Big updates these past few days as I’ve been prepping for another major test print of the Fort. This involved creating a reliable workflow to make sure that each floor could be turned into a nice, manifold (printable) model and then splitting it into parts without messing that up. Now I’m revisiting the dowels and holes that will help connect these separate parts together.
I’m getting really excited about this model because of how modular it can be. You’ll be able to connect any of the corners to each other so if you want a six floor fort or a dungeon below the fort then this is all doable. You’ll also be able to just use the short layers so if you are OK with forgoing the windows you can opt for a very compact design instead. As long as the same dowel positions are used between variants then it should connect with future layouts as well.
I think this structure also has a lot of potential for TTRPG wargames or skirmishes where each side has their own fort. The footprint of the structure is small enough that you could easily fit several of them on a table. When I get back to the full scale version it would work as a large scale battleground for many purposes.
What’s left with this project
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Finalizing the dowels / plugs (hopefully today)
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The fit on these between layers is already really good and I’ll work on the floor pins but I don’t think they’re critical
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Starting more test prints (hopefully today)
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Adjustments and sharing these files (Later this week? Next week?)
Note that I’m leaving out working doors and modular interior walls from this version. I’ll share those untextured upgrades when they’re done but the textured files will be a part of V2.
The Plan for V2
For V2 I’m going to rebuild the workflow for this project from the ground up again (this will be attempt 6 or 7 now). I want to be able to eliminate many of the manual / tedious steps involved in aligning things and managing parts. Right now these manual steps add extra points of failure and potential for mistakes.
Beyond the workflow changes I intend for the fort to be largely the same but with textures, more variants (modular interior walls, larger corners, square vs rounded etc…) and working doors. The initial version could include modular walls and working doors too but I see those parts as fairly complex side-quests that deserve my full attention – the nice part about this structure is that, as long as we keep the dowel positions the same, it can leverage those improvements down the road.
Outro
That’s it for now – thanks to all the new subscribers in the past few weeks. I really appreciate your attention even if it’s just to download a few of my Patreon Exclusive variants. I’ve been all consumed by this project but plan to make a few more exclusive models again soon!
If you like my modell work, this terrain work or projects like https://gmbuddy.com I would love if you subscribed to a paid tier. By supporting me you’ll be helping me to do this work full-time and you can also unlock access to my model files in a nicely organized Google Drive share. I’m also working away on adding pre-supported versions of ALL of my models so that will be an added benefit over the next while as well!