Castle turrets

I have some good looking castle turrets and they look cool but boy do they take up prims. Anyway of making turrets without all the prims.

going to other comp to post pics to thead....

---- ----
_| |__| |_ you know what I mean right ramparts et

The easiest way of making turrets without the prims would be to have a an alpha texture which has both wall and battlements on it.

Having recently obtained PSP8 and beginning to have some skill with it, I might be able to do that...I'll have a go.]
BWs Cali

One problem I can see with doing it with using an alpha texture is that the crenellation would not show properly across the top of the turret. Instead of seeing the crenellation gaps, it would be a solid structure.

-Ghoti

I agree. Even if you used two different textures you couldn't make this look right.

You have one side that faces outward, which has your _| |__| |_ texture with an alpha channel that adds transparency between rises. You would also apply this texture to the inner side.

Your second texture would be for the side that faces the sky. It would be a solid texture, with some clever shading to give it depth between the vertical rises. This probably gets into a realm where an artist would be very helpful, as adding perspective and shadow will require more than just a good software package.

The real problem is that the texture is still flat, as Ghoti mentioned, and will only look right from a 90 degree angle.

Your best bet is to find a way to reduce the prim count using more complex shapes. It would be helpful to know how many prims you are currently using for this task, so that we can determine if there is a prim-saving technique that would apply here.

How many rises per side of the turret, and how many prims does this require at present?

You could make a decent turret using only one prim for two rises. It's really only good for turrets up to about 10m diameter.

Make a cube and turn it on its side. Hollow the cube to about 70% - 80%
Cut the prim so that to remove equal amounts on both sides

You end up with soemthing like this:

|..|
|..|
~~

| and ~ are prim, the .s are the hollow. Now stretch it all the way out to make the mouth as wide as you need. Stretch or shrink the 'U' height to taste.


|.....|
~*~

Now duplicate this shape, and pivot it around the center (the * in this crappy diagram).
The edges of the 'U' (the sides we do not see here) form the rises, the space between will form the lower parts. This makes a sort of cup shape.

Make a big hollow cylinder and slide it over the lower part of this and it will be the lower part of the wall.

Place a flattened cylinder inside at a comfortable height for standing atop your new crenellated tower.

Does that make sense?

-Ghoti

Not sure - will follow instructions and see what happens.

Everyone about the alpha channel approach - it doesn't work as you all correctly stated

Gary

Thats a bad bad image - I see what is meant now by jpeg to jpeg conversions!

So here is another:

Here's pics of my example. 6 prims.

-Ghoti

As you can see I am having fun.

Only problem with using this method on square turrets is the texture mapping. I am gonna try again with texure stretchin off to see if this helps any way here is an ecample

As you can see I am having fun.

Only problem with using this method on square turrets is the texture mapping. I am gonna try again with texure stretchin off to see if this helps any way here is an ecample

Assume this thread closed - I have cracked it.

It only took 5, maybe six experts!

And now I have it LALALLAL! :0)