Elvish Treehouse Proposal

[lurker]

Hello,

I have experimented with designs for elvish treehouses - and especially with a workflow for the "tree" part of the treehouses (more Gimp, less Inkscape). It is obviously work in progress, but I wanted to show what I have and solicit early comments.

I expect the progress to be slow though, since I have not much time at hand, so just moderate your expectations accordingly

elvish_treehoust_wip.png (132.47 KiB) Viewed 6788 times

Thanks

Lurker

[beetlenaut]

I'm seeing lots of brightly-colored cylinders, but I can't tell if they are intentional. At this point, it looks like a childrens' playground structure to me.

[lurker]

I'm seeing lots of brightly-colored cylinders, but I can't tell if they are intentional. At this point, it looks like a childrens' playground structure to me.

Brightly lit cylinders? There is only supposed to be one cylinder in the picture, and that is the least bright part. Anyway, in the meantime I have changed a few colors and added a few details, maybe the construction is easier to read now (left the gimp postprocessing out this time). If it is not, I will have to remove the veils on the right side.

elvish_treehoust_wip.png (39.24 KiB) Viewed 6685 times

[beetlenaut]

Ah. The details made it much easier to read. By "veil", do you mean something like an awning? That's the only part that I still find unclear.

[lurker]

Ah. The details made it much easier to read. By "veil", do you mean something like an awning? That's the only part that I still find unclear.

Awning, indeed, that's what I meant. In this case basically triangular pieces of a light cloth stretched between the trunk and the balustrade, for protection against the sun and as an ornament.

Edit:
One last try to save the awning (awnings?). Maybe the coloured spots they put on the platform were too saturated and made the thing hard to read. I removed all colours but yellow and reduced that to almost nothing.

elvish_treehoust_wip.png (39.92 KiB) Viewed 6656 times

[doofus-01]

For the awning, you may have trouble representing it with the wad of leaves in front like that. The front shadowed under-region of the overhang can't be seen, and you may need that at this scale. (Like how tiny faces need eyes or brows for you to tell what they are, if that makes what I mean clearer.)

[homunculus]

i have also been taking a stab at tree houses lately, so as the topic has come up now, i posted wip in art workshop
http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 98#p485698

i wonder if we are going to do this in parallel, or if there are any chances to find enough common ground so that the tree houses would hopefully be compatible with each other as, say, hanging versions and top of tree versions.

[lurker]

@homunculus: Sorry, i was not aware of your project. I like your big tree, btw, but think you should try to give it a third dimension: branches before and behind the trunk, not only on the sides. As far as the treehouses go, I think we have quite different concepts. Usually that is a good thing, both variants might go in, if good enough. So for the time being I will -slowly- go on with mine, unless and until someone cries halt.

@doofus: I cannot do away with the leaves. I need them for balance in two ways: The tree should stay symmetric, and they have to balance the architecture with enough nature so I really can call the whole a "treehouse".

Still working on the problem with the awning. Here I present three variants. The middle one has no special decoration on the right hand side (and I find it a bit dull), the right one has a much smaller awning (complete with shadow this time), the left one has some sort of lianas hanging around, not sure myself if I like them. Please tell me your thoughts.

elvish_treehoust_wip.png (61.35 KiB) Viewed 6324 times

Thanks

Lurker

[doofus-01]

@doofus: I cannot do away with the leaves. I need them for balance in two ways: The tree should stay symmetric, and they have to balance the architecture with enough nature so I really can call the whole a "treehouse".

Well, maybe you can move them lower?

Still working on the problem with the awning. Here I present three variants. The middle one has no special decoration on the right hand side (and I find it a bit dull), the right one has a much smaller awning (complete with shadow this time), the left one has some sort of lianas hanging around, not sure myself if I like them. Please tell me your thoughts.

I'd say the rightmost one looks best, though I'm still not sure I'd know what it was.

[homunculus]

as far as i understand, the cooperation possibilities with the tree houses depend on what are the key points that we want to draw.

i think your stairs and platforms look good and are not necessarily a contradiction.
but the house itself looks quite heavy, and if drawing the house more lightweight is not what you want to draw, then this will certainly create a split between our versions.

i had some thoughts that i could not find a place for in my own version, and i see the awning in your version and i think it could be a nice place for a spider web pattern to make it look less like a pie shop built to human standards.
of course, this might be a totally unsuitable suggestion for you.

[...]big tree, btw, but think you should try to give it a third dimension: branches before and behind the trunk, not only on the sides.[...]

as much as i would like to, the living version does not seem to have those branches.

[lurker]

as far as i understand, the cooperation possibilities with the tree houses depend on what are the key points that we want to draw.

I want to draw my thing. Since a polite "no" is not good enough for you, let me be more blunt: I do not see me paint your ideas and call that a "cooperation". Spider webs, indeed.

[...]

[...]big tree, btw, but think you should try to give it a third dimension: branches before and behind the trunk, not only on the sides.[...]

as much as i would like to, the living version does not seem to have those branches.

So what, you want to improve it, right? But that is off topic in this thread.

[Atz]

The tree itself looks odd to me. It appears to have exactly three huge, perfectly straight branches, which extend perfectly perpendicular to the trunk, with no sub-branches, and a big wad of green on the end of each. Also the trunk is telephone-pole straight, which is actually how some trees look, but coupled with the branches I think it makes everything too regular and thus gives a very unnatural impression. It just doesn't seem like a living, growing thing to me.

[lurker]

The tree itself looks odd to me. It appears to have exactly three huge, perfectly straight branches, which extend perfectly perpendicular to the trunk, with no sub-branches, and a big wad of green on the end of each. Also the trunk is telephone-pole straight, which is actually how some trees look, but coupled with the branches I think it makes everything too regular and thus gives a very unnatural impression. It just doesn't seem like a living, growing thing to me.

That is a good point. I have tried to make the branches less regular, and also split up the leaves in smaller chunks. This is how it looks now:

elvish_treehouse_wip.png (114.33 KiB) Viewed 6056 times

Unfortunately I have still not found out how to copy the exact look of the regular forest. Tips highly welcome

[eliddell]

That looks much better to me than the earlier iterations. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the difference between your leafy areas and those in the regular forest is mostly contrast--the regular forest seems to use more strong shadows, and maybe brighter highlights as well, to break up the green.

[lurker]

Progress. More contrast, mostly:

elvish_treehouse_wip.png (75.14 KiB) Viewed 5902 times