Tuesday 13 May 2008

3D-Game Realism. 01. Castles, fortifications, cities


Pic. Complicated Teutonic castle, 1584-1712, high tower – १८६८




Pic. 2 Semidecorative Spain castle

‘Pre-cannon’ and ‘cannon’ castles are absolutely different. But ‘pre-cannon’ castles are absolutely different too. Most value is defender forces (private, troop, order, empire) and attack forces (throng, nomads, regular army, ‘castle-hunter’ party). Many castles have no real but frightening, decorative or imposing purposes. Very many castles are built or rebuilt at XVIII -XX centuries as romantic imitations.



Pic. 3 Romantic French castle of XIX century


The castle evolution passes throughout prehistoric irregular shapes, living towers, right-angled shapes (most part of all world castles), and many-sided shapes with angled, then round towers. The last is much loved by the game-creators, cartoonists and Disney। As a rule the staircase round towers (2-3 m diameter) are mixed up with defense tower (5-6 m). The defense round towers often were flat-sided from yard. One of main reason of round towers is that angles of rectangle are vulnerable for the sap and earthquakes, so on the rocky base the rectangle towers are found more often.


Pic. 4 Snake Castle near Adana


Really a summit of ‘pre-cannon’ evolution may be considered last Crusader’s castles at the Near East. Mostly it is the complicated net of dam walls which to connect the rocks. 300 Europeans can keep it against 100.000 Arabs without problems.



Pic.5 Margab headquarters of the Hospitalers, was never taken by assault






Pic।6 Bruma Castle from ‘Oblivion’. Let’s see the difference!


Let’s see at the Bruma Castle from ‘Oblivion’. Too high walls and too thin round towers demonstrate the imposing castles of the middle of XVI century without real defense functions. The big quadrs of cutting rust, huge stairs and expensive decorative terrace correspond to very big rich city as Milan or Moscow with 30.000 – 100.000 populace. These castles and Bruma castle are the rare type that doesn’t use relief. Normally the inner high of wall is rather lower then outer high.





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