In this tutorial I will show you how to build a castle from scrap. This is part I will explain the basics to you and we will create the basic shape for our castle as well. In the following parts the castle will become a lot more detailed and we will add additional buildings and ornaments and so on.

But for now, let's get started!

First, we have to create the basic shape of our castle. Leave an area open in one wall for the gatehouse which we will add later.

QUESTION BY USER AMIRA:

To build the wall, I used the Mesh - Create Polygon tool, the wall was created but then couldnt build the basis for the pinnacles ? I have tried to select the face of the entire wall, Edit Mesh, Add divisions and then pull up (just like in the pinnacles of tower) but that did not work ? cCn you tell me where I am going wrong?

ANSWER BY LOLLYLAN:

In order to make it as clear as possible how to create the surrounding walls I have prepared this video for you. (My microphone is broken ATM so there is no sound, sorry) Doubleclick on the vid to watch it full screen.

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Now, by using Extrude from the Polygonal Modeling Shelf we create a little platform (see picture).

Now we extrude the basis for the pinnacles.

And now we create them. Just create a box that has got roughly the size you want it to have and place it at one end of the wall (where we will have the gatehouse later).

Now we use something called Duplicate Special from the Edit - menu. Do not click Duplicate Special but the little box next to it in order to open up the options window.

You will get something like this:

Just play around with the numbers and hit Apply and look what happens. You will figure out the options window quite quickly, I am sure (to undo something that went wrong just hit [Strg] + [Z])

Remember the Translate - value (in this case it?s 0.6), for you will need it again later.

Now create pinnacles all around the castle (you will have to rotate your pinnacles in the corners!) until you have them on every wall.

If your pinnacles look something like this on the corners, don?t worry, You won?t be able to see the corners later, anyway.

Now, just group everything you have done so far, put the whole group in one layer and make this Layer invisible.

QUESTION BY USER JESUS A:

How do I make the surrounding walls into a layer?

ANSWER BY LOLLYLAN:

actually, putting objects into a layer is fairly simple. Just select the objects that you want to put into the layer. Then go to the channel box (click the button on the top right of your screen, just below the Windows-[x]. A new panel on the right will pop up that has got 3 colored buttons in it, and possibly some information on the objects you selected. The colored button in the middle is the so called "Layer Editor". Click on it.

On the far right there will be a new colored button, a rectangle with a sun or something above it. Click this in order to create a new layer. With your objects selected hold down the right mouse button over the newly created layer, bring your coursor to "Add selected Objects" and youre done

Now we are going to create a tower. By just looking at the pictures you should be able to do what I did (I used Extrude all the time).

QUESTION BY USER AMIRA:

Started off with a polygon cube, extrude face with an offset, extrude face again to build the first cube, but then I am stuck. How do u build that middle dividers between each cube and the other ? I tried to extrude and use the offset but still cant get the middle dividers, do u extrude inwards or outwards?

ANSWER BY LOLLYLAN:

In order to make it as clear as possible how to create the tower and the dividers I have prepared this video for you. (My microphone is broken ATM so there is no sound, sorry) Doubleclick on the vid to watch it full screen.

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We could stop here, but as I want the scene to be very detailed when we are going to be finished I am going to add a hole in the top of the castle for an access, which we are going to create later.

Now, we of course want pinnacles on our tower as well, so we select the faces on the very top.

Now go to (in the Polygons menu) Edit Mesh -> Add Divisions and open up the Options Window for this one as well, just as you did with Duplicate Special a few minutes ago.

You should play around with this window, too, to see what every option does. These values worked for me:

Now select the faces you want to turn into pinnacles and extrude them.

If you think your pinnacles are too thin, just select the outer faces and scale them out and then the inner faces and scale them in.

Now we are going to create the stairs. Just create a box and now move the pivot to one end of it by hitting [Insert] on your keyboard (the arrowheads should disappear), then moving it and then hitting [Insert] again (The arrowheads should reappear).

Now move it into place.

We are going to use Duplicate Special again, but this time we will not only translate the box in negative y-value (the ?0.14), but each duplicat will be rotated by -10 degrees (again, just fiddle with the values until you have got what you want!)

The result should look like this:

Make the basic structures visible again now. You will see, that your tower is not the right size, so just scale and position it until you like the result.

The next few steps are optional. I would like to create doors in the tower in order to make people able to access it. I use the two faces I would like to have doors in:

Now I add Divisions?

? and get something like this:

Move the central faces like I did.

And then extrude them inwards like this:

If we look closely at the entrances now (I deleted the two faces that were not permitting access) we can see, that the stairs we created earlier end somewhere in the air.

We simply do exactly what we did before (Duplicate Special) and now they end on the actual floor.

Now, group everything that belongs to the tower into one group if you haven?t done so yet, duplicate this group three times and move the new towers to the other corners of your castle (don?t forget to rotate them!)

Add everything to the layer you created earlier and make it invisible. Now we are going to create the gatehouse. First, create something like this:

Create another block now, a little longer than your gatehouse is wide.

Move one border a little (see picture)

Now move the block into the gatehouse and bring it?s pivot to the center of your scene.

Duplicate the block just as I did (the values might be slightly different)

And now duplicate your block like this (if you look at the result you will understand what I mean):

Your gatehouse should now look like this:

Select everything now and duplicate is. Now scale it (in my case in Z) by -1, and you should see this:

Move your newly duplicated half of the gatehouse closer to the original one and the result should be something like this:

Make everything visible again and scale your gatehouse (you should have created a group for the gatehouse!) until it fits into your scene.

QUESTION BY USER JOOST:

I have build the gate but now i dont know how to get the duplicated part attached to the original part?I tried to use the different merge tools but failed. What am I doing wrong?

ANSWER BY LOLLYLAN

Basically there are two answers to your question:

1. You simply don't. If you named your blocks and other parts properly, there is no need to combine them. If you want to texture them later you can simply select the parts from the Outliner and apply the shader to the selection.
2. If you really want to have them as one you have actually two options:
   • Group them by selecting the objects and hitting [CONTROL] + [G]. You'll see a group in your Outliner now with which you can select all the parts at once, or, if you want to cange only one or two of the group's "members" you can still do so (hit the little + next to the groupname in the outliner and the members will appear).
   • If you really want to have the parts as one object, merging them won't help you. Merging creates one object, but the new object has to be build like an ordinary polygonal object, so you end up with a usually rather bad result and not what you're looking for, meaning the geometry has changed. You can, however, COMBINE the meshes (in the Polygons menu [Mesh]->[Combine]. You'll end up with one object, and if you click anywhere on it you'll automatically select the rest of the object as well. The big advantage of this is, that your geometry stays the same, but you have got all the advantages of one single object such as scaling, rotating and texturing.

Now add pinnacles to it just as you did before and the result should be something like this:

Not bad, eh? We will add further detail in part 2!

This is, what our scene should look like:

Now that we have got our gatehouse it is about time to create a gate for it. In order to do so we just create a Polygon box and scale and move it until we like the position. It is also advisable, if you want to animate the scene later, to move the pivot as shown in the picture below, but if you don?t want to animate your scene this doesn?t change anything.

Now we need a chain for our gate. I created mine by just duplicating scaled toruses. I also added small boxes in order to connect the bridge with the chain.

I made a mistake here, form y bridge was to high and to far away, but I fixed that by just moving it and then rotating and scaling the chain (it?s advisable to group the chain before you do that!).

Once the repair was done I duplicated the whole chain once fort he other side oft he bridge.

Now we are going to create the actual gate. I recreated the one we have at the castle here in my hometown which mainly consists of coppery spikes. I created tubes first, and then created the spike at the lower end by extruding the faces on the bottom and scaling them in. Then I used ?Merge to Center? for the Vertices on the very end of the spike in order to get a clean mesh:

I duplicated the one spike (Duplicate Special) and got this as a result:

Now just add the horizontal bars, and the result looks rather convincing:

Well, it?s about time to create a few surroundings. As those surroundings should look smooth and natural it?s no good to work with Polygons but I created a Nurbs-plane instead:

Now just add a few UV-patches:

And now use the Sculpt Geometry Tool to create the moat and voila, the basic surroundings are done.

This concludes the second part. In the third part we will create the keep inside our fortress?s walls.

In this scene we are going to use the scene we created in part 2. If you skipped the tutorials so far you can download the scene from the downloadssection. The scene should look like this:

We are going to hide everything for now. Create a house similar to mine (just start with a flat box and extrude and scale).

Now select the walls (not the separaters we included for decorative purposes) and click on the Options Box next to Add Divisions in Edit Mesh in the Polygonal Menu.

These settings worked form e, you might have to exchange the U and the V value.

This is what your house should look like adter you added the divisions:

Now select and move edges until your mesh looks like this:

Now select the faces I selected?

?and extrude them inwards. You can delete the faces now, but you don?t have to, it only saves you rendering power?

Now we are going to make the roof look a little more detailed., meaning we are going to add framework. But first we are going to extrude the face that will hold our framework twice, the first time we will scale it in a bit to give us a border, and the second time we will move the face inwards, so we get this result:

You can ad das much framework as you want, just create poligonal boxes and scale and move them in the desired was. Duplicate what you did and move it to the other side of the house as well.

Now we are going to create the windows. Just follow the pictures and you will get it, I am sure ;-)

Now move the window into position and scale is.

Now we are going to create window blinds. First create the bolts that are going to hold the blinds:

Then create a box roughly the length of half a window and rotate it slightly:

Now duplicate this box a few times (Duplicate Special!)

The result should look like this:

I would advice creating a group for the blinds (not the bolts) and move the pivot to the outer side so you can rotate the whole blind easily. Now duplicate the blind and the bolts and scale the new blinds and bolts by -1 (try and error ;-) )

Now that your first window is complete you can duplicate it? For you will probably have to rescale it in width for the other walls. Equip every space with one of your windows and rotate the blinds for each window a bit to make the house look more realistic.

Now create a box INSIDE your keep. On this box we will later put a reflective material (this will be the glass)

Now make your castle visible again. Your keep is very likely not the right size, so just scale it until it fits (good thing you turned the house into a group, eh? ;-) )

This concludes the third part. In the fourth part we will add further detail to our castle

This is the fourth part of the tutorial. If you skipped the previous three you can download the scene file for this tutorial in the downloads section.

First, we are going to create a well. So let?s start by creating a box.

Now we are going to bevel our object, making it ?rounder?. Click under Edit Mesh on the options box next to Bevel. I used these settings, you may have to change the Width:

Now move the pivot of your Box to where you want the centre of the well to be. The box is going to be one stone, just look at the following pictures and you will manage, I am sure :o)

Now that we have the basic structure of the well duplicate is several times and rotate it slightly. The result should look like this:

Now scale it, so it fits into your scene.

Add two identical cylinders at opposite ends of your well?

? and create a roof similar tot he one you created fort he house, just without the house beneath is ;o)

Now create something like this, also from a cylinder:

And rotate it. It looks best, if the object is not rotated perfectly, for this gives the well a real appearance, for nothing in this world is perfect, eh?

Add further detail?

I duplicated the keep, thus filling more oft he castle?s inner yard.

Now, we are going to create a shed. Just look at the pictures!

Always rotate the boxes a little for a shed is rarely perfect and more often a bit tilted.

Randomize the boards maybe a bit more

And voila, this is your castle! Not too crowded but not too emty either!

I quickly put on some textures and did a flythrough render oft he whole scene, please note that this is very bad texturing and lightning, so if you spend some time on that you may get a really cool scene?

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