Castle to b4...

Ahh so we're fresh into the acedemic year, and the rooftops project has been handed to us.

Looking at the brief I was quite dissapointed, it seemed very concentrated and didnt give enough freedom as I'd have liked. I started by thinking of ideas that were a bit different to what the brief stated. I was a bit worried that they were all going to get shot down and I'd be told to make the 'New york roof top for a third person shooter' to the word. But I was luckily surprised when Heather like my ideas and was keen for me to think about a different theme.

So onto Idea number 1.

The Medieval Castle top
Here I want to create a rooftop from medieval times, especially along the lines of Guard towers and Castle walls. The idea of showing the presence of security without characters is an interesting one for me, Not to mention all of the gritty worn down brick and rock textures that I'd need.

My first Max 'sketch' is a city gate. The structure is basically part of the city walls, with a lookout post and defences. I think the inclusion of different levels of height is vital in creating an interesting level layout. I have roughed in some castle architechture just to get an idea, but it is by no means historically accurate. If I decide to go with this theme I wil of course research the architechture in more depth.


My second sketch is a trio of towers connected by walls, Only one of the smaller towers is embedded Into the larger more dominant tower. I think this has a very different sense of scale to the last one and I placed it ontop of a rocky hill to emphasise this. I also created a quick mockup of a medieval catapult to place ontop of the large tower. I think something like this is a good focal point, and having a large area on the largest tower could allow for some interesting possiblities.
So onto my final sketch, this one is basically an observation post, which I would envision to be place in a very high place looking over massive distances. The structure itself consists of one Main tower and three sub towers, all embedded into the Main tower. The job of this tower would be to guard strategic positions and signal to the main cities/forces of any incoming invasions. Unlike the last two, which would guard cities or important structures, this tower would be stuck out in the middle of no-where and it would be interesting to try and convey this in the sort of equipment and assets that would dress the scene.



So those are my 3 ideas for this theme. If I am to choose this theme I will probably try and evolve these ideas a bit more and get some solid conept work up and running before I even think about modelling it.

Stay tuned for more, this is only the first of four Ideas that I'm going to be sketching out on max in the coming week...