July Challenge: The four Haskwood Canifers

[Redrobes]

Long ago there were mighty Haskwood Canifers found throughout Ansium. These tall and straight trees would stretch up to the sky with barely a branch before 100' and then spray the canopy wide. They were rare but treasured by lumberjacks as well as carpenters and were cut only if there was a need for such a straight and true trunk.

Then later when outsiders came in and took them away for ships masts and other less needy uses the population of them dwindled. As such the price for them went up and the species as a whole became almost extinct in Ansium.

They were obliterated first in areas next to water where they could be cut and floated away. Next, the ones on the plains and then the hills.

Only in one area did they continue to exist. In the fenlands the trees were cut where they could be, but there were areas where it would be insanely hazardous to go let alone cut trees and haul them away. So there were years where you could see a Haskwood Canifer from afar in the lowlands around Deathchaser Fen.

It so happened that there was a drought (does the US spell this word as stupidly as the english?) and the water receeded allowing Ebenezer Longaxe deep enough into Deathchaser Fen to fulfil a lucrative contract for four Haskwood Canifers for a set of ships. A platoon of armed guards and helping hands were hired and set off for Deathchaser Fen. After much toil, a few attacks, the sweat and loss of coin for Ebenezer the four trunks were hauled up to Thrub. Ebenezer set the huge trunks down in the lumber yard and waited for the return of his client for the rest of his coin. The contact did not show and the trees sat idle for several years.

Sangham Delling was a property developer eyeing a site ripe for a new upmarket inn. The plans were audacious with a large and open bar with side saloon. The area would be large and it needed pillars to hold up such a monstrous roof. The four Canifers would be perfect and knowing that they sat idle made an offer which for ordinary lumber would have been ample but for Haskwoods from Deathchaser Fen ? Ebenezer thought not and the pair argued for a while and the animosity over it grew. Nobody else wanted to pay to have these enormous trunks hauled across wilderness for weeks and Ebenezer would not back down and accept the loss after the memory of the fens.

Well Ebenezer suffered yet more loss when his sawmill caught fire. Many suspected foul play but with no evidence and facing ruin the trunks went to Sangham, Ebeneezer left for a new life and the Inn was started. The carpenters were about to strip the bark when Sangham insisted that the full glory of the Haskwoods show through. They were to be made the center of attention and a personal gloat for Sangham. In fact the Inn would be named "The Four Haskwood Canifers" just so that noone would foget it.
----

Here is the original sketch - which does not show the trunks... but heck what can you do ? The map is much further on than the sketch now. More to follow.

[SeerBlue]

Most excellent intro to the Haskwood Canifers, I like a good tell with a good map, especially a Good Tell which this is.
SeerBlue

[Redrobes]

Most excellent intro to the Haskwood Canifers, I like a good tell with a good map, especially a Good Tell which this is.
SeerBlue

Thanks, I thought I'd steal the two names from your list too and the other one from the post

I have been impressed with the sketchup and I also said that maybe I should do a 3D job next time - actually that was two times ago on the April Challenge I think - Fentor Cross Church so I have a little more time now to throw at some 3D modeling.

I have been keeping WIP pics so here are one or two starters.

I first copied in the basic shape of the inn and blocked it in for the two lavels. I thinned the walls to a more sensible thickness - something like 2ft and put in the tree trunks. I have been moving the position of the trunks about a bit as the model has progressed so that they make more sense structurally.

I keep all of the surfaces as bold colors at this stage as I know ill texture them later. For now its all about shape and getting the basics in right. I know from experience that if you have too many stray points then any boolean ops later go badly wrong. So the key is simple clean shapes for now.

### Latest WIP ###

[NeonKnight]

I love the concept.

I especially like it because when people think of human controlled extermination of species, we tend to only think in the modern world.

We have however, been responsible for many exterminations:

Tasmanian Wolf
Dodo Bird

are two that come to mind.

But in the plant world, as far back as ancient Egypt and the time of Knossos we humans over harvested the plant Silphium to extinction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium

So, I like this idea, I like it a lot.

[Redrobes]

Blimey, you must have pushed the send button at exactly the same time - I saw my post appear behind yours when it appeared. Thats a first for me !

Thats interesting about the Silphium and I never heard of it. It makes me so mad when people selfishly take last remaining specimens of stuff. And when they take it so they can drape fur or get some tiger bone for an aphrodisiac etc well I could just shoot them. That Silphium could be mans last cure for something serious and its gone. I guess its been happening all the time even by animals etc but we ought to be above that level.

Anyway, blood pressure down... calm...

I put the two sets of stairs in and made the balustrades. Much easier done digitally with a nice clone tool I think I put a bit of effort into this bit because I'd like to make some nice torch lit scenes later on and the balcony should provide some great views.

This is being done is lightwave but its an old copy as I can't afford to keep upgrading all the time. So I have already run out of its model point limit at a mere 64K. Hah, who thought that 64K would be enough in a model - thats crazy thinking. I really should move over to Blender but I can play this instrument and its such a chore to learn a new one. This one has faults but I know where most of them are now and work around them. You will see some more bugs from it later - sigh. And its very slow - like cup of tea per render slow but I still like it as an app. One thing is that it does not crash often and I know what does make it crash so I don't do those things with it and then its alright.

[ravells]

All I can say is 'wow'!

[SeerBlue]

Fick, thats good, we really like the spiral staircase, really, really like it. Ours is a bit of a bodge job, but Snap is in pretty tough times so there stonemason ain't the best...suffers from Pother's Fog.

You should check out the free version of Houdini, seems pretty powerful, even runs on this old laptop, I just use it for fun once and a while.

I also have a bit of the abbey in thrub inwork, and now that I have learned enough (meaning let ruby scripts do the hard stuff) to actually make a go of it in Sketchup and have it look good I will get back to it after Snapgallows and Hebbies.

Really good work, oh, did I say we like the Tell also,,,yup, we do.
SeerBlue and the FHCO's

[Redrobes]

...we really like the spiral staircase...

I make them like a real one. All you have to do is make a single step. Thats a round central column bit with a wedge shape coming off of it. Extrude it by 6 inches and thats one step. Then find the height required and divide that by 6 inches to see how many steps your gonna need. Then take the rotation angle which in my case was 180 and divide that by the number of steps. Right so get out the clone object and ask it for that many clones with 6 inch Y offset and angle rotation per clone. Zap a full set of spiral steps appears. I did the same for another challenge :- http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1475 Werthers Skull where I put in an iron staircase. Same technique but its tricker there because the hand rail must line up with the next step. Did that by guess, trial and error - second only to a pencil in the box of invaluable tools !

You should check out the free version of Houdini, seems pretty powerful, even runs on this old laptop, I just use it for fun once and a while.

I will but I know Blender is going forward at a considerable rate. Its just the UI thats getting in my way. I really should hit it tho. Torq said he has some knowledge of it and can lend a tip or two. The thing is that I only use 1/10th of the capabilities of all these apps. I don't do bones and inverse kinematics, all the spline patched stuff, lofting etc. I need the app to do about 20 things real well and thats it. Maybe Houdini can provide that - I will definitely have a play.

Oh and I really really should try sketchup sometime too....

oh, did I say we like the Tell also,,,yup, we do.

I believe you did Its your magnificent writing thats prompted me to elaborate on this a little more. I write like a right chav tho.

"...then this geezer came along and got some gear and then it was alright innit."

well thats what it feels like looking at it after reading yours.

[Redrobes]

Ok so then I made the bar and put some doors into all the holes I made for them. As somebody mentioned on another thread (Toff?) these doors need to be thinner than the walls by a considerable margin so I have made some chamfered door frame and put a simple door into it. I know I should add the doors as separate objects in the scene editor but I am lazy and I can edit these out later anyway. A 3D editor is not a VTT after all.

So a few more WIPs showing the staircase - you can see how its made of individual steps. And the bar.

[ravells]

I really do hope you're going to change the textures soon...I'm expecting John Travolta to come out on to that floor any moment now....

Too much wine, but the thought of John Travolta doing his Saturday Night Fever dance in a Tavern full of half-orcs just gave me the giggles.