HOME | DD
Built4ever β Town Plan for Second Life
Published: 2012-11-24 21:40:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 29280; Favourites: 598; Downloads: 695
Redirect to original
Description
Alright folks, here's a big ambitious one in progress: This is a commercial town center or town plan I'm doing as a commission for two young beautiful ladies on the other side of the planet from me! The name of the town is "The Clove," and there is a spice theme running throughout the town. They commissioned me to design an entire town center with hmmm maybe 30 or more shops, cafes, a few bigger stores, and a grocery store, for Second Life. It's based primarily on the hill towns of Tuscany, with minor influences also from Southern France, Spain, American Spanish Colonial Architecture (especially projecting second floor balconies,) and cute European storefronts in general.They provided the initial concept sketch (near the bottom) and we both contributed some photo ideas. I took it from there, re-drew the town center, and started to number the groups of buildings and draw them each in detail. Group One is farthest along as you can see. They, in turn, are doing the 3D modeling to eventually turn this into a town for Second Life. As we go along, they throw ideas at me, and I try to interpret them as best as I can. Meanwhile, I am giving them a tutorial in so many ways in architectural design, including learning about porches, walls, columns, beams, roof designs, shutters, and lots more. There are numerous details to model so this is, of course, extremely ambitious! We are looking at one month, maybe two of designing the town, if all goes well, which I typically do some work on every morning right now. Yes, it's a major commission! Thank you ladies for the opportunity to serve you, I hope you are pleased with the end result!
Viewers and watchers, feel free to throw a few more ideas at us. If you are participating in Second Life, then maybe you will be able to visit this some time next year. Major design concepts we are using so far include the idea of informal, organic, sinuous streets and plazas with courtyards, arches, etc to divide them, elevation changes similar to a real hill town, one grand entrance (not designed yet,) names for the plazas based on spices, as well as color choices, and plenty of plants, landscaping, lamp posts, a few monuments, lots of steps, fountains, a couple of small streams through the town, foot bridges, and more. Thanks for viewing! The link for the "owners" of this town: suetabulous.deviantart.com/
Technique: as usual, all these drawings are completely hand-drawn in small scale. I do the perspective scenes free hand and the elevations and plans are hand drawn on slightly transparent vellum over graph paper, usually in scale 1/16"=one foot, details are bigger scales. I scan the plans and "tweak" the color to sepia tone, and then I clean them and label them.
Individual Storefront Groups:
Related content
Comments: 147
I absolutely love the designs, I've tried designing my own buildings and towns but they're no where near as amazing as yours
π: 0 β©: 1
Thanks, enjoy!
π: 0 β©: 1
What places have you done for sl?
π: 0 β©: 1
The Clove was the big one, but also a three store ensemble (3 buildings) for someone else, and I think another one, several yrs ago. Not much activity lately with Second Life.
π: 0 β©: 1
that's alright :3
π: 0 β©: 0
Planning the town, then building it! Β What a novel idea!
The designs are beautiful and remind me of complex stage designs. Β Did you overscale the interiors to allow for the camera view?
π: 0 β©: 1
Thanks, good eye, good call, that was a big issue once we got deeper into it. Indeed, you have to overscale the exterior to get high ceilings, so it tends to distort the architecture. Project went to a certain point, then they stopped, possible because of that issue, and also, the complexity of what I was drawing, which makes for difficult 3D modeling. I started doing 3D models myself shortly after so I learned a bit about it. Another guy ALSO has made 3D models of some of "the Clove" buildings. So you do some interesting stuff with second life??
π: 0 β©: 1
I's 90% programmer and 10% wannabe builder. Β I sandbox ideas for fun and and send them back to bit-heaven.
I think there's things you can do to cheat -- you can render hi-poly complex exteriors to low-poly textured+mapped facades. Β You can sacrifice the second floor for higher ceilings. Β Basically throw logic out the window.
π: 0 β©: 1
Well, indeed, I drew many of them as open vaulted second floors with small lofts of some sort to increase daylight and open feeling. That's for the REAL ARCHITECTURAL PLANS too of course, since the long-term plan is to build these in Dubai or at Disney resort. (Hey, why not dream?) By the way, you should see my idea sandbox, it looks like the Sahara desert.Β
I was also working on concept art/landscape/architecture for a China-based game company 2 months ago. We had similar concerns with poly count/complexity (my stuff is TOO detailed, sorry, I like it.)
I used to program, 30 years ago, in the dark ages.
π: 0 β©: 0
How are the girls getting on with your model? No update for 18 months now. Did they finish it? I've just started modelling your 'Group 3' buildings in 3D (hope you don't mind) I'm off work and just getting back into the whole 3D after a break of about 4 years! Β
π: 0 β©: 1
They abandoned it I think, maybe too complicated, also, some scaling issues that have to do with Second Life game and other technical issues involving adaptation to Second Life.
They DID do the Group 3 buildings. I don't mind at all. go for it. Send me link. I play with 3D from time to time.
π: 0 β©: 1
That's a shame 
π: 0 β©: 1
So far I've started house 335, house 309, Group 3 buildings from the Clove town centre, house 323 and house 325. I'm good at starting a project, not so good at completing it. I seem to have 'roof dyslexia', I just cannot get my head around rooflines, even when I'm modelling in 3D which should make it easy. Eventually I might actually get a model finished
π: 0 β©: 1
Even practicing architects blow it with their roof designs. Don't feel bad. Definitely interested in seeing those homes, nobody has ever done them. 323 is basically scheduled for construction in Texas, different plan, but front looks the same. I may personally model that one.Β
π: 0 β©: 0
Can't begin to tell you how many bajillion times how much honor it is to work with you! Your work is fantastic and you've been amazing to correspond with, thank you so much yet again!
I hope our modeling will do you justice
π: 0 β©: 1
My pleasure my friends, the modeling looks better than I ever expected, especially when I see the effort you put into small details like the wrought iron railing on the balcony. I know you're taking a lot of time to do this. Keep it going because I think we have a chance to create something very special, that's never been seen before, that could get some serious attention, not only for its intended purpose but for others also. These are potentially "real" buildings, so this model will have appeal to a lot of people!
π: 0 β©: 0
It's going into an improved mode apparently, where you can import better quality 3D models I think?
π: 0 β©: 0
Oh we are believe me...
π: 0 β©: 0
that's pretty impressive. i especially like the large retail store.
π: 0 β©: 1
I will modify or re-do that one, honestly...
π: 0 β©: 0
I just love your architectural drawings. So detailed and aesthetic! Creative without looking desperate (you know you've seen that kind of architecture--usually featured in architecture magazines? 
π: 0 β©: 1
HE HE "desperate" means desperate for attention through bad design and outrageous ideas that function poorly, cost a mint to build, are impossible for the builder to interpret, crack and fail due to bad cantilevering ideas, and mostly, will leak rain water like crazy with bad flat roofs and other leaky details. Look interesting on the magazine cover, usually only from one angle, like Corbusier's Ronchamp church, not good from any other angle. I'm a staunch traditionalist because the best stuff ever built is hundreds and sometimes thousands of years old...Thank you!
π: 0 β©: 1
I knew you would understand exactly what I meant!
π: 0 β©: 1
Yes! I was open to modern design as a young man but ever so slowly the noose tightened. I also finally rejected it as an art form. When splotched canvases sell for 5 million a piece its time to re-assess our sanity! Museums CANNOT go backwards and admit fault, so they continuously "sanctify" bad and expensive 20th century art, in cahoots with the almighty critics and gallery owners. I don't blame Picasso and the rest for experimenting, tearing down walls, and pushing the limits, it had to be done. But frankly, Marcel Duchamp drew the extreme line in the sand and defined the beginning and the end when he exhibited the urinal signed "R. Mutt," about a 100 yrs ago. Like Jimi Hendryx's "Third Stone from the Sun", everything, every limit, positive and negative, was covered in some way, in one piece, and everything after is simply a footnote and an expansion on the original theme. (End art philosophy essay.) he he...
π: 0 β©: 1
Don't get me started on Picasso! I have hated that man shunned him since I was a kid. Especially when I heard he was actually very skilled and fully capable of Renaissance-quality realism. I categorize visual art three ways: communication, aesthetics, & technical skill. When anything that has none of these gets lauded as art, it makes me sad. I mean, tastes vary, but communication, aesthetics, and skill are not ethereal things--they can be judged pretty consistently.
And incidentally, if a person can put something on a canvas and sell it, I think they deserve whatever price they can get for it. Free markets balance supply with demand, and that's okay by me. It's when they get funded by my tax money that bothers me. *sigh* I'm an artist! Why can't I support my work with my money instead? Hahahha, I ask too much.
π: 0 β©: 1
HMMM very interesting three-point system for evaluating art. I like it. I'm an analytical thinker. Similar to these three for architecture: function, beauty, and durability (from Vitruvius the Roman.) Good architecture has all three in extreme amounts AND is balanced between them.
With art, I tend to quickly evaluate it as expressionistic/romantic or realistic/classical. The duel between Ingres, with a pencil, and Delacroix, with a paint brush! I consider what I and other designers do as a subcategory of fine art, namely, drawing/designing a thing/product, and bringing it to life. Illustration is similar, just bringing to life persons and things from a story.
"Communication" means conveying emotion, ideas, content effectively? For example, a large complex piece (how about Picasso's Guernica to play devil's advocate) has a lot of different little pieces to the puzzle, conveying emotion, thoughts about politics, different little stories about the bombing, etc. Jackson Pollock conveys absolutely nothing. Yes?
π: 0 β©: 1
Ah-ha! You've read the works of Vitruvius, too? I was thoroughly amazed at how much consideration he put into things, and even though technology was archaic and limited, I was impressed at how he talked about studying local animals to verify the quality of water, using wheels to measure distances, and--the one that caught me totally off guard--how he determined the earth was round by seeing that the surface of still water was slightly curved. Considering that "the earth is round" was considered a wild revelation so many centuries later, and Vitruvius' observation is so simple and obvious, I'm seriously in awe of the man. And function, beauty, and durability covers architecture nicely, I'd say. With the emphasis on function. Heh!
Architecture as fine art--yep, I'd agree with that.
Yes, that is precisely what I mean by communication. (AH! Not Picasso!!) To consider a painting's effectiveness at communication, I compare it to written words (I'm a writer at heart, so this comes naturally.). For example, Guernica, I consider a failure at communication. Why? Because:
-It has to be analyzed lengthily to derive any meaning from it, and viewers can easily derive unintended meanings from it. (Like a textbook that everyone hates to read because the topics are all tangled together with no visible points being apparent, a textbook that is useless to anyone who isn't already a professional on the subject--the student's nightmare.)
-It's broken and chaotic, discarding formal rules of appearance and missing information (like perspective, proportion, color, depth, etc.). Breaking rules are one thing, but it is only the rules of language that allow one person to translate an idea to another. (I'd compare Guernica to a free verse poem with misspelled words, no punctuation, random capitalization, and chaotic line breaks. Something with obscure but short words--like adz and zed. Probably stringing words that don't fit together in sentences that make one squint in consternation, like this: "the dewy light ran from the pulchritude, tasting of puce".
-I find looking at it to be an undesirable experience, like hearing a grating voice or reading a too-fancy font used for body text. That doesn't inspire me to try any harder to decipher it.
-Bottom line--there isn't a soul in the world who could look at this painting (having never seen it or heard of it before) and say, "Oh, yeah, that's describing the bombing of Guernica." Not a soul. Not even the people who were at the bombing of Guernica. That's the ultimate failure of communication, in my opinion. Right down there with "the viewers all think the artist meant the opposite of what he was really trying to convey". The name of the painting is the only clue, and without it, all ties to the original concept are lost, except, perhaps, for a connection between the chaos and ugliness of war and the chaos and ugliness of the painting.
Yes, completely abstract paint splatters like Pollock's have little to no communication, but they can still be pretty--and if they are pleasurable to look at, I think calling them good art is completely fair. However, I laugh at anyone who insists they have any specific meaning. If the average, uneducated audience cannot duplicate the intended meaning, then the artist failed. Unless they are catering to a more specific viewership. So, let me rephrase: If the average viewer of the intended audience cannot duplicate the intended meaning, then the artist failed.
Sorry for the massive essay . . . but in my defense, you had it coming! I warned you not to get me started on Picasso! Ha ha ha!
On the other hand, if you consider "art is communication", this allows a better measure of art in general. After all, some art would be like an eloquent poem, others like a coherent and educational lecture, and still others like a putrid, screaming stream of incoherent profanity. (What I'm saying is, maybe it is all art, but that doesn't mean it is in any way desirable, helpful, or skillful. Some of it is legitimately vile, and the label "art" shouldn't somehow absolve it from being seen as such.)
Eh, just my two cents. Or rather, my two hundred cents.
π: 0 β©: 1
Vitruvius: I came to the conclusion that the proportion rules must be arbitrary, but they worked for them and gave the builders a guide. Of course, I loved stuff like this: you must let lumber season for three years before use. The stuff about residences is very difficult to use any more because a Roman house is completely different than a modern one.
My final thought on Pablo Picasso: [link]
Now, since we destroyed the Guernica, let's try something completely different: "The Third of May" by Goya. I asked a certain person sitting not far from me about this piece, using something approximating your three-tone scale, (after looking at the Guernica, BTW,) and we came up with this: very good at communicating the message, an event, or a shooting, and very powerful in delivery of the emotions surrounding such an event. It scored well on aesthetics, nice colors and such (she even said romantic, I love it!) and it did pretty good on technique.
As for the Picasso, her first response was "it's complicated." She saw life and death in it, nothing specific at all about a bombing. Her final statement: It could be about lots of things. It's for the artist, not the viewer. IT COULD BE ABOUT EUTHANASIA."
And, yes, I've seen pretty abstract paintings, sometimes I like them, but that's back to aesthetics. Abstract art can have beauty, even technique, but doesn't communicate any real information, maybe a bit of emotion I suppose.
Should we discuss Serrano's Piss-Christ now?
Two bucks right back at ya.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahah! At first I was like, "What on Earth is this song trying to say?" And then I was like . . . "Oh, that's why it's a perfect match!"
Hmm. "The Third of May". I'd say communication was spot on. The people seem a bit lumpy for my tastes, and I feel the lighting could be lots better. Honestly, though, the guy's doing a better job with his medium than I'd be likely to do, so I feel a bit odd saying anything negative, but I'm spoiled by all the incredible artists out there these days. (I blame DA for exposing me to them all! Haha!)
Oh, ew. That guy. Well, like my dad always said about flag-burners: The action says nothing about the flag; it says everything about the person doing it. I think the same could be said of Serrano's work.
π: 0 β©: 1
"LUMPY!" Most Americans are looking kinda lumpy these days.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahahahah!!! I can't argue that point.
π: 0 β©: 1
Beaver Cleaver's friend was named Lumpy.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahaha! Okay. See, I'm too young to get that reference.
π: 0 β©: 1
Me too. That was a 50's show.
π: 0 β©: 1
What? You aren't 80 years old? *runs for cover*
π: 0 β©: 1
| Next =>