Guild of Writers

I'm definitely seeing a little Tomahna inspiration, but who isn't? The only thing I would recommend is working on the shadows. I'm not sure if you were saving that for last or something, but the fact that many plants (and the rock arch itself) don't cast obvious shadows on the ground (and the lack of undershadow on the palm fronds) takes a lot away from the realism. Remember- good ages are made with skillful textures and lighting! The age itself is beautiful though, and that will make another fantastic addition.

Tsahl wrote:The only thing I would recommend is working on the shadows. I'm not sure if you were saving that for last or something, but the fact that many plants (and the rock arch itself) don't cast obvious shadows on the ground (and the lack of undershadow on the palm fronds) takes a lot away from the realism. Remember- good ages are made with skillful textures and lighting! The age itself is beautiful though, and that will make another fantastic addition.

Lighting is definitely tricky.. Especially in outdoor areas. (That's one thing that struck me in Laki: the meshes are texture were good; but the lighting really broke the whole thing..)
As for tree leaves those are usually very difficult to light: like most plants they are flat faces with a transparent two-sided material and because of that they get the same lighting on both sides. Which is why they may look bright on both sides.The only alternative is to model separately each side of the leaf: remove the two-sided attribute, duplicate that part of the mesh and move it very slighty. This way you will have both sides of the mesh lighted independently. But this creates more polygons and add another layer of transparent textures which may lead to transparency rendering issues.

I think its great but the arch might give it away along with the window. By the way how will this observatory serve the age. It's obviously not nightime like in my age so you arn't going to stargaze. Will it be used to view some clue unseen by the naked eye?

I don't want to betray too much. The observatory is for observing the volcano, which plays an important role in this age.

Jonnee wrote:I don't want to betray too much.

I assume again you mean reveal.

*grrrr* Ask http://dict.leo.org!

My vote is it has purpose and looks cool, keep it

Well even if it doesn't have purpose... who cares?! It looks [bold]awesome[/bold]!

Jadawin12 wrote:My vote is it has purpose and looks cool, keep it

I'd go with this, "so what" if it looks similar to another Age. Just think of it as... a reminder that were in the Myst Universe.

~kahinj~

I wouldn't worry about it, I have influence from other Ages in a lot of my Ages. The upper level of Fahets for example is reminiscent of Direbo thanks to the columned trees I've added.