August/September 2017 Challenge: Revealing Dido

[Mouse]

That's a great job with the boat and the archaeologist

I image googled mussels and couldn't really find a straight answer. Distribution seems to depend on species.

There are closely clumped pictures, but there are also images of mussels covering every inch, and those of them forming ripple like patterns that don't seem to correlate with anything at all.

I was trying to think of ways of making the cliff seem more like a rocky cliff. I know you don't have much time, but more rugged would look good - deeper crevices and more of them, perhaps - a more jagged effect? I don't know...

[Redrobes]

I was thinking about the cliff. I figured that it would have to be made of something that either could slide down and take the villa with it or that the villa was near to the bottom to start with and a load of rock slid down on top of it burying it. One way or the other I guessed it could not be solid rock tho. And the chap has to be able to chip out the statue from it too. Mentally I have been working on a sandstone kind of deal. It would be nice to have slabs of rocks protruding out it tho. There is a technical issue in that with height maps there cannot be any undercuts to it. The steepest you can get is vertical. So protruding and very sheer cliffs dont lend themselves to being done with a pure heightmap. I have some decent cliff photos tho. Maybe I can find an old photo and use some more texturing.

Gotta think about those mussels but they look pretty shabby right now - letting the side down

[Mouse]

Here is the search I did - pretty inconclusive, but I think I remember the cut off line being about 2m below high tide mark (that's a guess based on memory). Maybe if they are more numerous (the patches of them) they would look more natural if they stop at a certain horizontal level?

Cliffs are really difficult - I know!

[Redrobes]

Confusing isnt it ! I can tell that they dont go too far above low tide but you do certainly get them on exposed rocks and certainly not above high tide but I am not so certain how deep below tide they go. Most of those photos had them on wide flat ground and then they seem to completely cover it. I am sure ill have a photo of some rock with them on where I can see how high they go.

This is the photo that I used for the tex map. It was taken a long time ago but I remember that they covered quite a lot of the rocks. Looking at it I can see barnacles too and they seem to be white so maybe that is the reason why the rocks below and on sea level are quite bright.

[Straf]

Will you all shut up about mussels? I'd kill for a bowl of moules marinere right now

This is looking great RR, and I love the story to go with it as I'm a bit of an armchair archaeologist myself. The gold is like "meh!", it's the mosaic and what's around it that's of interest If they find a shrine we can see which deities they probably worshiped.

[Redrobes]

On Time Team its always "high status" this and that, "temples" and the killer one... "ritual". We like our archaeology here too but most definitely of the arm chair kind. Being Roman, its likely they worshipped a lot of deities. BTW - you watch "Plebs" ? Damn that makes me laugh...

[Redrobes]

So this: http://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/detail/1421 reckons they are "Intertidal to ca. 5m". Right ! So they form a band between the low and high tides. Did not know...

Not sure how that affects my map ???

[Mouse]

Maybe if you make a mixed rock, mussels and barnacle texture, and then use it instead of the bare rock texture at a certain level?

Just an idea...

Sorry Straf - I'm all into mussels at the moment, and Red seems to have an awful lot of them

[Straf]

I've never heard of plebs but I've just looked it up and I must find it! I tend to avoid ITV channels so that's probably why it passed me by.

The Time Team are obsessed with anything ritual. It's still a great programme though. Can you believe it's been 4 years since we lost Mick Aston?

[Meshon]

I just got back from Canada's West coast and spent some good time tromping around tidal pools and shore rocks. There were mussels all over! They seemed to make mats in places where the water was moving gently and then they would be missing from other areas. They are also super sharp and because they're densely packed, it's like dozens of tiny razors. Who knew mussel beds were so dangerous!

The map looks really cool, I'm digging the boat and diver too, adds some life to the map. Like, aside from the sea life…

cheers,
Meshon