The world on a cog

[Robbie]

Just so you know...I'd LOVE to make a 3d model of this...it would be VERY easy to do, AND to animate. SO...if you could sketch out roughly the linkings of the lowe cogs and whatnot...I'll do it...and animate it. I'll also need a heightmap for the mapped cogs, but thats not entirely necessary.

PLEASE! That would be soooo awesome to see.

[torstan]

Well there's exactly no structure of the lower cogs defined so far, so this can be modelled as a very simple system of 4 linked cogs. It's even easier because each tooth covers 1 degree - so the cog turns 1 degree a day and the year has 360 days. The smaller cogs obviously have fewer teeth to fit the structure.

I can knock together a height map, but that could take a while. What would you need? I'm pretty certain there are no legal issues around it, but I'll certainly check with the people making the game. I'm pretty sure they'd be overjoyed with this!

[Robbie]

I'll throw something together then for the structure and show ya what I come up with tomorrow probably.

As for what I would need...just a medium-high res height map for each of the 5 cogs (white=high), and the highest resolution of the map you can provide for texturing.

If the height map can include water depths/channels that would be awesome, because then I can use water surfaces, but I dunno if I'll be able to get the water to flow off the edges of the cog without a good bit of work.

[torstan]

That would be cool. I'll see if I can get an example heightmap to you fairly shortly for one of the smaller cogs.

[torstan]

For the heightmap is 50% grey sea level, or would that be black?

[Robbie]

sea level can be whatever you want to be, depends on how much undersea detail you want...I would reccommend maybe only 10% grey being sea level and leave the rest to be above ground...due to the scale of the final model...I just need to know which value you make as sea level so I can set my displacement center accordingly.

[Masden]

Hello folks,

I'm the designer of the Divine Mechanism, as it is known in the New Epoch RPG.

I'm glad you like the ideas -I sure was happy with Torstan's work on this one, and wish we had stacks of money to throw at him for more great maps. Interesting that Arcana's pic is the exact structure of one side of the Divine Mechanism... Cool for you!

The New Epoch RPG and Divine Mechanism are property of jwgames, but I'd still be very interested in seeing any work you made for personal use :-) In fact, I'd be willing to offer you help too if we could include your model on our website (once it's finished).

There's a bit more maths to it -all detailed in an upcoming world codex. If you're into pen and paper rpgs and love maps as much as I do, you'll be fascinated by the cosmology -we're really pleased about how everything ties in together for this world.

Anyway, feel free to email me about it.

[Robbie]

Masden, any help you want to give info wise would be welcomed...I'd love to make it for you to use on your website. I'll email ya later probably.

[ravells]

This is truly beautiful Torstan!!! Lovely work.

[Robbie]

So I don't have to count...how many teeth are on the main cog? I'm guessing 180. But I'm not sure.

Nevermind...I just did an Array in 3d studio and figured it out...Its 180.