Work-in-Progress: Cathedral (Flying Buttress Part I)

To challenge myself to bring my modeling to a new level, I have picked to model something that is probably at the limit of my modeling skills: the Gothic Cathedral.  I have always found these structures to be very impressive, but what I feel is unique is the high level of detail on the exterior of the building worked into the stone.  So far I have made the most repeated unit of the cathedral, the flying buttress.  The model, not textured, is to the right, though the image is slightly warped just from the scale of the model.  I am making the model in real units and the top of the highest cross on the buttress is just over seventy meters tall.  I feel fairly pleased with how the model came out, though I want to texture it before I put it on a forum or two for critiques.  Hopefully, I can get the textures done fairly quickly, though there are quite a few pieces to this model and that is likely to slow down the overall speed.  My only concern is the amount of memory it is going to take to render the overall scene.  This model alone has about 125,000 polygons and is going to be repeated quite a few times around the finished model.  Of course I am going to try every possible way to cut back, especially when putting together the final model, but for the level of detail in this style of building, I needed that many polygons.  There are section I would have used more, but I had to cut back, trying to remember objects a few centimeters in size are unlikely to even be noticeable in the final render.

Once this section is done, I have broken down the rest of the building.  The doors will be next and while not especially difficult, they do have sculptures all around which means a high polygon count for them also.  Then comes the spires, one of the defining aspects of this kind of building.  While the doors will likely have a higher polygon count, I know I will need to devout a sizable number to get the overall shape, even if I am not going for an excessively high level of detail.  The spires also have several sculptures, most notably the gargoyles which stand sentinel over the building.  Finally comes the building of the cathedral itself.  This will be of moderate polygon count since most of the detail is handled in one of the other pieces, but the large amount of stained glass will eat up polygons.  While probably not realistic, I am hoping the final model will be about three million polygons.  I am not completely sure if my computer can handle this, but I know if it gets much higher the chances will go down drastically.

Finally the schedule.  I am trying to do this for a contest, though I do not want to sacrifice the render for finishing on time.  With that in mind, I am hoping to finish one section of the building each week, which means I am already behind.  Until next time,
~gunnah