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3D Model Places / Re: Place List
« 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. 
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.
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.