The New Medieval Castle
OrangeFalcon
Posts: 208
Has anyone else gotten the new Castle set? I'm blown away by how gigantic and customizable it is! My only problem is I wish it had a preset load for an entire castle shape that we don't have to manually build. I'm working on making my own right now, has anyone else completed one yet?
Post edited by OrangeFalcon on
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Comments
What are the material zones like? Alchemist's work looks lovely, but I've held off on buying any of them because the textures don't match the aesthetic of my current project. I'd love to buy a few of them but I'd really need to swap the textures out.
Thanks for the kind comment, and I'm glad you like the set. I didn't include a complete castle build because the set is intended to let you design your own, based on the needs of your scene or set, and any one build will not suit every application. I did include some smaller set pieces to get you started, or for use in close up shots where only a wall section is required. But even there, these may or may not work for you. As a "Construction Set" you can completely customize as you wish, unlike many sets that have no customizable elements at all (i.e. Stonemason). I also have some additional components in the works (Gatehouse, Keep, Drawbridge, etc.), which will allow you to expand and develop your set even further. Happy building!
Nearly every surface has its own material zone, and all of them accept tiling textures (as it mentions in the product description). So you can easily swap out any surface for whatever textures you have. Just scale and offset them to fit your scene aesthetic. Further, all of the UV islands are arranged in a vertical orientation, with no wonky angled pieces, so any textures with grain or repeating patterns will load in a correct vertical/horizontal alignment. Hope that helps!
I love the set! Once I get it to how I want it, it'll show up in some amazing renders. And yes, the smaller set pieces definitely help.
Thank you - very helpful! Should've read the description
The castle and village sets will be in my cart very soon. Will you be doing more castle sets?
Yup, another reading blooper on my part. Looking forward to seeing the add-on sets.
Yes I will. I plan to build out a complete medieval castle, with keep, gatehouse, great hall, barracks, armory, blacksmith shop, etc. Also, I will be working on a set with crumbled and destroyed walls and roofs for battle scenes. Also note that all of these construction sets are built on a DAZ 10-meter grid scale system, so they are all interchangable and fit together. Stay tuned!
Love your work, and look forward to more!
@The_Alchemist, I bought your Medieval Castle Construction Kit - Walls and Towers, and was super excited to get going with it. I am hoping it is a DAZ corporate issue, but man, that installation is a MESS! Like, there's a folder in my root named \Subsets, or a large amount of other items loose in the root of \Architecture, etc. It would be SUPER AWESOME to have a root folder like \Architecture \Medieval Castle Construction Kit and inside that \Subsets \Lights \Materials etc. I deinstalled via DIM, deleted files and reinstalled but it was all still all over the place.
Just wanted to check if it was MEANT to be all over the place, or if it got mangled in packaging? If it is how you meant it, then I will reorganize everything for myself, otherwise will wait for an update.
Either way, AWESOME model!
I ran into a similar problem with another build-pack product from a different merchant on a different shop. In this case, it was a conversion of a Poser sci-fi build pack into a Daz Studio sci-fi build pack, but the different click-to-load parts of it were in folders splattered all over the map. I wound up manually moving all the relevant folders into a sub-folder of my own make, and have been happy with it ever since.
Fortunately, if the data files and the texture files are where they are supposed to be, Studio doesn't *care* where the thumbnails are or in what folders they are arranged in.
Yeah, that's on me, mainly. I generally put things into subfolders like you suggest, but DAZ requires things like lights and subsets to be in separate folder structures, so it ends up being a ton of sub-sub-folders spread out under multiple header folders. Materials are the only thing they usually want under a sub-folder. I almost never use Content Library anymore, so Smart Content is where I manage my library, and I always make my own custom metadata. But DAZ then makes their own .dsx for metadata and repackages up the installer, so we PA's have no real control on where things ultimately end up. Still, the physical folder structure is generally kept intact, so I'll be more diligent in future on how that gets handled. For this one, it won't likely get an update, since it doesn't technically effect the functionality. I appreciate your kind comments, however, and am glad you like the set.
That is very nice to hear, and it inspires me to keep working hard to improve with each release. This kind of feedback is invaluable to that end, so again, I greatly appreciate it. Would love to see your renders.
More construction kits forthcoming, but first I have to build a replica of Notre Dame for the summer Olympics!
I adjust Smart Content to my own needs too. Architecture that comes with pieces that can be mixed and matched with other kits I created a new sub-category for - Component Modular Parts as opposed to Building Components that are for bits for one buidling/room only. But some shader kits I have found are better using the Content Library for best usage. Smart Content just can't hack it.
I absolutely will buy your Notre Dame. One of my favorite memories of Paris in the early 1970s is sitting at a table along the Seine and while I ate, looking at Notre Dame in the afternoon and people watching. I was crushed when it burned down and have devoured every story/picture about its rebirth. Thank you for taking on this jewel.
Mary
Content management is definitley an ongoing issue in DAZ. Like you, I have created many custom Smart Content categories (and sub-sub-sub categories!) for organizing things the way I like. For shaders, I always assign them to my own personal categories and then save out the metadata to a new dsx so that it overwrites the DAZ created metadata. I also work offline and manually install all my files so my metadata doesn't get overwritten by an update. But I know most people obviously don't do any of this, so I need to be more mindful of the general end user experience!
Lucky you for having such lovely memories of Notre Dame! Ultimately, though, the fire was a fortuitous event, as the whole structure is getting a much-needed cleaning and resoration, so we will be able to see it much as it looked when first built, in all its shimmering glory. Like a trip back in time. Just an amazing masterwork of construction.
...that catches my attention.