Foundations of Knossos

Artwork Works in Progress
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Ground Plan Knossos.jpg1632×1825 1.42 MB

This drawing is the foundation of Knossos as documented by J.D.S. Pendlebury and reprinted in John C. McEnroe’s Architecture of Minoan Crete: Constructing Identity in the Aegean Bronze Age. In the model attached I have not included the stairs as it was not always clear to me which end is up. Some can be guessed from their relation to walls, others can be determined from photos of Arthur Evans’ reconstructions, but still others escape me.

The X, Y plane is to scale. The foundations have arbitrarily been given a height of three meters, What appear to be pedestal walls have been given a height of 70cm though some may actually be lower and others full wall height. At present this project is at an indefinite hiatus while I continue research and try and see if I can get to Crete.

I should mention that the Minoan’s appreciation of and tools for achieving the orthogonal seems to have evolved over time. However some the “irregularities” in the model may represent errors and limits in Pendlebury’s work. Again, at this time I just don’t know.

In any case I thought this might be of use to those interested in Minoan architecture–it’s kind’a ancient.

Glandalf the Elder

Attachments

Palace Of Knossos.blend (1.56 MB)

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I should add that fenestration is unknown and like so much else about Knossos is open to interpretation.

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I’ve created 3 materials. Each has three parameters, Texture, Hue and Saturation. The parameters are normalized over the range of 0 to 1. Within those constraints every combination of values will produce passable limestone. My next step is to learn python and write a script that will build an ashlar wall automatically generating variations on one or more of the materials for each block. I will look at some degreed of automation of bump maps for the blocks, or walls as a whole, as well. Obviously I have a lot to learn.

Glandalf the clueless

Edit:
Edit:

I’m at the start of the process of learning Blender, Python, and parts of the bpy API so conceptions change as perspective widens. I need to make a lot of ashlar walls for a model of Knossos. I want the walls to posses a variable (not dynamic) resolution property that could be set according to the needs of each shot, or set up. Because of the necessary pedagogic aspect of the project it seems reasonable to start with live procedural materials applied by block, as this would be the starting place for deriving lower resolutions, and bump and spec maps.

1 Using triangular random distribution to generate parameter values inputs, generate the procedural stone material.

2 Build wall of stone blocks

3 Render and save image at specified resolution.

4 If the material has a low noise setting engage it and apply again to the plane and render as bit map else use render from 3

5 Call ImageMagick to perform embossing on image from 3 ( allow for optional user inputs) to create a color bump map.

6 Call ImageMagick to perform brightness and gamma or contrast correction on the bump map from 5 ( allow for optional user inputs).

7 Call ImageMagick to convert bump map to black and white (allow for optional user inputs).
8 Select pre-existing UV-unwrapped block with proportions and resolution that most closely match those of the requested new block.

9 Duplicate selected block and uv-mappings.

10 Apply image and bump maps to 9.

EDIT:

Added step 2. (hae no idea where it went)

Attachments

LimestoneLibrary.blend (1.09 MB)