle Keep - WIP

  1. #1
    Community Leader Immolate's Avatar
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    Wip Castle Keep - WIP

    In the process of creating Siete Torres, I learned a great deal about shadows from trial and error. No doubt that shadows can be an enormous pain in a complex, three-dimensional map. Still the effect of realistic, if not-necessarily real, shadows can breath life into a piece like nothing else.

    With that in mind, my ambition is to create a massive stone keep with a magical, fairytale castle inside that takes the shadows to an extreme, and forces me to develop the necessary techniques to make it work.

    I've spent a few days here and there getting to this point. I'm to the point now that every new structure within the castle takes another two or more hours because of the shadows. The problem is that when you have a structure casting shadows on three or more other surfaces, it becomes a bit like solving calculus problems in your head. You really only deal with one structure and one surface at a time, but the detail level can be difficult to keep track of.

    I welcome comments and criticism, although I have a different motive for posting the WIP. The truth is, it's a bit lonely working through a major project without sharing.

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    Community Leader Jaxilon's Avatar
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    Immolate, that is some good looking stuff. I'm not sure what your motive was but since you put it that way I'm thinking this is a test, LOL...like I'm supposed to find the hidden picture.

    Anyway, the only thing I noticed right off was that I see flags in the shadows but nothing in the positions on top of the towers. I suppose it's possible that they are so thin from my birds eye view that I wouldn't see them but since they are so fat in the shadow I'm thinking not. Far as the shadows go the only one that looks a little funny is the upper right tower's. Only reason is because the flag shadow just manages to hit perfectly on the top of the wall which seems almost too coincidental. I'm not likely to sit here and try to do the math so I leave that up to you. Again, I say the whole thing looks wonderful and I look forward to seeing updates.

    I imagine you have to ask yourself if it's worth it to make things that real or not. An extra couple hours for each building's shadows seems like a lot of work. I'm thinking there must be some software out there that already does this for architects and whatnot. Might be better to get a second job with those "shadow hours" and buy it I know, labor of love.
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    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    I didn't try to find any faults in the shadows. To me they look very convincing. It's really well done. They give a good impression of almost a fairy tale-like castle.
    Not too sure about the walls... I very much like the top part, but the sides look like roofs. I know the perspective is completely topdown, but somehow the walls don't seem right to me.
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  4. #4

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    Well the end result looks impressive to me! Shadows are one area I need to work on a bit myself though I don't think I'd have the same ammount of patience.

    I think the walls might not look so right because they are sloped, but the shadows give them a three dimensional effect. I've sorta run into the same issue when doing japanese/l5r castle maps because they are usually on those big sloped foundations and never seem to look quite right no matter what I do.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Larb View Post
    Well the end result looks impressive to me! Shadows are one area I need to work on a bit myself though I don't think I'd have the same ammount of patience.

    I think the walls might not look so right because they are sloped, but the shadows give them a three dimensional effect. I've sorta run into the same issue when doing japanese/l5r castle maps because they are usually on those big sloped foundations and never seem to look quite right no matter what I do.

    Perhaps they are very thick walls? tapering down? I think walls that size would be thicker at the base which would produce that effect from a top down view.

  6. #6
    Community Leader Facebook Connected tilt's Avatar
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    looks really good - one of the first thing I noticed was also the missing flags
    And thats one HUGE building you got there...
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