castle learning project

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Ok I decided to go back to square one, I’ve been jumping all over the place with no real progress in the modeling department. I’ve decided a small castle woud be best for this learning exercise. The goals are to learn / improve interface / modeling / texturing skills initially, with rendering (ie lighting, composition etc) coming later.

Thirlwall Castle is a ruin in Northumberland, with little data to go with it. Web search provided a minimal plan and two nice cutaway views that suggest a possible build configuration. I did a bit a research and swagged on the plan, recreating 4 floor levels and a set of elevations in autocad lt to use as background images to help with the modeling.

Mesh needs quite a bit of cleanup atm, suggestions are welcome.

BP

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Little more progress, changed out entry / doorway to arched recess and opening. Semi figured out how to punch in windows. Still some errors I haven’t figured out atm. Watched a tutorial on simple lighting. Hope the renders are a tad better at least.

I have a slightly, but only slightly better handle on the interface, whew the learning curve is pretty steep :eyebrowlift:. In any case I’m pleased at the progress even if it is only baby steps. There are still some issues with the mesh that I need to figure out and resolve.

I’d like to use this thread as my help area also, so if you have suggestions, good links etc feel free to post em up and I’ll take a look at them. Here’s a couple of more screen shots

Thanks for looking

Brokenpixel

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I’m at the point where I am lost, well more lost :eyebrowlift2: I could use some help on where to go from here, I’ve got the model in fair shape, a couple of issues I’ve not worked out, as the vertical line between the tower and entry door and some normals which I can’t figure out. As this is my first real attempt at putting something together I’m sure the meshes leave alot to be desired. Here are a couple current screen shots of the build as it stands.

So where do I go from here? Help me out with the next steps I need to learn / or improve on, if I’ve got something that’s really screwed up please let me know.