♥ PosetteForever ♥

Note I've not yet offset corners to 'square up' the planned covered-walk around the courtyard.

Rectangular gaps will hold stair-wells. Circle in dunjon side-tower gets wheel-stairs, rising from sub-cellar's qanat water-gate to red-tiled cap-house...

Still getting a feel for turboCAD's UI and tools.

D'uh, I used to be *good* at this !!

And I MUST get to grips with 'blocks' etc. IIRC, that's a much less memory-hungry way of putting multiple, complex props into turboCAD than just 'rubber stamping' meshes. Library objects ?? Something like that. Snag is pdf manual also does 'Pro'. Lots of 'Pro'. Figuring what's available in cut-down 'Deluxe' makes my head hurt. But, I *must* find and tame the facility as even this modest part-floor plan is five (5) megabytes...

Iso-view Piccy attached...

... yes, the arches seem very poly heavy :mmmh: They have far more subdivisions than needed. I've often seen this in models made with CAD software. As soon as arches and other rounded shapes get involved the poly count grows astronomical. Have you tried Wings or Blender for stuff like this? You have full control over mesh complexity there...

Good work so far.

Looking forward to seeing more (not more, as in more poly count, just to clear any confusion).

Thanks, Chromium !

It is very much a 'Work in Progress', will be re-arranged as I re-learn turboCAD's UI...

Turned out the 'blocks' facility *is* in my 'deluxe' version. But, hey, it took some finding...

Selecting one of each type of 'arch-ery', defining it as a 'block', then *patiently* replacing all individuals of that type with its 'block' immediately halved the file-size. And that file-size is now growing much, much slower...

High polygon count on the 'arch-ery' ? I'm not surprised. Compound curves add-up very, very quickly, especially if you want them half-way smooth, ready for re-use in a Poser scene in middle-distance. Another factor is all those 'soldier' bricks on the arches are individual blocks. Funnily enough, that bunch of individual cuboids add to a fraction of the polys of a single, 'wrinkled' mesh...

Which brings me to textures...

I've down-loaded a lot of freebies from the usual 3D sites, have been very, very surprised by how a simple mesh can look so good with a detailed 'material' mapped onto it.

eg: " Ooh, that's a *neat* Medieval-is tower, it might save me having to 'roll my own' !" But, when I look inside the 'zip', it's barely more than a single, cuboid block plus a base and crenels. The detailed windows, slits & doors had been painted onto a very pretty 'mtl'...

That's okay for a back-ground object in Poser, but not so much use in close-up, where perspective & shadows really show. Need careful lighting, at the very least...

I'm no Artist, to craft photo-realistic, 'trompe l'oeil' skins or back-drops, must go with my modest knack for 'Technical Drawing'...

So, I'm using those down-loads plus a *lot* of Google Image results to study what's appropriate detail. I'll then go back to my old turboCAD files, fetch out the 'profile cutters' I used to craft my 'arch-ery', use them and basic Boolean tools to punch holes in the walls...

I must also re-arrange the donjon and its stair-tower so they fit into the caravanserai's ten-foot grid. I'm on my fourth or fifth major iteration, and they're just not working. Next, I'll widen the stair-tower, see if that helps...

Sounds pretty intensive.

.. and as this is PF, where time stands still (pretty much), there is never pressure to rush from us.

Some iterative editing and shuffling later, I've managed to close the wall circuit.

VIP area could use a 20x10 groin vault, but I can't yet understand my old notes to figure the work-flow for crafting such. Perhaps if I study the other vaults' incremental WIPs, they'll make more sense...

Meanwhile, here's a 'hidden line' Isometric view of ground floor. Note the corner hall is double height, with a gallery ?? Next floor is similar, with a cut-out for that hall. Third floor vaults are shorter, lack covered access, and back onto the wall-walk. Cellarage is extensive...

Here's the wire-frame of that view...



FWIW, the tcw file is ~ 2.5 Mb, half the size yet with thrice the arch-ery of that earlier version. Using 'blocks' really does save a lot of drive space...

Its' really come along since the first posting.

Thanks for the update.

"... really come along since the first posting."

Thanks ! Truth is I surprised myself !!

At least the turboCAD editor doesn't say rude things when you task it to move half the plan a foot to the left-- And then two feet to the right !!

Before I 'clone' this ground floor, I must get to grips with the 'layer' tools as it is getting harder to keep track of stuff. Also, I must open a new work-sheet and craft three sets of stairs --Utility, VIP and 'wheel'...

Then I've to search out the curved 'cutters' I crafted to make my bespoke doors and windows, figure how to adapt them to cut holes in those walls...

I've some low-poly figures to populate the place, to get a feel for the look without installing Poser 7. Can't yet afford to claim discounted upgrade to current PoserPro version. Fortunately, my budget turboCAD deluxe ($15) seems able to do what I need on the 'Tech Drawing' side...

:yeah:



If you look very, very carefully, there's a double-width step as landing !!

Next, cutting doorway...

This just keeps getting better.

Nice spiral stairs too.

When is a door not a door ??

When it is an inch off, and I can't figure what I did wrong...

IIRC, I had some trouble last time with 3D Booleans, when turboCAD refused to recognise a 'cutter' as a valid object after it had been moved and rotated. There are work-arounds, which I'm rediscovering piece-meal, but I've had a lot of trouble making doorways. This stair-well came out okay, as I just cloned and stacked modules. Repeating the door-way cutting with a test wall & room became a horrible, horrible mess.

Try again tomorrow...

Thought I'd solved it by using a *plain* cuboid as cutter, but exactly the same thing happened. Had to make an 'identical' cuboid on-site.

Also means I must re-work these tidied doors again...

Still, 'proof of concept' !!

I'm loving these updates, thanks.

Spent the day trying work-arounds for the 3D Boolean problem. Sadly, anything derived from a door model soon locked-up. I honed the work-flow, but only got a migraine out of it...

So, forget that approach, revert to 'first principles'. I crafted my 'arch-ery' by months of trial, error and basic geometry. Each arch began as a polygonal prism with the same number of sides as inches to span. I used the doorway as a 'jig' to draw an identical but fresh polygon, 3D sliced it level, added a block to cut out the rest...

A grim hour later, I realised that *3D Adding* these two parts was a mistake, as it began the count-down to a Boolean lock-up. I then discovered that 'bundling' the separate parts as a library object prevented their combined use for Booleans. I had to 'explode' the pair prior to use, apply them individually...

Good news, they worked repeatedly !!