Medieval Chest Wip

[NP5]

@FedPete

@FedPete

I miss bevel here and there. Also, the rivets (nails?) are to equal (repetition), maybe rotate z-axis a bit.
Although I probable underestimate the craftsmanship of those days, I got the feeling it is too mechanical made. No imperfections, no sign of usage.
I know it is really hard to do and probable your entry is far from finished.
I like the tapestry, but also here I miss some depth.

Still a great piece of furniture! Lots of fun to go.

Well, it is pretty much all beveled that was one of the main things I had to do to it pre the collab use. It may just be they are small on a large object?

Yes, the nail heads are very much too perfect squashed hemispheres. I did nothing to them.
However, at the sort of distances, a full chest is ever likely to be used in any scene, you would not see any differences I have begun to think, after reading your comments. people making them would have been making them aiming to be the same. In hand made terms, not machine made modern production. However I have worked with a specialist hand cutlery forger, as in hammered out of a billet of metal. When you put his work side by side, let alone several inches apart, You would not easily see any differences in them. Blacksmiths would have very similar skills imo, especially back then.

Yes it is deliberately intended to be ‘new’. A minor irritant to me is how most portray ‘old stuff’ in their era of creation as though they were 600 years old and worn to bits in their time. Their hand making skills would be very good.
So it is low on damage, though the main wood texture does actually have a few scratches in it. My belief is it would have been made for a fairly rich person It had a lockplate on it, and an inner lockable box. I have not, yet I guess, made a lockplate, The original is ther but long unused , replaced with other metalwork. So I was at the time of starting this over a year ago or more, unsure as to whether such locks were also original. Seems quite possible.

I added a bone to open the lid with.
Played with the third strap on the lid with a little displacement, upped the polys. Ok not visible lol. Aiming for a residual hammered surface.

Big annoyance. Why the odd shadowing that is on the plain grey No material mesh and still affects the render? All normals are facing correctly, In some cases checked by verts scaled to axis 0 and are perfectly flat.

Open and underside views.

Reference pages.
Small New look reproduction

[FedPete]

The main problem lies by the viewer, like me. I’m brainwashed by Hollywood movies and TV-series. I’ve been trained to expect certain styles to be “authentic”, medieval. We all have this ‘pink’ glasses before our eyes I think. It is difficult to see things in their perspective.

But know it more than me, It is really hard to make things look realistic. It’s not only pixel perfect dimensions, but also about imperfections. Handcrafted objects aren’t perfect in the eyes of the viewer. A rocket engine is perfect because it is technology-driven, so perfect.

I know rivets look the same at a distance. but still, it is hand made …

@NP5

Big annoyance. Why the odd shadowing that is on the plain grey No material mesh and still affects the render? All normals are facing correctly, In some cases checked by verts scaled to axis 0 and are perfectly flat.

I recognize these artefacts… don’t know why?
Will this help?

[FedPete]

With bevel I mean or expected to see more of those natural imperfections.

[FedPete]

@NP5

Yes it is deliberately intended to be ‘new’. A minor irritant to me is how most portray ‘old stuff’ in their era of creation as though they were 600 years old and worn to bits in their time. Their hand making skills would be very good.

Some years ago, I was the webmaster for a 14th-century replica of a sailing ship called ‘Kogge’. There was always a discussion about realism and using the tools and workmanship of those days. They did a good job, but using a screw over a nail in some simple construct was an issue. But the base of the ship was made as they did in the old days.

Kamper Kogge in Harderwijk

Unfortunately, the website got worse since I am gone. No English or German information anymore. More a commercial approach … We aren’t even in the top 10 of search results anymore. But that is life …

[FedPete]

I like this rendered version better that the one on the challenge, not sure why (less flat …?).
Difficult to express in English.

Adding fabric texture to the floor?

I remembered now, that my mom had a Chest like this, to store blankets in. But it was newly built, but had more wood grain and cracks in the model. Wood always works and does not always fit exactly.

[NP5]

The whole when new they looked new and good, is a hard thing to get used to. I guess we are all brought up in the sea of media representations and presumptions. I recall thinking how ‘artificial’ a reconstruction of a room in Dover Castle looked. Yet now realise and accept they were right my assumptions were wrong. Rather like we think Roman statuary should be plain, when they actually painted them brightly.

I have tried with and without that normals auto smoothing, played with the angle none of it fixes it.

I have just now solved it, in that I have got rid of it. I marked sharp all the primary planes. It is still odd and while it got rid of it, it makes no sense to me, auto smooth usually works fine.

@FedPete

With bevel I mean or expected to see more of those natural imperfections.

Ah yes They are not the standard ‘bevel everything’ as nothing in life is the absolute perfection of 3d model geometry, but rather warping, misalignments, to inaccuracies. The lid you marked particularly obviously, is either the lid warping or he has not got the hinges on quite perfectly. And the foot to floor junction that would happen with both floor’s lack of perfect leveling and chest feet having minor inconsistencies.
This chest certainly could add in this layer of very tiny ‘warping’.

Interesting ship reconstruction, I have heard of a ‘Cog’ as a type of early ship, if they have plans, drawings, you could make it in Blender!

Nothing much changed in the render bar the camera angle and getting close up.

The flooring is medieval encaustic clay tiles. Medieval encaustic clay tiles I made them back when I did the chest, Some are copies of original patterns others I made up from alchemical symbols etc. I did a copy-paste of the chest into a new file and one ‘block’ came with it. But it has been low poly downgraded as originally it was related to the game assets linked duplicates old 2.7 section. The working originals I could dig out from early saves as they were all fully modeled to start with.