August/September 2017 Challenge: O'Gray's Pearls

[Mouse]

This has more Sketchup in it

I had a problem with the shadows. If I switch them off the lighting on the buildings is all wrong, so I have to import them. However, they are opaque and turn out as light grey patches on top of the grass. I solved that by adding the grass texture to the Sketchup ground and taking it out of the GIMP.

This is the GIMP file, where I'm pulling it all together. Its just too difficult doing the hedges in Sketchup, so they are pure GIMP

No WIP tag on this one because its only part of the map



(Notes scribbled on in white)

EDIT: big question in my mind as to whether this is enough farmland to feed the city. Considering scaling the city down quite a lot.

[Falconius]

Not sure why the city has a wall around it, they are in a closed environment aren't they? As for it's representation, that farmland would not be enough for the city depicted, but then again the city depicted city is over 5 miles wide which is a lot for 10,000 people without power or oil. I was considering it as more of a vignette of an area inside the sphere rather than a realistic depiction of everything inside. Realistically that population could easily fit within less than a 1 mile diameter. I obviously don't know, but I'd think 10 mile diameter of farms would be able to support a population that large, especially if they send hunting expeditions out through the Pearls.

[Mouse]

Thanks for the help Falconius

I think I have a basic scale problem here, and need to either shrink what I've got, or use the Urban theme map to make much larger city blocks than I have. Probably the second option of the two would be better, or the Urban theme pattern will not be so evident.

The diameter of the pearl keeps changing to suit what I think I have, which is another indication that I'm a bit unsure how to scale a city contained in a pearl.

There are walls because the portal prisoners are aware of the existence of interlopers - people and animals who seem to pass through the walls of the pearls as if they don't exist, and as if the landscape contained by the pearl is just a tiny part of a much larger world in which these interlopers live. I've written that the interlopers cannot see or hear the pearl prisoners, even though the pearl prisoners can see and hear them, but I think the story is changing in my mind so that they can, but only in a few of the pearls - Nexus being the only one where the interlopers are fully integrated with whatever dimensional shift is going on to cause the pearls to exist. That way there can even be trade between the pearl prisoners and the interlopers, although the Nexus council will be cautious about becoming too dependent on outside trade.

I can imagine a history where Nexus was once the focus of so much interloper fascination that it might have become more than just a little crowded with sight-seers, and the local government might have been forced to put some rather strict measures in place to limit the number of visitors to their limited domain. I also imagine that the social rules in Nexus are based on a powerful need to condition their children and newcomers who have arrived through the portals not to discuss the nature of their fate with any of the interlopers - to try and avoid drawing any more unwanted attention to the peculiar existence of Nexus.

The idea is still a bit woolly in my head because it hasn't had time to mature. Maybe the wall will still be there in the final version, maybe not. It depends on how the idea develops over the next few weeks

The rivers and roads leading in and out of the pearls are meant to be a clue to the fact that the landscape itself isn't limited by the bounding force field of the pearl. Everything but the prisoners can flow through the pearl unhindered, which is just as well really when you consider that the air would have run out by now if the pearl had been in existence for thousands of years.

[Falconius]

Hehe, yeah I was wondering about the river.

[Mouse]

Oh you wouldn't believe just how tempting it was to draw it spraying off into space from the wall of the pearl! But I just didn't have a logical source for the incoming water if I did it that way.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have an idea like this. Do you know if the pearl might be classified as a particular kind of thing in sci-fi technical terms?

I'm afraid most of my reading is biased towards fantasy, rather than pure sci-fi, so I'm a bit stupid about sci-fi terminology and what to call things.

[Falconius]

Sci-fi technical terms? You mean the stuff they totally make up ? Technobabel works according to how sciency you can make the word sound and how divorced from sense it actually is. So maybe intradimensular dynoglobules?

[Mouse]

ROFL!

Naming these things could be fun!

That's a really great start, Falconius. I'm chuckling away at this end so much that I can't come up with anything better right now, but I'll be back!

[Mouse]

I got the job after all!

However, that means I'm not really all that likely to be able to finish this map, though I will keep working on it, since there is now a novel developing in its wake. Anything I don't get done by the end of the challenge I'll just keep working on it when I can

[XCali]

I got the job after all!

However, that means I'm not really all that likely to be able to finish this map, though I will keep working on it, since there is now a novel developing in its wake. Anything I don't get done by the end of the challenge I'll just keep working on it when I can

Congrats Mouse! And goodluck!

[Bogie]

Congrats on the job Mouse, that's great news. I'm sure once you start to settle in you will find you have more free time than you expect.
Great looking map so far.