Hikone Castle

“Hikone Castle (彦根城 Hikone-jō?) is an Edo period castle in the city of Hikone, in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. It is considered the most significant historical building in Shiga. Hikone is one of only 12 Japanese castles with the original keep, and one of only four castles listed as a national treasure.”

I needed a castle for a graphic novel and came upon just a few, this one, of Hikone Castle, was the cheapest (at Renderosity, as I saw the same exact mesh for 3ds Max at $75.00).

There were a few materials I needed to figure out and fix as the model is for Poser 5 and up and I am using DAZ Studio 4. The biggest problem were the Cusped window frames, they have a reflection map only. I am not sure what the intent was there, though I suspect it was to bring them out more in Poser 5, as they don't even look right in the latest Poser.

I, also, re-textured the foundation and added Chinese colors to this Japanese castle. Black and white only is not as exciting.

I am not even going into what I had to do with the Samurai Yoroi for M3 armor, it too was modeled for an earlier version of Poser and had way too many reflection maps to retouch and bum maps to convert. Yes, I used Michael V3 for this render. There are Samurai Poses for this suit of armor. (If you want Samurai outfits for your Michael V4 or Genesis try Immortal Ronin for M4, and Way of the Samurai and Way of the Shinobi for Genesis [Ninja]).

After playing with this model for a few days I decided to acquire two more castles, Kochi Castle and Matsumoto Castle. They are on sale for 50% off the regular price due to Black Friday, and, as I am going to need more than one castle, I grabbed them; two for the price of one.

Here are two more castles:

HimejiCastle MegaPack (which I am acquiring as soon as I can)

Arajishi-jo Castle:

It seems that only one castle has a modeled interior, the Arajishi-jo Castle. The other castles are for exterior renders only. It is a fantasy castle (not a real castle in Japan) that includes an interior and comes in three parts.

Arajishi-jo Castle
Arajishi-jo Gate
Arajishi-jo Keep Kit