15 - [Inner] The Ward of Erahum [Mouse]

[Mouse]

I've set the terrain problem to one side for now, but I'm still working in Sketchup. Got a bit carried away today, considering nothing but the roof will be visible in the map, but at least I'm getting plenty of modelling practice in.

Sketchup Version 02.jpg

EDIT: Here is a top view of the Sketchup version so far, showing the tower where it will sit as my half of the gate before it crosses over into Thomas's district to the north. (red line is the city wall). If you look carefully you can just about identify a ballista model sitting on top of the new tower. I downloaded it from the Sketchup 3D warehouse and re-textured it. The original was made by a user called "M C". When I get a bit more experienced I will be able to make things like this for myself, but for now, and considering that it is only just visible for what it is at the scale it will be seen, I have borrowed one made by a better Sketchup artist

Sketchup Version 02.jpg

[Ilanthar]

I must confess I did not read all the posts, but this is clearly very interesting to me.
Very nice buildings! I'm definitely gonna watch your progress on this .

[Mouse]

Thanks Ilanthar

I'm a total newb with Sketchup. Only downloaded it three days ago, but its really quite intuitive. I'm really grateful for all the help that John has given me so far (he's got me out of a few sticky spots already), but any additional help and advice you can give me would be most welcome

What I'm hoping to do is this:

1. Build all the buildings on the same level (ground level), and on the same layer, and texture them, turning each into a component before I raise it by 100m and move it to a layer called Buildings.
2. Get the terrain going at ground level (I was having problems with it earlier) with the buildings safely out of the way.
3. Show all the buildings again and move them down into place on the terrain, so that the shadows are correct, and render everything out (minus the background source map), then work on it in GIMP like you are with yours, but with the buildings already textured so I only have to do the ground around them.

Sounds simple, but I know it will take me ages and ages. Took me most of the day to do just one tower yesterday, but I'm hoping to get faster, and I'm probably not going to detail more than just the rooftops for most of the rest of the district, since this is a top down map. I'll do all the major buildings, though, and use renders of them to illustrate the margins as ISO insets.

Any tips you can give me about doing terrain would be most helpful. The main problem I have is that my little laptop can only handle editing a TIN that is about 50 x 50, which really isn't big enough to do the whole area in one go. I'm thinking that I could actually build the terrain just by raising blocks from the ground to give me the basic contours, then doing something with a drape?

[Ilanthar]

By Mouse
I'm a total newb with Sketchup. Only downloaded it three days ago, but its really quite intuitive. I'm really grateful for all the help that John has given me so far (he's got me out of a few sticky spots already), but any additional help and advice you can give me would be most welcome

It is intuitive for the simple things, but I'm still learning how to do things "properly" and with some efficience, especially when dealing with a lot of elements/buildings.

I have a use for different layers indeed. One for the landscape, one for basic buildings shapes, one for the roofs, one for the details (like chimneys, fountains, etc.).
I recommend you to use a maximum of components. Components can be placed easily on (or through) your landscape and its becoming easier to work with basic shaped components then modify them when placed. Also, I'm always using the sandbox for a lot of things!

I'm working on a city on a giant tarask, and if I show you the "hidden undergound part", you can see all my basic building components through the floor.
Saranie exp.jpg

Hope it helps!

[Mouse]

Oh wow! Yes, it helps oodles

I hadn't thought of buildings having 'roots' before, but now it makes perfect sense. Bury the building till none of it is flying, and there's no need to have lots of little level spots to put them all down on, or to mess around trying to undulate the bottom of the house till it matches the terrain

The city wall was going to be a big problem for me because it goes from the lowest level right up to the highest level, but now I can see that all I have to do is make one component part, make a whole line of them along the line of the wall, and just sink them down into the terrain till they all poke up about the same. Then all I need to add are steps between the different levels of the wall

[Mouse]

I've had something of a disaster with the Sketchup map. On saving it, Sketchup warned me there had been a small error, and asked me if I wanted to fix it before closing. I said yes. I wish I hadn't. For some reason the base map has disappeared from all the versions of my map, and when I try to add it back in by importing it the way I did before, it ends up on top of the lines I draw on Layer 0, which makes it very difficult to lay out even just one more building since the base of it is invisible to me the moment I draw it beneath the base map I need to build it on.

I'm feeling more than a little despondent now, since I wasn't counting on deleting the base map at all. It was my reference for everything.

I certainly don't feel like starting it all over again in Sketchup, only for the same thing to happen at some point in the future - maybe when I've spent weeks on the map instead of just a few days.

Thinking now of returning to the GIMP map, or going back to CC3.

[Mouse]

Here is the problem:

new-1.jpg

The roads and dark shaded region are on separate layers I have shown to illustrate it. The roads I had already lifted from the base by 100m to keep them well and truly out of the way of the work I was doing on the buildings. The grey area is an outline of the area I traced on the basemap. It should be on top of the re-inserted base map, but it isn't.

What's more, the scale of the basemap was adjusted to the scale of the Sketchup map after I imported it, so that each grid square really was 5ft. even if I manage to reinsert it underneath everything else, I will probably never be able to get it exactly in line with everything I've drawn when I scale it, so the roads and the outline will have to be completely redone.

[Mouse]

I'm having an Alice day today. That's what I call the days that happen when things go seriously weird.

This is a new Sketchup file. I calibrated the base map exactly to the right size by counting all the squares along both edges and multiplying that figure by 5, then input those dimensions in feet as I imported my base map into the new file.

Next I stripped the old file down to the bits I really wanted to keep. These were the buildings and the roads (which I had raised from base level to 100m to keep them out of the way of new work)

Area 15 Version 04.jpg

I wonder.... which of the files is upside down? Is it the one I started with (the one that went wrong), or is it the one that I've just created?

[Hustle]

Alternatively, you could always just say a great wizard got angry with this particular town and turned all its buildings upside down!

[Mouse]

LOL! Thanks for making me laugh, Hustle