fort modelling

[torii]

hey, im looking for a little help or advice on a project of mine. ive been trying to make a model of the knock john fort in blender (knock john and its history is pretty neat in my opinion, hence the model) but im not having much luck with the basic design of it. im still pretty new to blender but have a little experience, so any help/ideas on a good way to go about it would be much appreciated (:

hopefully the attached picture of the fort works too so anyone can get an idea of what im trying to do.

[Guss (Rico)]

Modelling this is pretty basic (But you are gonna need more reference pics, like from the top and side), the real challenge would be the texturing and lighting (i think).

I’m assuming that you have not much experience in modelling, so with that in mind, here are some tips:

1. Work systematically - that means, don’t dive into extremely complex modelling straight away, first do the basic stuff, (two cylinders for the pillars, and some flattened cubes and planes for the platform on top…) this is just to get the basic design and proportions right. Later you can start adding the detail.

2. Don’t worry about textures before modelling is done.

3. Don’t worry about lighting before texturing is done.

4. save the water until last, to avoid to many verts.

:)

[Modron]

when youre finished with the rest of the scene, you can use the new ocean simulator for the water.

[Guss (Rico)]

Just what I was thinking…

I modelled a whole quick example of the fort, but I can’t get the **** uploaded!! Any Idea why?

Anyway, a good place to find textures is over at CGTextures, but you have to register (Its free).

[ridix]

Here is best flat image I found so far of Knock. Put it in Blender background as a reference. Build basic shapes from this; it is made up of cylinder and rectangles. Scale each shape to proportion. For some of the shapes I used Mirror modifier. They are mostly symmetrical you know. From there you can start to detail each parts. Here I started to add main Girder beams under the fort. I copied texture from background photo and made the texture for the two pillars.

[torii]

thank you all for the replies, (: i did find some more pictures of different views and have got the basic design made (just like basic shapes, cylinders, flattened rectangles etc.) but have more questions, on the pictures (which hopefully should be attached to this post) theres a few side walls around the edging, how would i get this on my model aswell as the 2 overhand pieces on each side, not too sure on how to get them.
thanks to ridix aswell for the pictures, but i do have a couple of questions, how did you get a picture as a background reference and copying the textures off the picture, although im not ready for texturing yet. also what would be next after where im up to at the moment?
here should be the two pictures i mentioned above:

[Guss (Rico)]

would be interesting to see where this goes, (maybe someone can make a short movie of this )

@ ridix
looks pretty cool! Maybe you can put it on Blendwap (if you decide to take it any further than this)…

[ridix]

Here is good tutorial on displaying background reference image in 3D view port.

As for over hang platform, I did the quick volume shape as follows:

Since this structure appears to be symmetrical, I used Mirror modifier to begin with. That will cut down on modeling. Rectangular building shape was scaled [S] from cube. It was Subdivide once and three quarters of it erased and with Mirror modifier added, building was revisualized. Loop Cuts [Ctrl] [R] were made as shown and two faces selected for extrusion. They were both extruded once. The central face was extruded one more time, and outer edges translated in X, to form the platform.