Logopolis & Castrovalva: Wandering the corridors of the TARDIS

[MttElby]

Although I will start "construction" at the cloister room and work out from there adding the corridors, Blender is frustrating, awkward software, so I'm starting with simple walls while I get the hang of things.

My standard units are going to be roundels (thankfully already thoroughly worked out in its own thread https://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=1032.105) and one step up, the 1800mm 12-roundel white flat that is the repainted one from the secondary console room. Thanks to Tony Farrell's amazing efforts and the detailed plans for the season 15 set that's also posted on this site I don't have to start from nothing. Having said that, there will be a fair bit of "eyeballing" as there aren't measurements for everything. This is why having a roundel as a calibrator is so useful.

Anyway, here's the first test render:

[MttElby]

Second test render, adding a few more roundel walls and a console room door.


Although I'm starting with Logopolis corridors, the eventual TARDIS will be immediately post-Castrovalva, so I did a Castrovalva-style console room door. The same will apply to the inner doors in the console room and the scanner. It's actually surprising how many set changes there are between Logopolis and Castrovalva once you start comparing them closely. Clearly, the Watcher got very busy during the time he had the TARDIS to himself!

[Rassilons Rod]

Looking great so far! Looking forward to seeing these pieces in situ

Have you had any luck with the ENORMOUS diameter "column" in Romana's room?

[MttElby]

Have you had any luck with the ENORMOUS diameter "column" in Romana's room?

Fortunately for my modelling skills, that curvy bit of column wall is one of the things that was removed when they made the Logopolis version of her room. Where it used to be (to the right of the door when viewed from outside the room) is just a plain old bit of wall:

[MttElby]

Update, now with the scanner, a generic interior door (Castrovalva-style), and one of the roundel walls with a half-roundel at the edge.

[MttElby]

And a few more doors....


Time to move on to the more challenging unique props and walls for the cloister room.

[MttElby]

A couple of "stonehenges" made from the cloister room walls.



There are two versions because I've been trying to decide if translucent roundels should be visible from both sides of a wall. This is an issue they didn't have to deal with in the show as you never got to see both sides, but you will in this. I think I'm leaning towards them not being visible on both sides in the cloister room walls, because they are thicker than a typical wall.

[MttElby]

Creating the weird plant pots that are embedded into the walls in the cloister room:



Despite the blurry source image, I think the model captures the effect.

[MttElby]

A quick check that things are looking OK in the rendered 3D view.
Here's the stone bench and one of the plant troughs:


And here's the scene it's roughly matched to:


I'm not sure the dimensions are quite right for the bench, but it's close enough for the moment. In the same way, it has carvings of leaves on it, but I'll only come back and attempt that once the whole room is assembled.

And if anyone is wondering if I'll be doing all the dangling ivy - definitely not! The way I see it, with three new companions, the fifth Dr got them pulling down ivy and cleaning up the cloister room generally, so mine will be a lot cleaner.

[MttElby]

A couple of pics of the finished cloister room:



"Finished" here means all the walls and props are in place, but obviously it's far from being the dimly lit, scuffed cloister room from the screen. I'll do some paving for the floor, but then move on to adding all the corridors around the room, before coming back to sort out the textures and lighting.

[MttElby]

After some bird's eye views, here's one at ground level:

And this is the behind-the-scenes photo reference:

[MttElby]

A little bit of progress on improving the lighting in the cloister room, which now has a corridor behind it.

And this is the view I'm comparing with:

[Rassilons Rod]

I'm not sure if the other ones are just poorer resolution, because they do look quite rounded over.

But this one looks more like a truncated pyramid shape to me. (Please exclude the crudeness of this diagram...)

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But this is coming on really well! I love the stone-brick texture you put on the arches in the cloisters!

[MttElby]

I'm not sure if the other ones are just poorer resolution, because they do look quite rounded over.

But this one looks more like a truncated pyramid shape to me. (Please exclude the crudeness of this diagram...)

   ___________
 /____________\
|_____________|

But this is coming on really well! I love the stone-brick texture you put on the arches in the cloisters!

I agree that the one Tegan's sitting on looks more angular on the corners. I've been assuming the two stone benches are identical, but that may not be valid. I only have the DVD for Logopolis, so I can't see the sculpting detail on the benches and window boxes well enough to confidently replicate them, but I do want them to look like carved stone rather than featureless plastic.

I got lucky with the brick texture on the arches, as it was the first one I found.

[MttElby]

Progress overview:

I've completed everything shown on the studio set plan now (walls are all in place for the cloister room and immediately surrounding corridors/rooms) and have started replicating the basic set unit across the rest of the map.