One of the things I thought that might be interesting in discussing the creation of the model is to show a sort of breakdown of how the model was built.  So I’ve taken screenshots from 3DS Max (the software I used to create the model), that shows the model as it moved through various stages of creation.

Building the Walls	Adding the South Gate	Adding the bend in the south wall
Adding buildings and bend in west wall	Creating the chapel and the north wall bend	Starting the Keep
Refining the Keep	Adding More Detail to the Keep	Further Refinements to the Keep
Adding Details to the East Buildings	More East Building Detail	Finishing the East Buildings

Once the modelling was complete, materials needed to be added to each object. This is where a lot of experimentation kicked in. In the two images below, you can see my first attempt at adding materials. While the roof material looks ok, you can see that the stone on the buildings isn’t right. Rather than looking like multiple stones forming the building, it looks like each building was carved from a single stone, which is obviously not right.

Distant view of first attempt at materials

Close up view of first attempt at materials.

As I continued to experiment, I started adding some general nature (such as grass) to the scene. You can also see in the close up view that the walls of the buildings now look like individual stones; however the material on the walls looks very displaced so that needed some additional tweaking.

Scene with grass and better building material

Close up of building showing better stone work. Note poor material on wall.

Finally, I added a hair and fur modifier to the grass to give it a more life-like look and feel. I also cleaned up the material on the walls to make it more uniform.

More realistic grass and uniform stone material

Close up showing more realistic grass and stone material

Coming Up Next . . .

Up next is the final post regarding modeling maynooth castle. This post will show screenshots of the final rendering as well as a working 3D model.