Question Whateley Academy Layout/Map 3D

So I was doing my regular whateley inspection to see what was new and through my absent trains of thought remembered that there was a thread a while ago, before the forums were relocated, going into some detail on the needs of the 2nd generation cabal for an updated Whateley map (2nd gen era) along with some 3D renders of certain buildings for reference.

There was talk of potentially creating a 3D rendition of the campus and at the time I was considering jumping in to make something.
Which brings me to my point; Is there a canon map of the campus or enough material to create one from? I'd be pretty interested in doing some modelling of the buildings if I can get enough to recreate them from.

I only have this map I made some years ago: vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/crystalhall...st?cb=20130114152730

In Gen 2, we have defined the interior layouts of the cottages - traditional, Poe, Hawthorne, and also of Melville. Also I have the interior layout of Schuster Hall. So the 'traditional cottages' posted on the WIKI might give you a start.

elrodw wrote: In Gen 2, we have defined the interior layouts of the cottages - traditional, Poe, Hawthorne, and also of Melville. Also I have the interior layout of Schuster Hall. So the 'traditional cottages' posted on the WIKI might give you a start.

except Ayla had additions done to poe, so how will the old wiki layout for poe fit?

the interior layout, along with the description of the buildings from the original arrival stories will give a physical shape to each building.

Ayla's funding expansion of Poe from what I have read, Poe will be a capitol H in shape, with the original Poe being the cross piece of the H, containing mostly common areas, with the dorm rooms being in the new extensions.

Dawnfyre wrote:

elrodw wrote: In Gen 2, we have defined the interior layouts of the cottages - traditional, Poe, Hawthorne, and also of Melville. Also I have the interior layout of Schuster Hall. So the 'traditional cottages' posted on the WIKI might give you a start.

except Ayla had additions done to poe, so how will the old wiki layout for poe fit?

the interior layout, along with the description of the buildings from the original arrival stories will give a physical shape to each building.

Ayla's funding expansion of Poe from what I have read, Poe will be a capitol H in shape, with the original Poe being the cross piece of the H, containing mostly common areas, with the dorm rooms being in the new extensions.

Um, that's the set I designed that I was talking about. Sir Lee posted them on the Wiki. All of the legacy cottages will have that shape by Gen 2. And Hawthorne, though it has different interior layout, looks like a traditional cottage from the outside (new H-shape).

Traditional attic: (note the roofline is Mansard) attic
Traditional room floor (2 and 3): room floors
Traditional ground floor: ground floor
Traditional basement: basement

Note the tunnel entrance is in the sub-basement.

So I thought I'd do a small progress post. I started working on the ground floor of Poe cottage last night. It's quite weird actually constructing something like this as my mental image of Poe is quite different from the actual layout... Anyway, time to start making a rough first floor (second floor to you Americans ).

Okay, dang, that's awesome.

Thanks, I still have a lot to do though.

I'm waiting for the map of the tunnels.

It looks very good.

That's a good point... a tunnel map would be great

Valentine wrote: I'm waiting for the map of the tunnels.

It looks very good.

Trust me, you don't want to do that. A map of the tunnels would be far more trouble than it's worth, believe me.

And here's the first floor

venum4k wrote: So I thought I'd do a small progress post. I started working on the ground floor of Poe cottage last night. It's quite weird actually constructing something like this as my mental image of Poe is quite different from the actual layout... Anyway, time to start making a rough first floor (second floor to you Americans ).

Ahh... it's not surprising that your mental image of Poe is different from that layout, because as far as published stories go, that layout does not exist yet. The "current" Poe (pre-Summer 2007) is quite a bit smaller, is a single block (corresponding roughly to the bar of the "H" in the New Poe) and it doesn't have many of the amenities of the New Poe.

As for mapping the tunnels, at this moment I don't see much point to it. The Devisor Labs part of it is canonically a rabbit warren sort of thing, with all sorts of weird offshoots and parts that aren't even in the school's official maps

There might be SOME point to mapping the main tunnels -- the ones that link the buildings -- and some major features, such as exactly where are Arena '77, Arena '99, the hatch above Tiny Tim (where it was raised to the surface in Halloween) and the vehicle access to the Gearheads' garage (where they get their cars in, and where Ergonomic's BOLO went out). But those will have to wait until the two TINCCs decide to make an Official Campus Map.

As for the Devisor Labs themselves, I favor showing them in some undefined form -- sorta like that "cloud" graphic we IT people draw on diagrams to represent the Internet when explaining some network concepts to laypeople. Well, maybe a mess of spaghetti instead of a cloud... but you get the idea.

Also: when the time comes for applying textures, I believe that the exterior walls of Poe (and, in fact, most cottages -- Melville, being a modern-styled building, is the major exception -- and some of the campus buildings) are brick-clad. In Fall Term 2007 those walls will be pretty new and still ivy-free... well, unless some nature mage decides to help the ivy grow super-fast, so Poe might look suitably ivy-clad in a short time. But by 2nd Gen time that ivy covering will be a near certainty.

NeoMagus wrote:

Valentine wrote: I'm waiting for the map of the tunnels.

It looks very good.

Trust me, you don't want to do that. A map of the tunnels would be far more trouble than it's worth, believe me.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the tunnels are non-Euclidean

Here you go. The main and primary supplemental tunnel map. Main tunnels in blue.

venum4k wrote: That's a good point... a tunnel map would be great

Actively discouraged on campus. Legend is that a campus tunnel map, when drawn out, would be a summoning circle for something really hyper-horrible and nasty and powerful

E. E. Nalley wrote: Here you go. The main and primary supplemental tunnel map. Main tunnels in blue.

Better viewed with either quaaludes or acid.

elrodw wrote:

venum4k wrote: That's a good point... a tunnel map would be great

Actively discouraged on campus. Legend is that a campus tunnel map, when drawn out, would be a summoning circle for something really hyper-horrible and nasty and powerful

Well dang, I was trying to keep that bit quiet, Elrod. If I'd known it was meant to be common knowledge I'd have been glad to reveal that part of it.

Alright so I've got the floorplan of the attic more or less down, you can't see it in the image but the top surface is where the attic floor level would be. I'm going by the scale of the stairwell in terms of the width of the building at each level.

Also would something like this be a good reference for the roof shape?

Ib12us wrote:

E. E. Nalley wrote: Here you go. The main and primary supplemental tunnel map. Main tunnels in blue.

Better viewed with either quaaludes or acid.

That's Jackson Pollock's "Blue Poles" and we Australians own it and you can't have it back.

Alright, I've finished up the general attic shape and added a general roof shape, I'll probably start on stairs, windows and doorways next.

Edit: Did the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor. Is the layout alright?

Okay, things look good, but a couple of minor points. There are 2 student floors - as we call it, 2nd and 3rd floors. So we have
Ground floor - house parents, common rooms, Jr. High
2nd floor - Fresh, some Sophs
3rd floor - Possibly some Sophs, Jrs, possibly a few Srs.
Attic - Srs and VIPs (e.g. cottage fixer, etc)

I like how this is going

Yeah, I'd noticed how the room numbers jumped up are floors 2 and 3 identical in layout?

And two underground levels:
- Main basement (the one for which there is a floorplan)
- Subbasement -- very tiny, it's basically just the access to the Poe branch of the Hawthorne tunnel. There is no floorplan for it, but my guess is that it would be just a small area around the central staircase. It's probable that at least one of the elevators would go down to that level, too, in order for the tunnels to be handicapped-accessible .

(Although, if I were doing the structural design for the Poe upgrade, I would go ahead and design the foundations allowing for future expansion of the subbasement into a full level. Just in case they need more room in a few years, mind you...)

Yeah I should probably get round to the basement level, right now the ground floor stairs just go down into nothingness, on another note, the atrium looks pretty nice now imho:

floors 2 and 3 are identical. Hawthorne has the same structural outline, but the room layout is significantly different for obvious reasons.

I really like how this is coming along.

By the way, Elrod... any time you want me to start on the cleanup/coloring process for the other buildings, just send me the final files.

Sir Lee wrote: By the way, Elrod... any time you want me to start on the cleanup/coloring process for the other buildings, just send me the final files.

I'll get those out this afternoon. A little busy this morning with household projects and such.

Just wanted to say that the 3D render is looking AWESOME!!!

Thought I'd leave a little christmas present for people; More renders!
I've finished the central stairs on all levels and I've also finished all of the basement level doorways.
All of the ones with boring lighting were done in a crappier renderer (that's faster) cause I'm tired and want to sleep.

....nice.

What rendering program are you using?

Just out of curiosity does it make 3D model files that can be used in other programs, or does it all need to be created and rendered in the one program?

to make the architectural layouts in the first place, I used FloorPlan, which uses proprietary formats and thus the 3-D models are not exportable. It has its own render engine and it allows you a LITTLE flexibility with lights and it has a decent (but proprietary-formatted) library of textures. In short, it's good for cheap and dirty floor plan layouts.

If I weren't so busy writing stories, I would use Blender to do any 3-D layouts because it's free, and while the learning curve is a bit steep in places, it's damned good and well-supported, and it uses standard modeling formats. But that's me.

I've been using autodesk Maya for the modelling/rendering mostly cause I have the most experience in it. I can export files into things like .fbx and .obj

Thanks for that

All I know about 3D is its hard, I was just curious what people where using was all.

Alright, I have more questions about the layout.
What shape are the stairs in each corner of Poe? I've tested it with the main staircase shape but on certain levels it doesn't line up to the doors so I'm guessing some kind of quarter landing type stairs with maybe half landings at each floor?

Also, what kind of windows does Poe Cottage have?

edit:
I've also noticed that one of the wing advisor rooms has an en-suite bathroom thing on the plan, is this how all of the advisor rooms are supposed to be?

On the first one: probably.

On the second one: Yes, it is omitted from the other Wing Advisor rooms to make the drawings less cluttered (and because we are lazy).

Staircases in the corners have 2 flights between floors, with a rectangular landing at the door and at the outer wall.

the drawings get very unwieldy and slow when one puts in too much furniture and fixtures. You'll see the same thing on the penthouse floors in Melville - I did only one of them completely.

And what kind of windows does it have?
edit: Progress update!
Apologies for the yellow, blame the spoilers >:[

approximately 4' wide, 5' high, double-hung divided light window. I'd think each sash would be divided in two vertically and in 4 horizontally, giving the effect of 15" high by 12" wide individual panes in two sashes in the entire window. Does that make sense?

Wow! I spend just over a week away from home (with internet access provided only by my phone - so unsurprisingly didn't do much besides FB), then return to find this! Venum must have been rather bored over the festive period (to which we're all extremely grateful!)

It'll be really interesting to see what the model looks like once textures have been added, and for interior views, light sources approximating real world ones (probably fluorescent tubes almost everywhere with a handful of box standard incandescent bulbs here and there... unless LED 'bulbs' became mainstream in the Whateleyverse several years before ours, plus 'daylight' [or in 3D-land invisible lightboxes simulating daylight] streaming in through the windows).

Of course, you could cheat by only texturing the walls visible from wherever you placed the camera, and for the interior only texturing a sample room or two (to give something akin to the standard immaculate images you'd find in the prospectus - probably taken almost as soon as the paint had dried on the walls [and well before any students moved in!])

Yeah, I had some family/friends/new year/christmas/insert other event here stuff to do over the past week so I've only half-done the windows (or at least what I imagine them to look like from the description I was provided)

edit: I bet it's probably the mysterious lightboxes, pretty sure one of the whateley stories I read recently mentions a window screen thing

another edit, because I'm great like that: While I don't have an awful lot of experience texturing things, it's not hard to put textures on everything, in fact I've done a bit of experimenting with the model and porting it into the unreal engine where it works pretty well (collision, walking around, stuff like that)

edit mk3: I did a quick bit of work on a possible window design;

Thoughts would be appreciated as always

So I've had some college assignments lately and haven't really managed to get back to this, I thought I'd put the files up here if anyone wants to screw around/improve/whatever. Standard stuff applies (do whatever you want with it as long as you don't try to make money or something with it).
Main File in a .FBX format, this should be compatible with most 3D software.
Same file in .mb format (original project file)

First iteration of the windows if anyone's interested in that as well.
And this is the window .mb

Tell me if there are any problems with those files.