Learn me something!

Cheathem

Hey polycount.Im currently working on some medieval buildings for an MMORPG,and ive encountered alot of problems that ive never really had to think about before today.And i find these problems very interesting.

So fisrt off,some things you probably dont need to know about me.

My (what i think is OCD) forces me to make a well thought through and developed plan for everything i want to approach,or else anxiety kicks in all hard core like.And what this means workflow wise is that i have to create a logical floor plan before i can even think about modeling a building.

And heres my problem.

I dont know a whole lot about the medieval way of living.which interferes with my creation of a logical floor plan.
Like for instance:Did they use out-houses or did they have some sort of indoor toilet? did they have kitchens or did they cook in the living room? did they even have a living room?

If you guys could sorta educate me on things like how the medieval people lived there life and how they went about building there houses,then that would be very much appreciated.

Thanks for reading guys,please reply

cholden

Buy a book, a whole bunch of them even. Years ago, I bought a book called Elements of Style (not that crappy one). This one shows all the doors, facilities, etc. dating back to medieval times to modern. Art history books are great too.

Kwramm

all depends how realistic you have to be - Most games are NOT realistic, especially since they offer much more space due to gameplay and camera needs. Real medieval cities and houses were very crowded. There were no standard door heights or any building regulations at all. People also tended to be smaller than contemporary folks.
That's why the ceilings are so low in some old houses - also easier to heat! Some houses (e.g. in Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria) had special sleeping floors, which were half height.

Heating was quite important. In the alps many farmer houses were later built around a great tiled stove, which was the best place in the house, since it was warm there.

Usually there was no sanitation. The gutter ran in the middle of the street (no cobbled streets like we see in all the games!). People wore special wooden shoes over their real shoes (like those japanese shoes with the little stilts) so they wouldn't have to step into the waste. Some buildings (which they unearthed in Estonia) had latrines which would be empties once a year and where the crap just composted. In castles the toilet was just a hole down the hill / into the river.

About city dwellings, they had some kitchen. On the countryside people often lived with animals in the same building and had a cooking place in the middle of the hut, with the roof open over it (I think that's about 1200 or close to that).

City houses were generally different from country hovels - also depends how far you want to go back in time. There's quite a difference between houses from e.g. 1500's to the ones around 800. Plus there's many local styles. E.g. old Edinburgh has a very different style from Strasbourg in France, which both boast an impressive late medieval old city. Also central European is different from northern European (you see a lot of brick there) and Italian (Venetian gothic style in the North / North east and then Renaissance)

So you want to settle on a time period and a geographic area. If you mix it all together, then who cares if it's accurate? It's still wrong Although mixing styles isn't as bad. Often buildings got extended upon time. That's why some castles are a crazy mix of styles, with many wings that have different floor heights, door widths, etc. They just got expanded every once in a while by their owners.

It would probably best to get some history / architecture books on the subject, but I found it hard to find books on the subject of regular buildings. Most books about medieval architecture deal with cathedrals.

Read up on styles like gothic and romanic so you don't mess up, if you have to target a special epoc.

Other option, like CD Project did, go on field trips (assuming you're in Europe).

Elements of Style, as mentioned is a good book.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-French-Farmhouse-Construction-Regional/dp/0789200376/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338434454&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: The French Farmhouse: Its History, Construction, and Regional Styles (9780789200372): Elsie Burch Donald: Books[/ame] - this one, while not historically accurate, is great for inspiration. It's meant as a preservation guide for house owners. Very well illustrated.

This is a comic, but the guy really did his research - he visited dozens of museums and towns to research his subject. The cool thing is that you can use this comic as visual reference http://www.amazon.com/Die-Gef%C3%A4hrten-D%C3%A4mmerung-Fest-Narren/dp/3868691464/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338434664&sr=1-16
(sorry no English edition, only French or German. Shame though, it's one of the best researched comics I know).

Cheathem

Wow,I find it amazing how misinformed people are about the medieval ages,myself included,due to games and film.I would say most peoples perception of the medieval era is widely based off of video games like skyrim.And the world was completely different in comparison.

Anyways,thanks for the info dude, really interesting stuff.And im gonna try to buy that book soon