The "Castle Tower Lupa" project explores the singular tower / keep castles during the 14th to 16th centuries. It explores both strategic defensive fortifications and aesthetic values fitting of a medieval feudal lord's residence and barracks. It places added emphasis on artisans' stone masonry and wood work in such settings. "Lupa," the castle tower's namesake, is Latin for "she-wolf," and is one of the many motifs within the project.
Key Features:
• 14th to 16th century architecture inspired design
• Castle defense elements- strategically placed archer slits, crenellated battlements, forebuilding balcony platform, overhanging murder hole structure, corner turrets and opposing gatehouse for flanking fire; curtain walls with a low front entrance gateway for obstructing the entrance of siege devices and horseback cavalry
• Ceilings- structural members exposed with decorative stone ceiling bosses (top floors); a mix of beam supported ceilings, hexagonal motives, wood panel, and stucco (lower floors)
• Chimneys- hexagonal with terra cotta terminations
• Columns- square and octagonal interior columns
• Doorways- stone arched openings, architrave frame and cornice with overhead panel openings, hanging lanterns at four exterior entrances
• Fireplaces- nine wall hearths with arch, flanked with columns supporting hoods; various geometric carving detail, three firedog styles, fire baskets, fire back, fender, fireplace tools, and log basket; three layered particle fire effect- fire, smoke, floating ember
• Fountain- octagonal formation, water jets emerging from the sides of shaft into basin, decorative wolf head spouts, decorative fleur de lis finial
• Gateway- battlemented mass with circular headed opening and adjacent utility building with corner turret supported upon corbels; piers in walls flanking opening
• Gables- end gables with emphasis at the base, following the roof rake; sculptural roof finials
• Plan- square shaped mass with a walled fore court in the entrant angle, five story main tower / keep, three story forebuilding, gatehouse with adjacent utility building
• Roofs- ridged/gabled, balconied, and conical elements
• Stairs- stairs radiating from a newel (interior), straight run (exterior)
• Wall treatments - three wolf gargoyles atop corbel platforms, corner buttresses with two to three levels of increasing mass, one vaulted bay side, quoins, exterior and interior corbels, twelve heraldry stone shields, interior crown molding (in five of eleven rooms)
• Windows- various architrave framed windows with overhead protecting motive
• Combination of mesh (polygonal) and prim (primitive shapes) modeling techniques (employed where most beneficial in visual impact and geometric / polygon count efficiency)
• Texture changing walls (in residential rooms) / 27 color variations - via owner wall-touch activated drop down menu
• Touch activated / night time activated lanterns, touch activated fireplaces
• Designed and built for realistic / normal human avatar scale (may not be compatible with over-sized human scale or over-sized furniture scale)
• Custom procedural textures
• Copyable
• 35m x 35m surface area
• 502 prims
See more pics at: http://v2.gryphonlairstudios.com/index.php/features/resources/castle-tower-lupa
*Special note: To economize on prim count / land impact, for efficient scripting functions between objects (i.e., texture changing, particle effects, lighting effects, and future 3E gaming elements), various models of this item are necessarily combined in an external 3d ap (or group linked) - resulting in a minimizing of prim counts, efficient scripting functions, and minimizing open channel chat communications (a contributor to sim "lag") with link set communications - all in all for the user's benefit. Contains link set child number script dependencies (this is not a builder kit) - thus is set to "no-mod" to prevent breakage of scripting functions and all other aforementioned integral design elements as well.
Best castle i have owned
The details are incredible in this castle. A nice scale where rooms ar enot huge and difficult to furnish. Every room has great details my favorites are the ceiling roses that are perfect to hang chandeliers from and the shield detailing in some of the room including the lowest floor ones. All the rooms have a lovely fireplace in that switches on and off and makes a great comfortable ambiance. I could go on for ages about how much i love this castle. The oonly thing i would love to see added is a basement adding to the bottom of the set of stairs that leads to nothing. Even if the basement is just a large open hall so i can fit a decent sized kitchen or ceromony hall in.
The little gatehouse is perfect as a guest room. This build really is impressive and worth the Lindens. Please if you ever add a basement let me know :-)
FANTASTIC BUILD!
This Castle Tower is a great build. The texturing is spot on, and the size is just right. I don't know why other reviewers have said the rooms are too small, because they're scaled perfectly for normal sized avatars. The proportions of the castle, rooms, doors, and windows are very realistic, and it's obvious a lot of thought and care went into this build! I usually never buy buildings sight unseen in SL, but I took a leap with this one, and I'm glad I did. Awesome build!
best castle i have found
this is so accurate, and despite other reviews i find it to be perfectly roomy, not massive like other spaces but this honestly makes it somewhat cozy. Plenty of rooms, nice little nooks and towers, can function for combat if you wish to use it for a combat sim, its an all around great castle. I wish it would have modify permissions but it gives you enough menu options that you can do without. All in all an A+ construction.
Lovely Design, could use some improvement
I found this piece to be very eye-catching at first glance. At the time, there was no way to see it in-world so I purchased it in blind faith. You should note that this build is smaller than it appears. It has many rooms and many doors, most of which appear to be bedrooms. They can easily fit a realistic-sized two person bed as well as a few smaller decorative pieces - but do not expect to pack it full as you would a grande castle. Below I will list a few pros and cons that I found, in the hopes of it assisting your decision, should you wish to purchase it.
Pros:
- Beautiful and Unique in design, clearly made with love.
- Does not feel too big or empty
- Could easily decorate it low prim and have it feel lived-in
- Texture change walls (you can also choose to have the room stone instead of a colored wall - huge plus for me!)
- Very nice walled courtyard with guard tower
- All doors lockable, lights set to day/night or touch
- Unlinked fireplaces, incase you dont want one or want to use your own.
- Info boxes in most of the rooms to help you figure out where you are.
Cons:
- While the build seems to have been made larger, I feel it is still a bit small, even in the main room(s?) Seems maybe only two people could comfortably walk/sit, interact without feeling a bit claustrophobic.
- Too many smaller rooms...would have been nice to have designated rooms to congregate other than the second floor main room. Dining room, kitchen, etc would have been nice, throne/ballroom, etc.
- The doors leading to the staircases are unnecessary imo, and only help to confuse those walking around. Easy fix though, just delete.
- Textures are glitchy in a few spots - assuming its an overlapping issue.
- Details such as the wolves, fireplaces etc seem to either me made of sculpt or mesh which was not textured in a way to maximize the level of detail.
Overall, glad I purchased it, but have yet to use due to layout. Price seems a bit high, ultimately.
wow fan boys aside
Its a neat build and great details unless you wanna live in it, and then there better not be much in the way of furniture. Unforunately you cant see it in world so you just have to take their word for it being very cool and it is ok if you want a battle field, kinda, but sucks for a house.. would have liked to have seen it in world first I would have passed on it.
OMG....Best Castle In SL I've Seen
At first rezz, I could not believe it and I was blown away. I have so many castles and I hate to compare (each have something nice and unique about them) but this one is the best one I have by far! It is not your typical castle lol.
For starters, the design of the buildings are just very pretty, eye-catching, and also unique, but I can tell they look like something in the real world. Not like the typical box-like, video game feeling, and awkward prim style common ones. It has an authentic medieval design about it. In walking around it, there are sooo many great details. There seems nothing generic about this castle. Wonderful wood details and stone details (mesh?). I find myself sitting in the courtyard most often, enjoying the view of the tower from there and I love the fountain! I like how the walls below give privacy but enough room for my garden also.
Anxious to decorate I walked inside and I was worried that it was going to be all brick inside, but the designer installed some nice colored walls in the small rooms and nice marble floor textures. The textures inside are both old feeling but not overly grungy or dark. Also, they seem neutral enough to let my furniture and wall items stand out and I just love the settings by the fire.
I absolutely love this castle for my sl home! Thank you Griffin Lair and hope to see more castles from you!
