I’ve googled all the adjectives I can think of, looking for a tutorial that might get me started on creating a small village or city from biblical days. It wouldn’t have to be very detailed as it would be a very distant view in a desert scene that I’ve created.
Any links, models or ideas? Thanks!
Do a google image search for biblical village for references. The buildings would be very basic generic structures so should be pretty straightforward to make. If viewed from a distance any building detail could be just from a texture so again only basic modelling should be needed.
Looks like traditional Palestinian hoses are block shaped and flat roofed. It looks like made of all stone blocks. I suppose Palestine hills are mostly made of stones and it must be the most abundant material around. Also the blocks must have been recycled from ruins after a fighting:
They may have built small hut outside the village for farming. But village itself must have been tightly built for defensive purpose. Not to mention one needs community support to build a stonewalled home.
Thanks for the input! I’m working on a flat roof building now. You are correct Richard - when I first placed it into the scene, it didn’t make a lot of difference - even my “expertise” works!
Stonework was used for major public works projects back then. It was expensive. Things like temples, aqueducts, government buildings, city walls. Common people built using brick, and plastered it with actual plaster, or clay mud painted with whitewash for a bit of waterproofing. Peasants built huts of wattle and daub: a basketwork frame of poles and interwoven branches or reeds, covered with that aforementioned clay mud. Sometime whitewashed, sometimes not. Roofs on more substantial buildings were tile, on less expensive buildings thatch.
Flat roofs extended the living space: brick walls absorb a lot of heat in the summertime, keeping the interior a bit cooler than outside during the day, but at night, the walls radiated that heat, so people went to the roof to sleep, where it was cooler. A peasant’s wattle and daub wall didn’t absorb much heat (lots of straw in the clay mud plaster) so they didn’t need, and couldn’t afford, a cool rooftop sleeping space. Thatch roofs for them.