Hi(gh)!

On 17.11.19 08:27, Thomas de Groot wrote:

> yep.

Meanwhile, I did two radiosity scenes (at density = 1), see attachments! 
It's still very basic radiosity, I will improve it soon...

> I admire your dedication. I'll stay tuned to Radio Kabul. :-)

But don't expect too much - modeling places from afar, not to mention an 
entire country, with only photos and low-accuracy maps as templates, is 
a titanic task, modeling places from afar as they looked 50 years ago is 
practically impossible! Especially with such undeveloped places like 
Afghanistan - for Cologne, I have cadastral maps at 1:500 (!), while in 
Afghanistan I doubt that such maps ever existed, surely not for the 
early 1970s, and even cadastral maps showing the present-day situation, 
if they exist at all, most likely would be treated as a state secret, 
which means absolutely out of reach.

So even when it comes to the very conception of Khyberspace, I probably 
have to re-think the whole project, and - though I always wanted to 
avoid meddling with present-day Afghanistan, with all that destruction, 
mass displacements, military infrastructure, unchecked urban sprawl and 
cheap tacky consumer stuff flooding the country  - have to start with 
the template sources practically available both digital and printed, and 
the overwhelming majority of them is post-2001, so any representation of 
Afghanistan in Khyberspace will have to be a blend of the present-day 
situation, extrapolated back to 1970 wherever possible (but in many 
cases this will have to be left to artistic license!) and the few actual 
sources.

No, Khyberspace will not be able to present an authentic "Hippie 
Afghanistan", but merely an artificial product of my presuppositions 
and, yes, even psychological projections, intermingled with hard 
evidence. Same goes of course for the "Afghatopia 2050" mode...

For the early 1970s, I probably will have to rely mainly on printed 
sources, such as the publications from the Center for Afghanistan 
Studies at the University of Nebraska or the famous German-spoken 
"Afghanistan Journal" (which, by the way, contains numerous groundplan 
shapes of historic landmark buildings like Herat's Friday Mosque).

Vahur Krouverk's grass script inspired me to start with park lawns in 
Afghan cities like Herat - but with Herat, I soon found out that in the 
1970s, the neat clean park in front of the Friday Mosque which is shown 
for example here: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Herat#/media/File:Friday_Mosque_in_Herat,_Afghanistan.jpg

simply did not exist at all - there was only a wide untended, partially 
swampy meadow!

So I'm torn between two options - of course the park is nicer and more 
interesting to render than that ugly hippie-age bog (and of course there 
are much more and much better pictures of it on the web). Do I want to 
create a beautiful or an authentic Khyberspace? And, on a more 
philosophical level: what means "authenticity" when sources are scarce 
and, at least with me, no personal experience can be built upon?

Still, see you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

Post a reply to this message