The next thing to add was roof flashing. It’s been on my to-do list for ages. (Not sure why I haven’t just been adding it as I go…) It’s not very glamorous work – no one looks at a render and goes, “Oooh, look at that beautiful roof flashing!” – but the model just doesn’t look quite right without it. Here’s what I’m talking about, as I started to add it:
There are ways of doing this kind of thing automatically, but I wanted it to look a little imperfect, so I used Blender’s “Snap to Face” functionality and drew it all in manually.
Here are the SS and POA models with all the flashing added:
(If you want to see the flashing itself, I’d recommend right-clicking to open the images in new tabs so you can view the full resolution.)
It feels like time to work on the COS version of the castle, doesn’t it? In almost every way, it’s just an intermediate step between SS and POA, so I figured it shouldn’t be too hard. Everything south of the ravine is identical to SS, although the real miniature did receive some touchups. It’s the north side that changes.
After mashing together the appropriate elements from the SS and POA castles, I proceeded to create the new training grounds, with their relatively flat lawns that existed only in this film:
I really like this version of the castle. Here’s the above render’s isolated mist pass, too, just because it looks cool:
But there’s one major element missing: the Whomping Willow! That’ll likely be the topic of my next post.
By the way, the original quad continues to vex. Deeply. I’ve really been enjoying the discussions in the comments about the cloister. It’s led me to a very divisive debate (in my own head) about whether its design owes more to Gloucester Cathedral or Lacock Abbey. I was pretty confident in the answer being Gloucester…but now I’m really profoundly split.
Reasons to think it’s Gloucester:
- The whole courtyard is labeled “Gloucester” in the later films’ floor plans (after the removal of the cloister in question).
- The quad building has Gloucester-style windows on south outer façade, and they almost had them at the same level on the west façade as well. All of these are around the same level as the cloister.
- The paths and fountain aren’t an exact match to any location I’ve found, but they’re a lot closer to Gloucester than to Lacock.
- The Lacock courtyard is never really seen in the films; the Gloucester courtyard is, if only very briefly.
Reasons to think it’s Lacock:
- I thought all the films’ floor plans labeled the courtyard “Gloucester,” but I realized that what I’m reading on the early plans is just the word “cloisters.”
- There’s a floor plan from the first film that shows the way some sets and real-world locations fit together in the filmmakers’ imaginations. It is substantially different from the layout of the miniature, but the Lacock Abbey courtyard and cloister are placed right next to the grand staircase.
- From the overhead shot in COS, it looks like the cloister is rather tall, with a blank stretch of wall above the tracery. Lacock’s cloister has a similar design; Gloucester’s doesn’t.
- Lacock is a closer match to the size of the quad.
Soooooo…yeah, I’m pretty split. For now, I’ve added the blank bit of wall and raised the cloister roof accordingly, but I haven’t changed the tracery to match Lacock. I’m waiting till I (hopefully) find some more reference material.
Anyway, be sure to “follow” so you can be notified when I post the Whomping Willow!
Hogwarts 4D 
Oh my, Hogwarts is flashing us! 😛
I still wonder if the little moat/ditch from Alnwick is worth adding some time – so many divergences between the scenes and the model.
I think broadly speaking the Chamber of Secrets version is my favourite, though I do love a lot of the elements from other films like the viaduct courtyard and the clock tower.
I’ll be pretty funny if the answer to the quad conundrum turns out to be the first instance of repeating Durham tracery that got spammed in later films’ courtyard. Looking forward to if any more material turns up though!
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Haha! Yeah, I’m still debating the moat. Tough decision.
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My take is that whatever appears in the film most consistently is the “official” version in my head. So the moat indentation would be what I’d go with. I don’t believe the moat area of the model was ever shown on film, but the real location definitely was.
For the same reason, the Oxford middle courtyard is what I prefer for GOF because it’s shown more, although I know that the miniature and CG model in the same film didn’t portray that.
Regardless, I know you basically have a model-first policy for this project.
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I can totally appreciate that approach, and it definitely influences my decision-making at times. But I find the background in that scene to be of limited usefulness – a lot of it uses the version of the training grounds tower from the first film for some reason!
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In fairness the moat is there in the frst film too in some outer courtyard scenes thanks to being part of the physical location.
Integrating the moat and path around it into the PS version is pretty easy since it can just go around to the wall that bisects the training grounds and then have the path right-angle to follow that wall to the setps, like in the actual Alnwick location.
Into CoS is a bit trickier and I’ve been pondering the how for some time. The moat I figure can be merged around into the grassy dip around the back sie of the TGT that’s there in the physical location and present in the flying lesson (though obviously before the bisecting wall was removed). The path is the issue since it no longer has anywhere to go. It could continue to merge into the larger snake-like path from the DADA tower to the Barbican, which is somewhat supported by some concept art, but that’s shakey. Alternatively it could simply remain as above from the PS version, just without the wall and bisecting the grounds by itself.
Lots of possibilities! My own map version has me thinking a lot about how to resolve them – similarly I’ve been trying to see if it’s possible to work the Alnwick outer courtyard’s building line in instead of the model’s much more square setup the model goes for.
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When you say they almost added Gloucester windows to the east facade…what would that have looked like? Are you referencing an early design concept?
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Oops, that’s a typo. I’ll fix it. It’s supposed to say west. There’s a work-in-progress shot of the miniature on one of the DVDs that shows Gloucester-style windows along the west terrace.
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Ah that makes more sense. I got excited for a second!
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Never seen that – got it to hand? Always good to see more shots.
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I never noticed on that one! It’s like the Quad front stairs, just never noticed! Thanks for pointing it out!
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I love these updates. The teasers for the next post at the end are great, too. Gets me excited for the next one.
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These posts are literally the reason I wake up every morning. Anyways, have you already posted a perspectiveless birds-eye view of the quad? If you haven’t, would you be so kind as to include one in your next post? I’d love to see one.
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Awww…I hope this year brings more reasons to wake up, but in the meantime, I’m glad I can at least provide one! And no, I haven’t posted a plan view of the quad yet – but stay tuned. 🙂
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Might share my own WIP version of the Quad part of the map for contrast. I’ve been meaning to adjust stuff in it since it was made before I realised about the sunken floor, but the novelty should be interesting if nothing else before it’s inevitably heavily modified again.
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Please do! I’d like to see it.
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Bit late to the party but thought I’d share anyway. I think the quad courtyard would be lacock simply because the number of cloister windows on the model from the overhead shot in cos is six. Lacock abbey also has six cloister windows on each side. Perhaps the reason it looks tall is because they may have made it double storey and had one cloister on top of another because in the first film seperate scenes filmed in the same lacock corridor are redressed to appear as different corridors. Perhaps they wanted to incorporate The extra corridors into the model? That is just me speculating. Furthermore scenes at lacock have backdrops added to the doorways that depict Gloucester corridors in the direction of what what would be the west of the castle. That could explain the Gloucester windows on the exterior of the model.
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