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The next chapter - Fantasy Castle - 2.1

 As a welcome back to the new school year, I wanted to start this post off with an exciting first project (the Castle), and some good news; I have decided to add a minor in Object Design to my BDes journey. I am beyond excited to continue experimenting in this field and see where it can take me, professionally.

This first project took us down an exciting path allowing the opportunity to be as creative as possible, holding nothing back. I immediately thought of a fantasy situation where I knew that I wanted to castle to appear as if it was floating in the night sky; and, the final turned out almost perfect.

I will apologize now for the lack of process pictures but, in lieu of them, I promise to try my best at explaining each step:

1) I began by drawing sketches. From the beginning I wanted to capture the silhouette of a crown (to me, royalty and castles come hand-in-hand). The issues came when I realized that creating the round shape was not an easy undertaking.



2) In Rhino, I began by forming the basic layout in a 2d wire frame on the ground plane. From there I would copy these base circles and move upward, lofting them together to create the towers (I knew the basic height and shape that I wanted for each, so this step was pretty straight forward).


3) I then had to form the main body of the castle (the dome shape). Aesthetically I wanted to maintain a round finish so this was done by using various circles that were again lofted together to create the desired shape (the imperfections were hidden by the centre tower so it worked out very well).


4) With the main part of the tower now complete, I switched my focus to adding the smaller details such as windows, doors, bridges, and 'crows nest's'. Again maintaining the round features, this shape was made with the curve pen tool on a 2d surface, and then 'dragged' to create the elongated shape. Following this, I would place the object in its desired location, copy it, use one to do the BooleanDifference command and the second copy as the piece that is seen. The three 'crows nest' were an easy make with the square tool, PlanarSrf and then 'dragged' to make it 3D; it then had to be copied, shrunk (holding shift to maintain the shape), and again using the BooleanDifference command to create a border.



5) Coming close to completion, all that was left in making the shape I had envisioned, was to add the piece of 'ground' that the Castle would sit on. Again using the Loft feature, this was not a problem.


6) Finally come the finishing touches such as: textures, colours, and lighting. Being that I had previous experience with Rhino, I knew what I had to do to get the desired outcome. For some reason, I wasn't able to change the environment (the files that Rhino had provided were not working for me) so I was forced to resort to merely changing the colour of the background to signify a night sky rather than actually having a night sky environment). I added some point lights in the top of each tower and in the front entrance; these were placed so that the glow would be seen from the exterior. 


In the end, I am happy with the way that the final product turned out; the textures and colours used had come together nicely to make the whole fantasy a reality. The next step would be to move to the interior of the castle, making it livable and ready for me to move in.



Bloopers: I now realize that I could have used the split function instead of BooleanDifference and saved time. Lofting in a curved section was a new function to me. Having to add several different sizes of circles to make the rounded shape, was also something that took some extra time and love to be perfect. When I go back to work on this, I also want to find a way where I can create an actual doorway, and to make the 'ground' wider so as to give space for grass and more environment to be seen (then the entrance won't be floating). In adding that extra bit of ground, it will also aid in both the visual appeal and story telling of the project as a whole. I would also like to add more fine details (flags, archery racks, canons, more doorways, more balconies/walkways), again to do nothing more than add visual stimulation and increase the depth of the story.

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