Character

Since Dawntrail TM is quickly approaching us, I have decided to archive my housing designs on the rare occasion that the expansion might break something in the housing system, as well as to compare the impact that the updated graphics shaders will have on the house assets.

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I purchased my first house about half a year ago and had an absolute blast designing it. Since I was not very familiar with some advanced building techniques that some veteran players use, I decided my first attempt at decorating would be just with the basic techniques the game provides in its menus. I thought that way I would be able to get a feeling of how various pieces of furniture look and interact with each other, as well as testing how detailed you can get with the design considering current furniture quantity restrictions.

Even before I bought my first house, I was impressed by the inn rooms in Kugane. With their beautiful window that offers a view to a spacious courtyard, they always left an impression on me. They felt like a more interesting interior space than rooms in other cities that only had occluded windows. I always felt that the housing system was a bit lacking in the ability to provide players with nice views through the windows, where you could see landscapes, courtyards, or distant vistas into the rest of the residential area. Because of that, I was interested in creating an interior that felt less framed by four walls and more lively and open.

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After attempting a couple of designs with landscape views, I have decided to prioritize on creating an element of interest that played better to the current housing system limitations. I have decided to focus on creating a garden that would feel like it has natural light coming from the top of the roof, eliminating a need for a complex vista which I was not very proficient at creating. I found that the Skylight Chandelier provided a very natural-looking top-down light, together with the beautiful atmospheric effect of falling leaves and dust particles. It looked like a perfect fit to create a space that felt like it had an opening in the ceiling area thus bathing the living area with a feeling of nature and outdoors. I modeled some vegetation around the light fixture and enclosed it in a rectangle of four walls. Below I provide a quick explanation of the main design idea of the interior.

THE GARDEN HOUSE

Interior photos

The entire house is organized around a garden in the center of the property. Each portion of the divided space houses a different function. Players who enter the house find themselves in the main hallway. They are greeted by the view of the garden and a couple of armchairs to accommodate visitors. To the right, there is a wardrobe area, on the left the main space of the house unfolds into three main functions: kitchen, dining area, and the study area with a desk and a bookshelf. On the opposite side from the entrance, a bedroom zone is located with a foldable futon, and between the bedroom and wardrobe a bathroom with a toilet is situated. The placement of the garden ensures that all functions can be accessed while moving in a circle around it in any direction. They connect, offering spatial continuation from any part of the house.

Animated interior photos

That’s it for now. As soon as I get some free time I plan to post a similar entry about the apartment I showed in my previous post. I also want to try and maybe make an axonometric drawing of each of the designs that would be in scale. I feel like that would be a very cool way to show off the design outside of the game as well as have the data stored in case I would ever want to redo something from scratch (here’s me hoping that maybe in the future we can get more than one house per character ^-^).

Photos were taken with increased brightness and camera FOV via the Group Pose mode in the game.