Ancient Ruins of Elsweyr

[The Old Ye Bard]

Those textures designs are looking really good -could you upload .psds of the files so we can turn them into textures? (assuming that the line work is a seperate layer).

And while Elsweyr is influenced in some ways by Egyptian culture & art, to draw from that solely isn't a good idea (even if you're only taking parts of it as inspiration), if you do future artwork expand on where you're drawing your imagery from, for example ancient India, ancient Cambodia, ancient Tibet.

And specifically, for art regarding astrology/astronomy:

Chinese, Mayan, Tibet (specifially, have a look at Buddhist Mandala's), and so on.

[morcroft]

Don't want to get too ahead of myself lol

You only designed this four years before I built it - how far "not ahead" could you possibly be ???

It's all looking great so far - I kept asking for art for the door and stele back when I was modelling this, so I'm really glad you're back! That's the only reason I stuck a blatantly egyptian motif on my original doors: as TOYB says we're not really using that style as much as others.

No problem reworking the Astralisk: my original try was pretty primitive and would have to be remodelled now I have half a clue what I'm doing anyway.

I was thinking that some of the astralisks - in the cities - would have ended up stuck in a half-forgotten corner of more "modern" temples built over the originals. I'd expect that floor design might have survived too.

The whole lunar temples thing has got to be good for a side-quest sequence, even if it's just an "Ayleid statues" type fetch-and-return. Could the Astralisk perhaps have a central gemstone or some other macguffin?

[Kyoushu]

Hehe, just meant I want to get a consensus before moving on to the next thing.

I took into consideration the overall look and feel for the Temples, I'd thought by redoing the Astralisk with an updated look first before moving on to the others.

The Astralisk (v2.0)


As much as I liked the old look, just looked clunky imho. Tried to take in the design look of the Mandalas,etc but not too much to draw attention, just enough to compliment the overall shape. Consisting of two pieces within the Astralisk, the Two Moons Idol and the Pillar. I was thinking the Idol would be Silver plated in some fashion and the Pillar in something like a White Marble/etc (not a Rock expert but something to reflect Moonlight in the interior of the Temple).

If all goes well with the look of this Astralisk, I'm gonna go back to redo the other bits like the Door and Moon Chart. I did wanna also propose several floor plans for the Interior...

[morcroft]

Maybe we should use the old Astralisk design as a statue somewhere - too good an idea just to throw out, but the new one seems more refined and astronomical so better suited for the actual temple.

Modelling-wise, are the two parts of the idol flat disks, or is the inner one spherical? If the inner is a sphere then I guess the outer is also curved - thicker in the middle and tapering to the points?

Theoretically there could be a way the moonlight phases cast specific shade patterns but I can't figure out the maths involved - presumably that would require something to do the job of a gnomon so maybe not going to fit aesthetically.

Definitely like the direction you're taking this.
:goodjob:

[Kyoushu]

Regarding the shape of the Idol, was thinking something along the lines of this...



The Crescent on top has a rounded edge, the inner plate more flat edged if you will.

[Kyoushu]

Ehh, regarding the lower moon after seeing my own mock-up, trying a Sphere or more rounded edge like the Crescent top might look better... idunno food for thought.

[morcroft]

I think curvy would probably be better - but keep thinking on it as long as you need: I'm not going to model it in a hurry, far too much else on; and exterior architecture will have to take priority for the moment anyway.

And please do propose floorplan ideas: I've really no clue!

Actually, one thing: if we want an extended interior then it'll require catacombs or somesuch as I don't want to make the structure too big. So there will need to be an access point

[Kyoushu]

Had a busy weekend, but I managed to crank out this mockup of the main chamber interior in 3d.



While not in the mockup itself, it would have stairs leading up to the main door to and from the lower level. The Lower level walls could have several doors leading to other chambers like the Crypts, Anti Chamber, etc what have you... leaving it open and modular enough for the ingame designer.