Unofficial Fanart Challenge #2

[LigH]

Lordbug - the ladder stairs may be a bit too thin for heavy Krans. But apart from that, a credible approach.

[Lordbug]

Belark: didn\'t really thought in that, thanks for the suggestion.
LigH: good point, I\'ll change it

[Under the moon]

Rast: That is an awesome design, and looks cool. However, the \'thorns\' on the outside are rather pointless (no pun intended). In constructing a tower meant to look out for rabid foes, and repulse attackers, one does not stop to make things pretty. Also, those thorns give attackers good cover before a final assault. Not only that, but they obstruct a good portion of the watcher\'s view.

It would be an excellent site for Kran ceremonies and rites, but not a good watchtower.

[apis]

OK, my first try at blender

325 viticies and 504 faces.

The roof and platform are timber on log supports, these both reast on stone pillers with a log supplying a centre stay.

There is no ladder yet. The access might be a series of pegs driven into the centre stay in a helix with some of the centre of the floor removed.
Or I might carve steeps into one of the small stone pillers.

The whole thing is one object, how do I split it up to texture it with diffrent textures?
V0.01:







Looking foreward to some input on what can be improved.

Edit: Taller (hint taken) and with space for two rooms below:
v0.03

v0.09 - 22/03 (now with most textures, 720+ faces)

[Rolf Blacksmith]

Hmm, in my opinion the tower is a bit too flat to serve as a watchtower, it\'s more of a platform. If I imagine some trees standing around it, I think they would obstruct the guard\'s line of sight. So, in my eyes, it should be somewhat taller.

[Induane]

To seperate stuff, just highlight all the vertexes you want as a seperate object and hit \"P\" - and select seperate.

Also I agree -should be taller.  Good work though - keep it up


P.S.  AF - I will edit my post with the other data once its fully textured, etc... I just wanted to hear any criticism of the design before I kept going foreward. Thanks for the heads up though as I\'ve a tendacy to forget such things

Edit:  Yup Gentar! Imageafter totally rocks I go there for material bases all the time.

[Gentar]

It seems to me that there is a general fear of doing textures among the 3d guys. If you know how create the UV then you should be ok when it comes to a structure built of stone, rusty metal, and perhaps some wood you simply need to find some good images that cover these materials. This will at least cover the basic structual look and after you have that done, use your blending options with various brushes to add some highlights and shadows. And feel free to add detail where necessary. There are obviously more things you can do than this, but this will give you a nice image for this contest.

Here is a site with very large texture images, you can drop down the tabs and they have categories such as stone and metal, where you can find 1024x768 swatches of rusty metal, or a rock face, or perhaps the surface of a wooden table wher its wooden planks can be used for your floor boards or siding:   http://imageafter.com

[ArcaneFalcon]

Deadline: Saturday April 15th, 2359 GMT

Just a few days left.  Now\'s the time the for the procrastinators to start, and the more responsible people to throw on the finishing touches.  I look forward to seeing the results.

:emerald:

[Frank]

ahh cool i thought it was the 10th though i hope my mom has a scaner cus thats where im going to be at for the weekend.


I was going to finsih my pic nevertheless just it would have took about 3 years cus im so lazy lol  

[Gentar]

This once proud structure lies high upon a hill overlooking some of the vast plains of Yliakum. Although its condition is somewhat decrepid the whole of the structure is still intact, reflecting the skilled craftsmanship and sturdy construction of the stone laden Kran style of architecture. In days of old the tower not only watched over the homeland but also served as a first line of defense against raids, as well as a haven for weary venturers. The tower contains a main hall where there is space for eating and sleeping. A stone stair case takes the inhabitant first to the bottom lookout. Not only does this addition add extra space, but it also serves as a lower vantage point for closer ranged defense.  The staircase continues around the four sides of the towers wall to a second room where supplies, food and arms are stored. They are stored in this level in case the main hall is breached and the defenders must lock themselves into the high levels of the tower withgout losing resources from below.  Continuing further up the staircase brings the inhabitant to the main lookout which obviously allows for the greatest line of sight. A deck protrudes outward which allows unhindered vision from the otherwise limiting conical roof. On top of the main lookout lies a large iron vat with an elevated cover. This vat is always filled with a decent amount of oil and is lit by means of a long pole torch in the case of a raid. The flames and smoke serve as a beacon to the other towers, which will continue the signal fires to where they are visible to towns and cities in order to warn them of an attack.

[Wired_Crawler]

Wow! Gentar, You do can draw, and Your drawing for sure would be a good reference to make 3d model ( I\'m not sure if 1000 triangles would be enough for it though ).

***

I feel like a student again, I finish my work in last moments (well it is not finished really, but I\'ll not manage to make it in time). Here you are. The Kran tower built using natural rock formations, simple, cheap costruction, but it served its purposes well. In case of danger the stairs coud be blocked by stone covers (they were broken and lost long time ago = no more spare triangles ). Big gong installed at the top was heard many miles away, when mighty Kran was hiting it with hammer after spotting approaching enemies.

The messy mesh (998 triangles, as counter shows):


Image rendered in blender:


It looks better in walkest...


and even better, when there is terrain around


Textures (bluish watermark added, can you read it ?)
(EDIT: the watermark is BAD, don\'t read it, use textures at the bottom of the post if you are interested)

Base texture
Details
More details
Gong
Misc.

I still have unused 256x512 tile, and no time to fill it.

Refrence images (besides official concept art mentioned in contest description, which was used for general shapes and carved symbols):
Stone which I like, from Myst 5 screenshot (I like those small holes in smooth surface, don\'t know why)
Modern watchtower , airport in Norimberg
***
For those, who want to see more (there is bonus small, blue decorative element ):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
***

And now it is time for

[SIZE=big]HAPPY EASTER![/SIZE]

EDIT: I did a very stupid typo in watermark on textures , so here is corrected version

Base texture
Details
More details
Gong
Misc.

[peeg]

/me knocks down Wired_Crawler with a huge stone. \"If you don\'t join the Dev-Team ... erm... i gonna force you!\"

Execellent work!

[apis]

/me sorts out some stuff to post as an entry...
here are some screenshots from within PS..
http://blueether.net/twh/tiki-browse_gallery.php?galleryId=2
I did these in PS as walktest would segfault as would psclient when connecting to a local server...

The wood and stone of the structure are looking very weathered, and the iron sides of the towers manning hut are starting to show a lot of rust, the door an the east side no longer looks as if it will open. The roof lining is very tattered and is about to fall out and be blown away on the winds of time.

The tower was built when Hydlaa was first settled, and had very little defenses. The towers main aim was to raise the alarm if anything was coming on a marauding path towards the town. The tower still has a commanding view back towards the modern town for anyone brave enough to trust the weathered woodwork.

Wireframe:


Blender render:


Plansshift renders:


Textures:
Dry wood http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/tex_drywood_1024x256.png
Platform http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/tex_platform512x256.png
Slate roof http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/slate.jpg
Iron cladding http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/tex_iron_512x512.png
Small stones http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/stone07.jpg
Big stones http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/stone512x128.png
(edit - missed one)
Roof under side http://blueether.net/twh/ps-imgs/tower/bark01.jpg
(256x128 over, but there is 512x256 waisted in the Iron cladding, as it was my first texture in blender and I didn\'t know much:) )

Blender file http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/tower14_only.blend

edit fixed the
\'s that the BB inserted and made the gallery public

[LigH]

Originally posted by apis
http://blueether.net/twh/tiki-browse_gallery.php?galleryId=2

Permission denied you can not view this section
__

And check your image URLs too:

http://blueether.net/TWH/ps-imgs/tower/tex_iron_512x512.png%3Cbr%20/%3E

There is a \"
\" inside your URL tags...
__

And in your signature, you are called \"Aips\"!

[Arangol]

Omg very good work Wired_crawler and Apis!

Permission denied you can not view this section -  i can\'t see it either