For those interested in ancient architecture.

The elite of Gancaloon is living on the seaside part of town, and in a 
well-planned urban setting. Four urban villas are grouped in insulae 
which in turn form a chequerboard pattern, following the topography. 
Here is one of these insulae under construction (a latin name but the 
concept was already in use by the Greek; the Romans probably just copied 
it). Already during Greek times, individual housing was fairly 
conservative and subject to strict rules, reasons why I used classic 
house concepts around a peristyle courtyard and either involving a 
so-called megaron (see front-most villa) similar to Greek temples, or a 
looser collection of rooms served by corridors (so-called pasta-type).

The image shows the villas in different stages of construction.

It is ironic that the elite is living on the most exposed side of the 
city while the indigenous population lives on the best sheltered one. 
The hazards of urbanism and politics...

Thomas

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Attachments:
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Preview of image 'object_test.png'

This is then a first version of a typical insula.

Thomas

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Download 'object_test.jpg' (79 KB)

Preview of image 'object_test.jpg'

Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> For those interested in ancient architecture.
>
> The elite of Gancaloon is living on the seaside part of town, and in a
> well-planned urban setting. Four urban villas are grouped in insulae
> which in turn form a chequerboard pattern, following the topography.
> Here is one of these insulae under construction (a latin name but the
> concept was already in use by the Greek; the Romans probably just copied
> it). Already during Greek times, individual housing was fairly
> conservative and subject to strict rules, reasons why I used classic
> house concepts around a peristyle courtyard and either involving a
> so-called megaron (see front-most villa) similar to Greek temples, or a
> looser collection of rooms served by corridors (so-called pasta-type).
>
> The image shows the villas in different stages of construction.
>
> It is ironic that the elite is living on the most exposed side of the
> city while the indigenous population lives on the best sheltered one.
> The hazards of urbanism and politics...
>
> Thomas

I'm liking these very much Thomas.  I can't wait to see these in place in the
city.

I actually have in my archives code I wrote to deploy random buildings across
blocks of a city-scape.  Each block could contain the same buildings, but they
would be rotated to show different facades to the camera giving them the
illusion of being unique.  The seeds kept each block fixed for different views.
If you develop a set of buildings you want to place randomly in your
city-blocks, I can send you the code.  The only catch I can remember is all the
buildings had to be a common dimension so that they easily could be placed in
the right place and the city blocks were rectangles or squares.

I also had one that was placing random "yard" objects in a more modern setting,
so you could have a yellow house, with a round pool and a swing.  The next one
might be a blue house with a dog-house and a swing... and so on.  Not sure that
would work too well in an ancient urban setting.

Robert.

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On 13-5-2012 0:53, Becraft, Robert wrote:
> I'm liking these very much Thomas.  I can't wait to see these in place in the
> city.

Thank you Robert :-)

I am working now on the street plan that has to follow the topography. I 
am writing a couple of macros that should help me with that.

>
> I actually have in my archives code I wrote to deploy random buildings across
> blocks of a city-scape.  Each block could contain the same buildings, but they
> would be rotated to show different facades to the camera giving them the
> illusion of being unique.  The seeds kept each block fixed for different views.
> If you develop a set of buildings you want to place randomly in your
> city-blocks, I can send you the code.  The only catch I can remember is all the
> buildings had to be a common dimension so that they easily could be placed in
> the right place and the city blocks were rectangles or squares.

At this moment I have four different villas that can be assembled in 
blocks. I wrote a randomization/mirroring macro which gives me 32 
different block patterns. I shall probably build a couple of additional 
villas time permitting. The advantage of these villas is that they all 
have the same basic dimensions (Greek were very strict with their 
urbanism rules)

>
> I also had one that was placing random "yard" objects in a more modern setting,
> so you could have a yellow house, with a round pool and a swing.  The next one
> might be a blue house with a dog-house and a swing... and so on.  Not sure that
> would work too well in an ancient urban setting.

It is fun writing those macros. I shall probably post them in a next 
version of the "Making of". Thanks for your offer; I think I can manage 
for now but if I come against a problem I shall appeal to you :-)

Thomas


>
> Robert.
>

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On 13-5-2012 9:23, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 13-5-2012 0:53, Becraft, Robert wrote:
>> I'm liking these very much Thomas. I can't wait to see these in place
>> in the
>> city.
>
> Thank you Robert :-)
>
> I am working now on the street plan that has to follow the topography. I
> am writing a couple of macros that should help me with that.
>

Well, as a first test of the macro and subsequent processing flow: 
POV-Ray>>Poseray>>Silo>>Poseray>>POV-Ray, the result looks very promising.

Thomas

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Attachments:
Download 'gancaloon.png' (350 KB)

Preview of image 'gancaloon.png'

Once the streets have been cobbled and the Master Architect has given 
his blessings, the so-called Greek Quarter Phase 1 has been built.

Several macros are involved in building a topography conforming street 
pattern and placing the urban villas in their respective insulae.

Thomas

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Preview of image 'gancaloon_greek quarter_01.png'

A better roof: a simple cells texture with colours taken from 
Mediterranean roof tiles.

Thomas

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Download 'gancaloon.png' (809 KB)

Preview of image 'gancaloon.png'

> A better roof: a simple cells texture with colours taken from
> Mediterranean roof tiles.
>
> Thomas

Little detail, great improvement.
For close ups, you can use the tileroof macro. Look for tileroof.inc




Alain

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On 19-5-2012 17:07, Alain wrote:

>> A better roof: a simple cells texture with colours taken from
>> Mediterranean roof tiles.
>>
>> Thomas
>
> Little detail, great improvement.
Yes, isn't it? :-)

> For close ups, you can use the tileroof macro. Look for tileroof.inc
Indeed, I have that one in my Treasure Chest, although I was not very 
enthusiastic about Gena's macro at the time, iirc. I have my own macro 
as well, but I shall certainly have to revisit that ancient one...

Thomas

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On 20-5-2012 8:47, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 19-5-2012 17:07, Alain wrote:
>> Little detail, great improvement.
> Yes, isn't it? :-)
>
>> For close ups, you can use the tileroof macro. Look for tileroof.inc
> Indeed, I have that one in my Treasure Chest, although I was not very
> enthusiastic about Gena's macro at the time, iirc. I have my own macro
> as well, but I shall certainly have to revisit that ancient one...
>

I don't know what is was that I did not like (or did not understand more 
probably) in the past, but revisiting the tileroof macros shows me that 
all is working well, except for one little glitch:

The depth of the tile surface is given by the float parameter d. 
However, inside both Roof2() and SaveRoof(), a #local d parameter is 
used as a vector. This can generate an error when d (depth) is used for 
translating the mesh. I changed #local d into #local d1 and all is well.

I also added a normal and a finish block to the macros, to be loaded 
from outside.

The image below shows a test result using Roof1() at left and on top, 
and Roof2() at right, and the texture I built previously for the 
Gancaloon villas.

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Preview of image 'object_test_tileroof.png'