The new farmhouse looks good. You're doing quite well actually, there's a good sense of light and also precise pixeling in these.
Gil makes a valid point about the highlights, though I'd reserve my judgment until a complete mockup. That should be easy to finetune at any time anyway.
I noticed 2 more details that should be fixed:
- the contrast is inconsistent in some color ramps / areas: for instance the town hall, the triangle trusses at the top have darker shadow than elsewhere, esp. the opening just below on the left; and on the farmhouse, the right side 'garage door'
(what is it?). Deep openings should be the darkest spots.
- on both farm and warehouse, the roof eaves are higher at the back than the front, which creates an impossible perspective.
About the lift: I happen to know quite a few things about mining / quarrying, I'd be happy to help =)
Hiding this behind spoiler tags as it isn't about pixeling.
for going downwards only
Not sure what you mean, they certainly were most useful going upwards?
What these lifts have is most likely, small cages that are incapable of carrying people, unless they put themselves into some uncomfortable position, what I need is a lift that can carry few workers at once.
Oh yes they could, these things could easily raise half a tonne. Comfort didn't count - think 12-15h work days hacking at rock in 0.8m high (or less) chambers. However they were quite slow and that wouldn't do.
Was it like that in the medieval ages, was it even invented?
Not sure about exact century without checking, but the most prevalent way of getting people down and up would have been ladders, down to depths of 100s of meters, because lifts would have been way too slow before steam power replaced human or animal power.
Btw, steam power was introduced in mining for pumping water out in the first place, not for getting people in and ore out =)
if there was a giant cage like mine, it would spin around if attached to one rope only
True, but your solution wouldn't work as the 2 ropes are too close. That's why they used buckets.
2 lifts one on each side and then even some wooden construction that wouldn't allow the platform to spin around or move left or right when going downwards
That's exactly how it worked (and still does).
I found the
lift model you used, there are other views including of the axis drum; I'm posting it in case you didn't see it.
Another real-life example:
The underground stone quarries in and around Paris made use of a similar but simplified design of a gigantic wheel right above the shaft (google image '
roue de carriere' for more):
These were later replaced by horse drawn hoists ('
treuil de carriere'):
Both these systems remained in use well into the 20th century! However they would have been far too slow for mines or anything deeper than a few 10s of meters.
The typical mining landmark in the machine era was the headframe.
More about this if you wish, but not today and likely not tomorrow
