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Author Topic: Place List  (Read 26728 times)

Redrobes

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Place List
« on: February 23, 2013, 12:32:04 am »

A list compiled by Monks. I will try to maintain links to any threads about them and categorize them into items we have done, under construction and would like.

Would Like:
Roads: Great East road, Great North Rd (Greenway).
Isengard
Weathertop ruins.
Argonath
Bree
Doors of Moria. Although that would need a lake.
Rivendell- needs a valley
Hobbiton, or a hobbit hole
Green Dragon at Bywater
Crickhollow
Last Bridge- that needs a river.
The Forsaken Inn.
Tom Bombadil's House
Barrow downs - ie, tumuli
Edoras
Helm's Deep
Minas Tirith
Pelennor
Osgiliath
Harlond
Pelargir
Minas Ithil/ Minas Morgul
Erech Stone
Moria...haha,..yeh right...
Durin's Stair
Caras Galedhon in Lorien
Wellinghall Treebeard's home.
Quickbeam's House.
Derndingle.
Dol Guldur (dependent on time setting)
Amon Lhaw- near Rauros where Frodo flees Boromir
Morannon Gate
Isenmouthe
Barad Dur
The Carrock where Beorn lives
Lake Town- needs lake
Dale
Carn Dum
Thranduil's realm in Mirkwood.
Annuminas ruins
Site of the Troll camp in the Hobbit.
The Beacons of Gondor


Being Done:
Amon hen - By Vellum, Thread
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 03:19:27 pm by Redrobes »
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borosphere

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Re: Place List
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2013, 11:05:19 pm »

Can I just throw a handful of spanners in the works? Sorry about this...

Isengard: twice in the book it says that Orthanc did not look to be made by any craft. I assume this means it's just a pinnacle of rock, which saves a lot of work.

West door of Moria: there was no lake at this time.

Hobbiton: hobbits only moved to the Shire in TA1601 so not much there yet.

No Green Dragon I'm afraid. No Bywater. Or Crickhollow.

Edoras: nope, the Rohirrim hadn't arrived yet. Gondorian settlements and those Dunlander ancestors in the Westfarthing, probably.

Helm's Deep: not sure. The fort was there but how much of it is difficult to say. Gondorian construction.

Minas Tirith: nope. It was still called Minas Anor and the White Tower hadn't been built yet.

Osgiliath was still thriving, not ruined, although the King moved the centre of government to Minas Anor in 1640.

Minas Ithil: Aah! the Tower of the Moon! A wondrous sight, so I've heard. Still occupied by Gondor.

Moria: still a great dwarf kingdom. Knock yourselves out with that one.

Dol Guldur: ummm...not sure.

Amon Llaw: same as Amon Hen but with bats? :D

Morannon Gate: Sauron wasn't around then so may not have been there. Watch this space (or that space)

Barad Dur: nope, just the foundations.

The Carrock: not where Beorn lives, just an island hill in the Anduin. (Don't mention the river.)

Lake Town, Dale: needs more research.

No troll camp. Sorry.

No point in beacons; no Rohirrim to summon. Rats!

I'd add Cirith Ungol, much nicer than in the film, still occupied by Gondor.

Fornost, capital of Arthedain. Situated at the end of the Greenway, to the north of Bree.

Grey Havens and the three towers. The tallest tower had a palantir which only looked West to Eressëa. But that's a whole different project.

So.. yeah. I'll get off now shall I?
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monks

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Re: Place List
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2013, 11:20:49 pm »

Heh  ;) ...thanks for taking the time. Since this is isn't actually a game but a visualisation it doesn't really have to be consistent in that way. IT IS NOT A GAME. A modeller could simply model a location and showcase it in the Outerra Engine in the landscape. There could also be different versions of models and locations at different times or simply different models made by different people. Perfectly possible.

monks
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Redrobes

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Re: Place List
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2013, 02:32:44 pm »

The way I was thinking this would work is that we have a collection of optional places to put into the terrain (maybe several versions of the same place from different modellers or at different time points) and you can pick some or all of them as desired. I would think that the base terrain would have a setting date but in general most of it would not change too much in a limited time period.

This is a mighty good post tho and does highlight up that we must choose either a) we need to very specifically nail down the time and run it to that exact spec or b) have it more variable.

It would be very cool to have a listing of quotes, references and supporting information pointers listed against each of the places / items showing where in the books, atlases, letters etc that any shape information has come from. Kinda like the wikipedia insisting on their supporting background references even to things that are generally taken as fact.

I would be very keen to have the terrain in the style that Tolkien had imagined not so much what P.J and his films had imagined. Whilst I am sure they do match for much of the time I would like to have the references from the sources about such places without having to reread them over and over just to check. As Monks knows, I am an M.E klutz so I need all the help I can get.

I don't know what to think about Orthanc. If it was not made by craft maybe that means it was made using magical means instead of being made via worked stone. If instead it means it was a natural promontory then it would seem odd to call it a tower. But this is a very good discussion point.

So thanks borosphere, that was an extremely useful post.
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monks

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Re: Place List
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2013, 04:13:32 pm »

 I don't think it really matters that much. Just think of the project as a kind of sandbox for visualisation. So, my choice is with b. Or as a compromise choose two times, T.A 1600s and time of War of the Ring. I think that pretty much covers everything. T.A 1600s was chosen by default as that's the time that our role playing sources are set and for which we have architectural references. The other source is the P.J films, which are set in the time of the W.o.t.R. But, I think in most cases we could shift our choice to the latter of the two, as most of the buildings from T.A would still be preserved. So cheers borosphere for pointing those things out. Maybe we should go with the later date. Thinking about it...I don't think we have the same considerations that ICE had at all. They set their material in T.A 1640 for political and gameplay reasons. That time was chosen because it was in equilibirium but with enough antagonisms to make it interesting. At 1640, one could see the beginnings of the Shire with Hobbits in it. I think they thought that the time of the W.ot.R might be problemmatic for folks wanting more freedom exploring and making their mark on a more or less blank canvas. It would also perhaps be a little easier for beginning characters to survive in.
 So, I'm fine with moving the core focus to the much more dramatic time. But I'm also open to folks to creating stuff from other post Cataclysm times.

monks
« Last Edit: May 28, 2013, 11:25:13 am by monks »
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borosphere

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Re: Place List
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2013, 05:32:59 pm »

Hi again. Sorry for stirring things up, I was half joking really. Ho ho. hum. Anyway, some interesting ideas here. I would agree that the terrain has stayed much the same since the Second Age, maybe more forested before Men came along and started farming. Is it possible to have overlays of some sort such that users could pick a timescale and get the correct buildings? Or tag structures with a time period? Or even animate the whole thing in geological time. :D

I think the movie terrain is more or less accurate except for the obvious things like squashing the distance between Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith, stuff like that. Great for the filmic effect but not necessary.

As to a database of references for descriptions of places, an excellent idea as it will keep things consistent. Also some templates of building styles and methods. Obviously the forum is not the place for this, how would it be implemented?

Example-
Orthanc: Tolkien went through a few designs for Orthanc, all of which were very much tower-like so maybe you're right about it being built using 'magical' skills. Here's his final sketch from HoME Vol 8 (The War Of The Ring) which pretty much corresponds with descriptions in the text. Tolkien was notorious for changing his mind so who knows?


Here are the refs:
FOTR Book II Ch.2 Gandalf's description. "But Isengard is a circle of sheer rocks that enclose a valley as with a wall, and in the midst of that valley is a tower of stone called Orthanc... made by the Men of Numenor...yet it looks not to be a work of craft."

TTT Book I Chapters 8 and 10 have the best descriptions, and also the changes that Saruman made.
If you set up a database let me know and I'll start stuffing it. Page references are no good as everyone will have different editions, or none at all, so Volume, Book and Chapter are enough, perhaps paragraph which are separated by blank lines and seem to be consistent across editions. Although there are plenty of sites with descriptions of named places I don't know of any which focus on the architectural so it would be very useful.
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monks

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Re: Place List
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2013, 10:10:31 am »

Hey borosphere- nowt wrong with stirring things up every once in a while. It's very easy to overlook obvious things. And present company can only do so much!

 I had a dream last night and I had this huge black ring binder folder. In it was apparently the contents of this project. Then it was outside in the street on the road and I thought to myself hmm really should bring that in...then I saw the binder empty and I was walking past what looked like a school yard, and there were white pieces of paper everywhere, thw wind was blowing and ocassional pieces would float high in the air past me. Strangely however most of the pieces were all bundled in small stacks which I found could be scooped up intact. I figured it would take half an hour to gather them. That's when I woke up. LOL  ;D

 The overlays is a good idea. Skystrider (jeremey) is the person to speak to about that as he does the online map, but for its implementation it would need some..ermm...buildings. Things are a bit slow here at the moment but don't let that fool ya...we've had many periods of transition. I'm currently learning 3DS Max- hence why the next terrain release has been temporarily put on hold. I'll have the skills soon to start preparing the sites from map resources, and modelling buildings. The idea is to first block out really basic sites (probably via extrusion of a topo map in Max) and then folks will have a much better idea of what's needed.


 "As to a database of references for descriptions of places, an excellent idea as it will keep things consistent."

 I think Haerengil has a very good starting point for it. Maybe he'd be interested in helping us out, collating and curating this stuff?
 http://worlds.outercraft.com/forum/index.php/topic,20.msg98.html#new

 Building styles is an important one...I dismantled into architectural components a building model donated to us. I think the guy who modelled it based his MT on the films.

 Yes, I've got a couple of books on Tolkien's art. I don't have all of the HOME series though- I only bought 3 of them which I knew I needed for some reading into a subject I was doing. Vol 8 ordered now :-D There is another possibility for Orthanc. There's an article on the old me-dem boards but it's no longer accessable- but I can stll get to it from the admin login. Here's the entry:

Isengard and Orthanc

To the centre all the roads ran between their chains. There stood a tower of marvellous shape. It was fashioned by the builders of old, who smoothed the Ring of Isengard, and yet it seemed a thing not made by the craft of Men, but riven from the bones of the earth in the ancient torment of the hills. A peak and isle of rock it was. black and gleaming hard: four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns. their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives. Between them was a narrow space, and there upon a floor of polished stone, written with strange signs, a man might stand five hundred feet above the plain. This was Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, the name of which had (by design or chance) a twofold meaning; for in the Elvish speech orthanc signifies Mount Fang, but in the language of the Mark of old the Cunning Mind.

 The drawings which most closely resemble the final conception in the text are Isengard & Orthanc, plate 164, p 168 J.R.R Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. And of course the illustration on the dust jacket designs for The Two Towers.
  Isengard’s black rocks and topography suggest that it is a huge volcanic crater [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_crater]; Orthanc itself could have been an aiguille (a column of solidified felsic (felsic is a term used in geology to refer to silicate minerals, magmas, and rocks which are enriched in the lighter elements such as silica, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.) lava expelled from the vent [http://www.decadevolcano.net/photos/keywords/vent.htm]during the last eruptions) [http://www.terragalleria.com/mountain/mountain-image.alps3514.html]. This was found by the Numenoreans and shaped by hands or magic into the tower of Orthanc.

Tolkien’s description is reminiscent of  the volcanic spire produced during the eruption in the Etang Sec crater of Mont Pelee, [http://www.mount-pelee.com/index.php/content/view/22/30/1/2/lang,en/
]Martinique [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pelee]

In October [1902], a lava dome began to rise out of the crater floor. It grew for a solid year into a gigantic shaft in the form of an obelisk. It has been described by many as the most spectacular lava dome produced in historic times. It was 350 to 500 feet thick at its base and it soared to over 1000 feet above the base of the crater floor. It sometimes rose at a remarkable rate, up to 50 ft/day. The huge spine of lava became known as the "Tower of Pelée." At night the sides of this magnificent monolith was marked by traces of red incandescent cracks from the still hot lava in its interior.
At its maximum size, the Tower of Pelée was twice the height of the Washington Monument and equal in volume to the Great Pyramid (Cheops) of Egypt. It finally became unstable and collapsed into a pile of rubble in March 1903, after 11 months of growth. No geologist had ever witnessed the emergence of such an object before.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkx984yOFz1qzs3iqo1_500.jpg



Maybe the Numenoreans crafted Orthanc from what was already there....

monks
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Redrobes

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Re: Place List
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2013, 11:28:11 am »

This is all interesting stuff. With Orthanc a good discussion is probably needed and then either we get to some consensus or we produce a model per consensus group and you pick one. Personally I think it needs to be more than a totally natural spire. If a powerful wizard were to live in it then it would have been hollowed out inside which makes it likely that they would have fashioned the outside to some extent too. It may have started out as a natural feature tho.

I don't think were going to be able to get Outerra to phase through timelines of models so I think we have to get people to install the models they like from a collection / data base. Outerra's capabilities are not up to us MeDem-ers and I would imagine that a timeline feature would be extremely low on the feature priority for them.

What we really need is a wiki for the book references. However, whilst setting up a wiki is not a huge problem, allowing all members to edit it and yet at the same time only allow non certified knob ends to edit it is the problem. Its a huge moderation issue that you need an army of moderator bots and / or lots of willing volunteers to accomplish. So I think a wiki is out and that we have to do this by threads on this forums.

It would be good to have a map where we can do links to the threads of the place options being discussed / worked on. Ideally we could do with a rough 3D template model for every place and then more detailed versions could be picked up and worked on. The template should just set out the generally size and shape so we could fix up the base terrain so that when a high res model comes into being it has a place to sit on that makes it fit.

And yeah, I am also somewhat tied up at the mo and for some time I expect. I think we will get some discussion done over this week / next week reviewing what we have done and where its going. But we have had some long periods where not a lot gets done then it kicks off again for another bout of activity. We have likened this to climbing up some sheer face where we reach a plateau and have a push to get there then a long rest before setting off for the next one. My personal want for the next stage is for when Outerra gets programmable biomes since we have a lot of stuff done in that respect waiting for the 3D engine to make use of it. But Outerra can already do 3D models so its just up to any of us to make it and they could go in right now. I would like to see rough untextured models going in many places first before seeing one highly detailed model but I think we would take whatever we can get. But if I am going to do some modelling then I would start knocking out the rough ones and let people pick them up and improve them.

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monks

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« Last Edit: June 27, 2013, 01:16:18 pm by monks »
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jvangeld

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Re: Place List
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2013, 04:29:41 am »

Wait, you just put a model of Orthanc in Outerra, just like that?

Which brings us to the fact that most of the existing 3D models are based on PJ's world, rather than Tolkien's.  And I think that is okay.  At least for LotR.  Jury is still out on The Hobbit.  As long as we place the models where Tolkien would have placed them, it should be okay, and it will save us a ton of effort for now.  One of PJ's worst errors was making Middle Earth too small, but that is more of a plot-pacing error than a geographical one (http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-first-hobbit-film-some-thoughts.html)
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monks

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Re: Place List
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2013, 08:38:33 pm »

Yeh, really easy to do- with objects with less than 65K polys. Above that you have split your model in your 3D app- I'm not sure how do that yet.

monks
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PytonPago

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Re: Place List
« Reply #11 on: December 17, 2013, 07:25:46 am »

Yeh, really easy to do- with objects with less than 65K polys. Above that you have split your model in your 3D app- I'm not sure how do that yet.

monks

You can split a model into multiple "meshes" (hawing their own pivot points witch OT uses like bones in the engine if needed), witch can be parented into an hierarchy. Also to have the model rightly set for import - if it consists of multiple meshes, a clear mesh (whiteout any vertices) is used as a base-mesh carrying the name and bounding all other meshes together (so it should be as the starter point at the hierarchy of the model meshes).

« Last Edit: December 17, 2013, 07:30:41 am by PytonPago »
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We are still undeveloped as long as we don´t realize, that all our science is still descriptive, and than beyond that description lies a whole new world we just haven´t even started to fully understand.

Redrobes

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Re: Place List
« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2013, 01:45:50 pm »

Thanks thats good information. I havent tried to port any 3D object into Outerra yet but maybe one day ill have a go. My 3D modeller is also 64K point limited so I would not expect it to be able to handle more than this anyway.
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