Today's Post is Rated D for Dwarf

  Over the summer I had taken the interest in Dwarf Fortress, an indie game that despite the use of ASCII-based graphics is incredibly deep. With experimenting in fortress designs (the game encourages players to design everything from water systems to complex traps and even optimise architectural layout for maximum production of goods) I got inspired to bring my designs to life in Maya.

  I thought it would be a good chance to try out Maya Light 2018 after concluding that if I want to go commercial with anything, I need a proper license to make a commercially viable model. There might be some omitted components such as the water channels that bring water into and out of the fort and the road entering the construct itself.

  Important areas like the workshops or the temples and taverns could also be designed. Because this involves Dwarves it's all a primarily-underground structure; so it will all be cavity spaces. Today alone, I've only laid out the outline and some basic elements for the main concourse. From this chamber can be found ramped passages to the different levels and thoroughfares into the various annex chambers like the workshop main floor or the dormitories.

  Dwarf Fortress's grids are vague in how much space they occupy (a rat and a bronze titan both occupy one square, but can't occupy the same square, which means that a hydra which is presumably the size of a small house can fit though a Dwarf-made door) but there is a guideline that each square can be extrapolated as a 2x3x2 metres in the XYZ orientations used in Maya. So for ease of design each square in Maya's grid will be imagined as two metres in length and height.

 The game is also interacted with in a top-down view so there is absolutely no information when it comes to ceilings. For this, I have full freedom to create anything form flat slab rooves, beams and vaulted ceilings which can also add depth and scale to the structure.

    Alongside this I got back into more building work, another palace layout that will be inspired by the style introduced by the French Second Empire such as angled rooves

  I might tone down this structure compared to the last attempt. Working on Four I've developed a new appreciation for spatial awareness and designing structures proportioned to fit the inhabitant from the start rather than halfway though.