Guild of Writers

28.10.06 -- And now for something different...

~ 'Islet': small island.

Last week-end I tried solving one of the remaining bugs in Ahra but got tired of it and decide to do something different to 'get some air'..
I browsed through some of the 'Ages' ideas sketches I've done over the years, and stumbled upon one that I thought I could do a first 3d sketch of rather quickly; and it could be a refreshing activity. So over the night I did it. Name of the Age: Islet.
Whithout further ado here are a couple pictures of it to look at. (I added some wireframe pictures, because just why not.)





This is a very rough thing, just a 3d sketch. The pictures are screenshots straight out of Blender, which is why colors are so dull. I have no idea at this point if this will go any further than that. I'd like to; I have a number of precise ideas for that place (back story, puzzles, interactivity). 'Just in case one day I have two weeks ahead of me and nothing to do' I threw all of those ideas together in a text file (which I often do); this somehow ended up being three pages long. I could release it, but it's full of spoilers and if the Age ever get the green light, it wouldn't be good.. For the same reasons, I tried not to show too much in the above pictures.

Just some general infos: it's a small place as you can see but it's very dense (I like small dense places) especially inside; you can see how small it is by the little guys in the first picture. It's a simple structure, which is why I like it, but it offers some interesting architectural possibilities. It's an islet set in a remote corner of a 'D'ni Cavern' looking place; though I guess if I intend to release the Age it probably couldn't be in the D'ni Cavern. I did this as my personal vision of a typical D'ni building: inside a rock, on the Lake, with simple yet elegant architecture; all built of stone. Despise its size it's not a house at all, it was a semi-official building meant for receptions and meetings.
And I think that's pretty much all I can say whithout revealing too much.

This was fun to do. I should do more of those 'one night Age'.

That looks amazing Aloys! Nice work!

That looks more than great for just a sketch Aloys! I'm still figuring out how to start with a basic mesh and work up to something like you made. Wish I could come up with something that fast. Will you be detailing the basic more or would this (rocks, building structure) be enough for UrU?

The post above this one is mine.. just noticed I wasn't logged in

Very intriguing, Aloys! Islets are well suited for Myst, as you know.

I do find it helpful to have multiple ongoing projects, in case one gets stalled or I get sick of it for a while. But gosh - I never could crank out something that wonderful, especially all in one night! Well done!

Thanks for the nice comments
It's really a small project, the whole scene is around 3900 faces, but most of it is in the cylinders I used here and there. Also, I had several sketches to work from so I didn't spent much time designing I essentially did straight modelling.

Marcello wrote:Will you be detailing the basic more or would this (rocks, building structure) be enough for UrU?

Technically it could be exported for Uru as it is, it has been built to scale; as you can see by the avatars. But it doesn't have any textures or lighting, so it wouldn't look very good.
And of course it is not detailed enough. The essential parts are here but they would need to be at least two or three times more detailed to look good. The rock structure is mostly ok but need some refinement and most of the architectural features would need to be totally redone. The current ones are just placeholders.