Posted By: LoopysueSomeone else over on the FB page explained in some detail about how they would want a hole if they were doing a battle map, but black if they were doing a city map, so it looks like I really need both.
This would not surprise me, since the way I arrived at it was somewhat disorganised and a whole lot too messy. Things evolve on the screen as I work, and the early drafts frequently bear the scars of poor decisions made early in the process before I've worked enough of it out to want to go back and put everything right.
The structure is also wrong. That top roof is actually supposed to be a smooth extension of the lower roof a bit like a Dutch gable ended roof. I didn't look at the reference picture for long enough and made a typical westerner's mistake - I separated the roof into two more orderly levels!
This is an extract of the map file. I think it's an excellent example of how not to design a Japanese temple :P
LOL! I know the shading is really horrible right now. Its like the scribble that comes before the drawing :P
I am currently researching Japanese temples. Its a lot more complicated than I thought. There I was thinking that there must be a range of angles for everything, and that this would all be relatively simple to work out, if only I could get my head wrapped around it and concentrate just a bit more... and now I'm learning all these wonderful Japanese words for all the different bits and pieces of all the different kinds of Buddhist temple in the last 1500 years!
I really am incurably distractible.
Did you know that Zen Buddhism came from China? I didn't. I thought it was a classic archetypal Japanese form of the religion. I've also thought that Shinto and Buddhism were sort of synonymous terms for the same group of beliefs (with the same type of temple), and apparently they were till 1886, when there was a big political thing about forcibly separating the two religions.
At this rate, there are going to be so many different types of Japanese temple we're going to need a whole collection to represent them properly.
Was I imagining it, or did you at some point mention something about maybe creating some yourself?
So you are Dan Harlan? I have to confirm it - before I write it down in my little black book - the one that serves as a memory these days! :P
You'll have to forgive me for being perpetually confused when everyone has different names in different places. I never seem to remember them! Sorry!
And sorry also to anyone else I've called 'someone' in the last few weeks
Ha! If "someone" is the worst name you can call me then I'm pretty happy.
Yea, that's me. I used to try and keep all my "gaming" type stuff under this name, and FB was just for friends and family, but now... that's not really practical. I do try to keep the common avatar/logo, but we don't have those here.
I'm just not sure how you set them up. Remy, Quenten and a couple of others have them. I think you have to have your own website or something, so that you can reference the image from here.
Click on your name in any forum post - it will bring up a menu allowing you to edit your profile, including adding a picture. I don't have a website, so just added it via a pic I posted on the forum - alternatively, you could use a link to drop box etc.
There's still a lot of work to be done on the ornamentation - including alterations to the ends of the Dutch gable structure, where they actually curve inwards and downwards even though they are tiled. I have to do all the fantastic carvings mounted on the roof (though I may keep it really quite simple so I don't get stuck on this forever)
I think the shading shows better with more natural colours (less contrast and saturation)
And for anyone interested in how I finally settled on creating the shading for those flying eaves, (and sorry - this is just the size that it is at the moment), here is the actual map file.
Its not yet complete because of those rolled in eaves on the Dutch gable I've yet to manage, but the flying eaves of the lowest level are now as they will be in the final symbol.
is the roof from the ridge line to the lowest edge a flat surface or is there a "bend" at the red line on the building on the left in the copy of your pic???
The entire roof face below that red line is concave. If you look at the map file that is what those gradations from the outer edge towards that line are all about - gradually darker blues (blue being the colour that defines the pitch of the roof).
I think if I modify it again I will possibly start steeper at the outside edge (start with a darker blue) and achieve the final pitch of the straight part of the roof at a lower point on the slope, so that the roof is straighter from a lower point. Doing that will also have the side effect of making the flying eaves at the corners of the building appear to be more exaggerated.
From above (and its really difficult getting decent pictures of Japanese temples from above online) the flying eaves aren't really all that noticeable. The way we think of them being quite marked is caused by the details we see in the architecture of the structures supporting the eaves from underneath. If you look really carefully at the normal side view shots you get of these temples, though, you will see that the curve isn't really all that massive. The corners are probably only about 5 - 10 degrees off horizontal in most cases, which really isn't enough to throw shadows except at sunset and sunrise.
However, our minds believe that the corners are curved upwards, so its necessary to create the appearance we are expecting by grossly exaggerating the curve.
I think this is the final version for this particular symbol. There may be a confusing mish-mash of different religions and age styles, but this is what my mind has made of all the images I've googled of the older, simpler Japanese Buddhist temples.
here's a link to something you might like.
click on the second to the left small image under the big pic and it shows a 3D, spinnable model of a roman villa. https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-max-roman-villa-rustica/607135
This is one of the 'special buildings' in a very large set I'm working on - all the barrel tile buildings (though strictly speaking these temples were tiled with glazed tiles that just happen to look a lot like very tidy and rather shiny barrel tiles.
I'm going to share them in the end. It might be quite a while before I get them all finished though.
That's a really interesting model. Thanks very much for the link!
I just thought I'd join in and say how excellent your work is. Not only is the artwork superb but your WIP posts are really useful to others thinking of embarking on such a project. I hope the Roman style roofs come to a fruition soon as I have a project in mind that they would be perfect for. It would be great to see a way we can all share these things with each other.
It depends a lot on how long it will take me to do the rest of them, and I haven't limited the size of the set just yet. Maybe there will be more than one - a temples set, and then the rest.
Now that I've figured out how to do flying eaves it shouldn't take quite as long to do other buildings to go with this latest one.
Then I can get back to the Roman style maybe.
I also have a slate set in mind...
(And there are days when I wish I didn't want to do so many different things all at the same time! LOL!)
This is a very crude map I made in 5 minutes flat using a further set of 6 new Japanese Temple buildings I made last night.
There's lots wrong with it, but I'm a bit too tired to re-render it with shorter shadows right now.
The shading on the main building is wrong, and they all need the weathering toned down quite a bit, since its interfering with the shading, but here it is
The reason I ask is that I've just drawn a relatively small 15th century church (its modelled on a real one just 5 minutes walk from where I live), and it's already the largest building symbol I've ever made.
The question isn't so much about this one, but the other two that go with it - the priory and the cathedral (modelled on 11th century Christchurch Priory, and the 14th century Salisbury Cathedral - home of the actual Magna Carta). At 40 pixels per foot The symbol for this little church I've just done is nearly 5800 pixels wide. The cathedral will be somewhere in the region of 20,000 pixels wide, since it is 500 feet from end to end.
This is too much, I think (unless someone can tell me otherwise)
And yet... large medieval buildings like this exist in cities all over the world.
How should I tackle this problem? Should I try to modularise a 14th century cathedral and split it into 3 segments (hoping that people will realise they can be used like lego bricks, or should I simply not bother with it?
I'd go modular, Sue. That's pretty much the way these large buildings were constructed, after all. And it would make sense to do things like nave roof-ends and roof middles, so people can make the building as long as needed, plus with, say, a squared-off or rounded end wall shape as well. And a transept piece. Then the various towers/steeples/elaborate entryways/chapter houses/attached outbuildings/etc., etc., can be done as separate features, and you could do an additional series of one-sided roof pieces - again ends and middle segments - for the aisles (which would also allow use of just one aisle, not two, for example, or even double aisles).
Look forward to seeing the gargoyles and flying buttresses add-on pack too ;D
All worth thinking about, even though it adds to the overall complexity of the set. I suppose that I have already made the larger Japanese Buddhist temple with a set of 6 smaller symbols...
The only problem I can foresee with doing it that way is that there is no way of letting users know how to use the different parts, and even more importantly the internal shadows within the building between the different levels aren't going to be at all easy to replicate if you are trying to put the thing together like a lego set.
the other option is to do away with the VH resolution version, so that there is only a HI, LO and VL version. There's a huge difference in size between VH and HI. Off the top of my head I think its a factor of 10, so the HI res version would only be 2000 pixels long (a perfectly acceptable size for what is an extremely large building)
I'm still thinking about it.
This is a city symbol, so I doubt gargoyles would be visible at just 40 pixels per foot - other than as vague blobs. That would be more something for a dungeon scale set
Comments
I'm really not sure if I've got the rather complicated MAP file effects right.
I know this is one of those "Does my bum look big in this?" type of questions where nobody wants to shout "Yes!", but please can you be honest -
Does the shading actually work for you on this symbol?
Maybe this one is better?
Thanks LE
So you are Dan Harlan? I have to confirm it - before I write it down in my little black book - the one that serves as a memory these days! :P
You'll have to forgive me for being perpetually confused when everyone has different names in different places. I never seem to remember them! Sorry!
And sorry also to anyone else I've called 'someone' in the last few weeks
The structure is also wrong. That top roof is actually supposed to be a smooth extension of the lower roof a bit like a Dutch gable ended roof. I didn't look at the reference picture for long enough and made a typical westerner's mistake - I separated the roof into two more orderly levels!
This is an extract of the map file. I think it's an excellent example of how not to design a Japanese temple :P
I am currently researching Japanese temples. Its a lot more complicated than I thought. There I was thinking that there must be a range of angles for everything, and that this would all be relatively simple to work out, if only I could get my head wrapped around it and concentrate just a bit more... and now I'm learning all these wonderful Japanese words for all the different bits and pieces of all the different kinds of Buddhist temple in the last 1500 years!
I really am incurably distractible.
Did you know that Zen Buddhism came from China? I didn't. I thought it was a classic archetypal Japanese form of the religion. I've also thought that Shinto and Buddhism were sort of synonymous terms for the same group of beliefs (with the same type of temple), and apparently they were till 1886, when there was a big political thing about forcibly separating the two religions.
At this rate, there are going to be so many different types of Japanese temple we're going to need a whole collection to represent them properly.
Was I imagining it, or did you at some point mention something about maybe creating some yourself?
Yea, that's me. I used to try and keep all my "gaming" type stuff under this name, and FB was just for friends and family, but now... that's not really practical. I do try to keep the common avatar/logo, but we don't have those here.
You can have avatar images...
I'm just not sure how you set them up. Remy, Quenten and a couple of others have them. I think you have to have your own website or something, so that you can reference the image from here.
There's a whole shedload of ornamentation to got on top of the roof yet.
I think the shading shows better with more natural colours (less contrast and saturation)
Its not yet complete because of those rolled in eaves on the Dutch gable I've yet to manage, but the flying eaves of the lowest level are now as they will be in the final symbol.
The entire roof face below that red line is concave. If you look at the map file that is what those gradations from the outer edge towards that line are all about - gradually darker blues (blue being the colour that defines the pitch of the roof).
I think if I modify it again I will possibly start steeper at the outside edge (start with a darker blue) and achieve the final pitch of the straight part of the roof at a lower point on the slope, so that the roof is straighter from a lower point. Doing that will also have the side effect of making the flying eaves at the corners of the building appear to be more exaggerated.
From above (and its really difficult getting decent pictures of Japanese temples from above online) the flying eaves aren't really all that noticeable. The way we think of them being quite marked is caused by the details we see in the architecture of the structures supporting the eaves from underneath. If you look really carefully at the normal side view shots you get of these temples, though, you will see that the curve isn't really all that massive. The corners are probably only about 5 - 10 degrees off horizontal in most cases, which really isn't enough to throw shadows except at sunset and sunrise.
However, our minds believe that the corners are curved upwards, so its necessary to create the appearance we are expecting by grossly exaggerating the curve.
here's a link to something you might like.
click on the second to the left small image under the big pic and it shows a 3D, spinnable model of a roman villa. https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-max-roman-villa-rustica/607135
This is one of the 'special buildings' in a very large set I'm working on - all the barrel tile buildings (though strictly speaking these temples were tiled with glazed tiles that just happen to look a lot like very tidy and rather shiny barrel tiles.
I'm going to share them in the end. It might be quite a while before I get them all finished though.
That's a really interesting model. Thanks very much for the link!
It depends a lot on how long it will take me to do the rest of them, and I haven't limited the size of the set just yet. Maybe there will be more than one - a temples set, and then the rest.
Now that I've figured out how to do flying eaves it shouldn't take quite as long to do other buildings to go with this latest one.
Then I can get back to the Roman style maybe.
I also have a slate set in mind...
(And there are days when I wish I didn't want to do so many different things all at the same time! LOL!)
There's lots wrong with it, but I'm a bit too tired to re-render it with shorter shadows right now.
The shading on the main building is wrong, and they all need the weathering toned down quite a bit, since its interfering with the shading, but here it is
The reason I ask is that I've just drawn a relatively small 15th century church (its modelled on a real one just 5 minutes walk from where I live), and it's already the largest building symbol I've ever made.
The question isn't so much about this one, but the other two that go with it - the priory and the cathedral (modelled on 11th century Christchurch Priory, and the 14th century Salisbury Cathedral - home of the actual Magna Carta). At 40 pixels per foot The symbol for this little church I've just done is nearly 5800 pixels wide. The cathedral will be somewhere in the region of 20,000 pixels wide, since it is 500 feet from end to end.
This is too much, I think (unless someone can tell me otherwise)
And yet... large medieval buildings like this exist in cities all over the world.
How should I tackle this problem? Should I try to modularise a 14th century cathedral and split it into 3 segments (hoping that people will realise they can be used like lego bricks, or should I simply not bother with it?
Look forward to seeing the gargoyles and flying buttresses add-on pack too ;D
All worth thinking about, even though it adds to the overall complexity of the set. I suppose that I have already made the larger Japanese Buddhist temple with a set of 6 smaller symbols...
The only problem I can foresee with doing it that way is that there is no way of letting users know how to use the different parts, and even more importantly the internal shadows within the building between the different levels aren't going to be at all easy to replicate if you are trying to put the thing together like a lego set.
the other option is to do away with the VH resolution version, so that there is only a HI, LO and VL version. There's a huge difference in size between VH and HI. Off the top of my head I think its a factor of 10, so the HI res version would only be 2000 pixels long (a perfectly acceptable size for what is an extremely large building)
I'm still thinking about it.
This is a city symbol, so I doubt gargoyles would be visible at just 40 pixels per foot - other than as vague blobs. That would be more something for a dungeon scale set