This is my new project I have started working on, to improve my general blender skills. I think the next step for this model is to add the cloth covering the frame and also the poles holding up the top circle. Not sure if best to use cloth sim or to sculpt the canvas. Any ideas, suggestions and critiques welcomed! The door is just a placeholder at the moment. I will model that at a later date.
###Update on Current Progress##
Reading a book about Genghis (Chingis) Khan at the moment. Wonder where this is going…
It was the Conn Iggulden ‘CONQUEROR’ series that gave me the inspiration 
What book are you reading?
What I want to do is create a scene based on a mongolian steppe, mountains in the background, and this lone yert smoke rising from the chimney on a winters morning/evening. I have long way to go, but will get there eventually.
nice start
Genghis Khan, life, death and resurrection. By John Man. I think I actually have a “conqueror” book about the Mongols as well, someone gave it to me when I mentioned Genghis (actually pronounced "Chingis (tsjingkis)). Told me it was about Khubilai Khan, Genghis’s grandson and founder of the Yuan dynasty. And that he was a great Khan like Genghis as well.
@ibkanatUnfortunatly I haven’t had too much time to work on this, but here is a small update.
@ibkanat Thanks 
Im making very slow progress, but hopefuly have more time to work on it this week.
@thelowlander The first book in the “conqueror” series is about Genghis Khan when he is still a child named Temujin. I have only read the first two books in the series at the moment, but it is progressing through his life, so Khubilai Khan might be in one of the later books 
None of the textures are final. But this is the under felt layer of the Ger, but still needs some tidying. It also still needs a door, waterproof outer cover, interior and a scene. So still some way to go!
I will say that in my limited knowledge of Mongolian…anything, it looks good as a tent. My only critique is a small one, involving the wire/rope that appears to be holding onto the tent walls, it looks too far away from the cloth. Not something to worry about though.
Can I ask how these tent walls are made? did you just use planes or sim cloth? I have not worked wh the simulations in blender yet, and am curious to its applicaions.
Here is what I was working on now. I need to convert it to work in cycles. Though this one is a Kazakh ger in Mongolia. 
@ ▌☼▐ I also noticed that but it was just a quick fix for it intersecting with the cloth. It wont be visible once complete as there is another cover to over this. And yes I did use the cloth sim. I can post a step by step if you like of what I did
@ibkanat I have never used cycles. I can’t get it to work on my desktop (arch linux with openbox) when i download a build from graphicall it just opens the blender I installed with pacman. Haven’t really tried to sort this out yet. On a better note, i’m liking your scene, its a shame the horse is cropped out the image, but the eagle is a nice touch. I believe that they still use them for hunting in mongolia. Might be nice to make the ger a little more dirty/used. It looks too new 
I was playing around with my ger scene and I think that this is as far as I am going to take it in internal. I think that I am going to have to do a combo half cycles half internal. I had smoke coming out of the chimney but doesn’t show. I agree the ger needs lots of detail, I didnt use any uvs I think that is the way to go. The horse wasnt looking good in the head so… lol a little out of the scene action.
Yeah they still hunt with eagles in western mongolia, it is quite impressive to see them with them.
I am really liking where yours is going looking forward to seeing where you take it. I would really love to be able to sim hordes riding across the steppe.
@ibkanat Yeh I understand why, you might want to render it in cycles If you want feel free to post your updates in this thread. It would be interesting to see you progress and see some cycles renders.
Well here is my update. The main structure is done and I have started on textures. I have been texture painting but with my old dual core and 1Gb ram I am not getting very far and blender keeps crashing when I use texture nodes 
The door obviously need texturing, and I also need to create a cover for the crown. Any ideas/tips on texturing would be realy helpful thanks!
the tent texture looks odd now. and as it looks it is one piece of fabric. did you unwrap it? try some more seams and some editing in GIMP/photoshop for better detail or bump/specular maps. Scale your texture it as well
@Blutarsky Yeh I see what you mean, Istead of using a texture I hace created a fold in the cloth to sort of resemble a seam and updated the teaxture, but unfortunatly dont have enought time to work on it much more this evening.
I think this is a good improvment on the texture itself, but still need to texture the door. Hopefuly I will have more time to add to this image and start creating the scene, but a lot of things might be out the question as I tried to do a grass test for the environment, but everytime I tried to render blender crashed
Ok another small update. I think the exterior is almost compleate. Still need to finalise texturing on almost all of what you can see, and also add some of the smaller details, like the little eyelets on the crown cover where the rope would tie around it etc…
Any ideas, suggestions and critiques welcome!
