New Fachwerks

I had hoped to have the new fachwerk textures uploaded, the structures built, and the center city zoned by the end of today but it took the entire day just to finish the textures and upload the files. I'll put together the fachwerks and zone the land over the next few days.

There are seven new fachwerks in total, including a new version of the original. They are all modifications of the original with either new colors, new textures, or both. There are a total of 105 targa files associated with the structures. At about 5 MB per texture, the total texture upload was a little over 500 MB.

It should help lend a lot of variety to the structures in the city.

~Ulrika~

I got home too late tonight to head back into the city. Tomorrow should be a little better for me. As a goal I'll try and put together all the fachwerks tomorrow and take a group picture of them to show you what I've been up to. I think you'll be pleased with the final result.

With the time I had today I worked on some wrought-iron sign, address, and street-sign textures to give the city a little character. I've attached a sample of the walled-city street signs to this post. Tonight I'll finish up by naming a few of the streets. If you have any particular street names you'd like, post them here with why you selected them and I'll add them to the map.

Also, I think we have our first new resident! He's looking things over right now and will probably select 2048 m^2 outside the city walls. I'll let you know, when it's official.

~Ulrika~

I couldn't resist. Here's a sneak peak at a small piece of one of the new fachwerk textures.

~Ulrika~

Ulrika, the wall texture is stunning! I wonder if it will look that good when in place in SL (after conversion to the resident format).

Regarding the street sign. The layout and appearance are certainly in keeping with the classic German public display of information, certainly "in-theme". But I for one find the classic German text extremely difficult to read (no doubt made worse by not knowing the language). Could you use a font perhaps which conveyed the sense of authenticity but also made the name itself a bit easier to read? The street sign is how most people will learn the names of streets (rather than by a map), and I fear that the names will never enter common usage if no one can read them.


Sudane

It won't but then again it will be 100 times smaller so folks won't have to wait 10 minutes for it to download.

Reading the Fraktur font does take a bit of practice. There is in fact another font that I want to use that Germans typically use for street signs. It's much easier to read. I'll see if I can track it down. If worse comes to worse, I'll just include the street name in the object, so one can see it's name using the mouse-over feature.

~Ulrika~

Our new Apple G5 showed up today, so the computers have been down on and off most of the afternoon and evening. I'll try and pop in to get some fachwerks built tomorrow. Also, I was just contacted by another interested party. I'll keep you informed as I hear more.

~Ulrika~

Awww Ulrika - these textures look awesome!

Hmm, half a Gigabyte of textures... I wonder how much time the sim will take to rez, hehe

Anyway, I found a link to a German nameplate. As you can see, in this case you have both the Fraktur font (for the street's old name) as well as a sans-serifed font - to my untrained eyes, my guess it's a compressed Optima font, although I'm certainly not an expert.

Also, I was talking to two interested parties in owning a share of Neualtenburg last night (Eugene was with me as well), after the Thinkers' meeting. Let's see if they contact you

stunning! I'm impressed!

Why thanks!

I have seven designs in total now. There are a couple that are quite nice, a large group that's an improvement on the current design, and one or two that are beloved ugly ducklings.

I'm debating how to lay them out though. Should have little quarters with a single theme (painted, stone, brick) or should I select a single dominant structure for a neighborhood and then randomly sprinkling in a few of the others. Hmm.

~Ulrika~

Don't worry about the texture size. LL's wavelet compression algorithm will squish them down by a factor of 100. I was just quoting the upload size of the uncompressed TGA files.

Thanks for the picture! That's the modern German street-sign font that I was trying to describe a few posts back. A couple of nights ago I found it along with several other "Autobahn" free fonts online, so we're set. I'm just hoping one of the fonts has the neat looking Berlin-style sharp-S (scharfes S or esset) -- it looks kind of like a cursive "z" instead of the typical "B" looking symbol.


Also, I wanted to let you all know that my time is getting pinched by a special project at work, family needs, and the arrival of our new computer. I'm hoping I can get in tonight to put up a couple of structures but I'm not certain. I've had two folks contact me concerning land, one just this morning. Because of this, I'll try and get a covenant and coop agreement form on the web as soon as possible. I'm hoping I'll have time to write it tomorrow.

~Ulrika~

Oh my I'm so tired. I finally rebuilt the original fachwerk from scratch, adding a scripted door with sound and an address sign. From there I textured the seven different fachwerks one at a time. If you'd like to see them in world they're set up in the north part of the walled city. I've cleared out a lot of structures so I can zone and move in the new buildings.

I'll probably be out of SL for the next few days. I have a bunch of work I had to bring home with me. Hopefully, I'll be able to return to zoning shortly.

~Ulrika~

I strolled around and in and out of these new buildings this morning. They are great.

I like the sense of variety, the very nice quality of the textures. I think I also just like the sense of newness, buildings going up, kind of a construction zone feel to the area. That is so much the sense of Neualtenburg right now! Newness and change and life! ... Sorry. just getting a bit worked up.

Could there be some alternate street fronts with shop windows, so that future owners could display and sell wares, as well as live in the buildings? Maybe the little swinging signs that stick out from the wall on iron frames. They might add a very classy touch?

Sudane

Yes. The textures can be swapped in and out rather easily by me. I just have to make a new image and then drag and drop the textures into place. We can offer that as a feature, generating new facades on demand.

I do have a wrought iron sign texture for signs which stick out perpendicularly from the face of a building. I'll offer that plus the fachwerk door as a free fully modifiable feature that individuals can install themselves. That way doors and signs are optional and customizable. It'll also keep me from having to install everyone by hand.

Note that every house has an address placard. I'm working on a map with street names and address now.

~Ulrika~

Whoa... classy... nice texturing, Ulrika! I'll have to see these in full, glorious 3D!