Enclosed courtyard

[morcroft]

I'm thinking about modelling a 2-story building where the external door leads through a corridor directly to a very small enclosed courtyard, with rooms on all four sides and an upper floor balcony. Doors could then lead off that to actual living space - several dwellings for middle class or just one for upper.
I thought the courtyard itself would need to be an interior, so that it's possible to furnish it like an ordinary room rather than reaching in over the roof but before I start I want to check:

1. are there any problems with "Interiors as exteriors" - eg weather?
2. what city / architectural style would be most useful?

Also, have we any good fountain meshes? I think a fountain in a walled courtyard in an arid climate would be really atmospheric. It's quite a popular form in the Islamic world today, isn't it?

[Lady Nerevar]

depends on how its handled. if the interior contains only the courtyard, and there is no extreme weather (rain, snow, sandstorms), the "interior as exterior" should work fine. however, if you plan to attach the coutyard to the rest of the interior, faking the weather won't work very well, as it will be sunny or foggy inside the house as well as in the coutryard.

[morcroft]

I was thinking the "real" interior would be separate from the courtyard - linked only by load doors. I'd realised that "indoors" couldn't have "exterior" weather for exactly your reasons.
The "extreme weather" is more of an issue because the courtyard should reflect the weather in the main worldspace. Including rain etc.
Come to that, how are city worldspaces made to reflect the weather in the surrounding countryside?

[Ja-Kha'jay]

i think it has something to do with parent and child worldspaces, but i could be wrong on this. one thing i have notice however, by experimentation, if a worldspace is set to always rain, and another worldspace linking from it is set to always sunny, it generally merges fine, one weather pattern gradually giving rise to another whenever you've crossed the boundaries. i could be very wrong on this though, i have almost no experience with weather patterns, or even 'interior as exterior' cells. Good luck

[The Old Ye Bard]

There can be weather problems, and sometimes you'll notice them with interiors as exteriors in Oblivion, however scripting can fix this issue, by checking the type of weather in the outer worldspace, and on entering the interior you script it to change the weather to the type you just checked for, which is a decent enough fix, otherwise it's not the end of the world if the weather changes

[morcroft]

So have a script on the exterior load door to pick up the weather then another on the "interior" somewhere to match it up. Sounds reasonable.

So do you like the courtyard idea, and if so then which city / architecture style would it fit?

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by morcroft
So have a script on the exterior load door to pick up the weather then another on the "interior" somewhere to match it up. Sounds reasonable.

So do you like the courtyard idea, and if so then which city / architecture style would it fit?

Well currently Torval, Corinth and Senchal don't have architecture sets (though a Wall set to be used for all of them is in development, with each city having it's own unique towers), Senchal (and possibly the Torval architecture) set/s will be made by Ja-Kha'jay, so leaves you with Corinth (which is the most desert-like out of the three anyway in location).

All three of the cities will have similar architecture, given they are all 'Pellitine' cities (and the intention is for them all to have unique architecture, but if turns out to be too much work, then we'll just make the one and have variations upon it -but it's good to aim high!), Ja-Kha'jay has done these concepts for Senchal so far (1, 2) and I have also made this Plantation Farmhouse (which will be used in the area between Corinth, Torval and Senchal in the Topal Basin/Tenmar Forest, built on stilts as the area becomes flooded from Topal Bay, something the Sugarcane depends on).

Important things about Pelletine architecture are:
1) the door alcoves Ja-Kha'jay has designed in her Senchal architecture, and should be present with (most) pelletine architecture.
2) Flat roofs with raised edges, present in Ja-Kha'jay's concepts and on my Plantation Farmhouse, making them well suited for the roofs to be used as living areas.
3) Minarets, known as Fasiiri-ja-kha'jay in Ta'agra, which the Khajiit make a very lavish relaxing space, and is where they invite company and consume moonsugar (the Fasiiri-ja-kha'jay being symbolic to the Khajiiti, and enhances the affects of moonsugar), the Fasiiri-ja-kha'jay not being exclusive to Pelletine, but has a larger presence in the south than in the north (almost every house should have one, only the very poor wouldn't have one, and even then most of those would have a similar living space on their roof to accomodate).
4) Colour; Khajiit love colour, and can't get enough of it, so alot of their buildings are painted vibrantly and decorated likewise (such as with the use of prayer flags, tapestries, banners, lanterns, carvings, etc.

[morcroft]

OK - that helps generally, thanks, but using the roof for this design will be a problem if the courtyard is an interior worldspace. It needs a rudimentary layout to be visible from distant similarly to walled cities: all the detail is in the interior only. If you can get onto the roof then you'll be able to look - or even jump - down into the "wrong" courtyard.

I see the courtyard as an enclosing environment - it's more suitable for a culture of private spaces. I was also thinking the outside could be quite dull with the courtyard being brightly tiled. If the cats hang out on the roof then maybe this won't work for Pelletine architecture. Dune architecture's already defined, isn't it? What about Rimmen? That seems a bit of a blank canvas, apart from the "domes not towers" guideline.

Re colour: I see the point, but it could get garish without some sort of standard palette especially for house paint. Maybe define separate palettes for each city?

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by morcroft
OK - that helps generally, thanks, but using the roof for this design will be a problem if the courtyard is an interior worldspace. It needs a rudimentary layout to be visible from distant similarly to walled cities: all the detail is in the interior only. If you can get onto the roof then you'll be able to look - or even jump - down into the "wrong" courtyard.

I see the courtyard as an enclosing environment - it's more suitable for a culture of private spaces. I was also thinking the outside could be quite dull with the courtyard being brightly tiled. If the cats hang out on the roof then maybe this won't work for Pelletine architecture. Dune architecture's already defined, isn't it? What about Rimmen? That seems a bit of a blank canvas, apart from the "domes not towers" guideline.

Re colour: I see the point, but it could get garish without some sort of standard palette especially for house paint. Maybe define separate palettes for each city?

The roof doesn't have to be accesible with this building, just designed in a similar manner

[The Old Ye Bard]

Any progress?