Digital Environment Research

Windmill research

Our group’s idea is to do an environment on a windmill, which will be located on top of a hill. The difference between our windmill and an ordinary windmill is that ours can transformer in to a flying machine.

Windmills

The earliest attempt at building a windmill was back in Ancient Greece around the twenty-first century. Around 400 years later the Persians developed their own version, coming up with the windmill, which were seen by Europeans during the Crusades. The Crusading knights then brought the technology back to Europe, and then Europeans started building windmills around the 12^th century, making slight changes to the design.

Windmills haven’t changed that much since the first century. A windmill has a set of blades or slats that are mounted on a central axis that is designed to rotate as they are pushed by the wind. The axis is connected to a system of gears to turn machinery that can do things like turn a millstone to grind grain, or pump water.

In the 14^th Century, people started to construct tower mills, windmills with a fixed tower base and a rotating top. The development of the tower mill allowed for the construction of facilities directly beneath the windmill. Maximizing energy.

This picture shows a windmill and how the sweep aka blades are slanted and the shaft can be adjusted so the blades go be put in the direction of the wind.

These two pictures show the inside of how a windmill parts work and also gives you the names of each part. This will be very helpful when it comes to modelling and getting a good understanding of how the parts all fit together.

Different windmill types

Flour Windmill

Flour windmills also know as Gristmills have been around for centuries, since people have been using flour for quite a long time. Livestock, water, slaves, or windmills powered the early gristmill. The wind would turn the sails, which was attached to loads of cogs that turned a huge millstone.

Water Pump

A wind pump is a windmill that pumps water from a variety of water sources. This method is used to help provide people with clean drinking water, irrigate farmland or feed livestock. They can also be used to alleviate flooded areas and produce salt from salt water.

Wind Turbines

Wind turbines are used to make electricity by using the kinetic energy in the wind. The blades on the top of the turbines spin which then turns a generator, which generates electricity. The electricity is then delivered to peoples home or business and the advantage of wind power is its clean power.

Steam-punk

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, which is set in the days when steam was still highly used; this was during the 19^th century and Victorian era Britain. Steampunk often feature anachronistic technology, which the Victorians called futuristic technology. Steampunk is also associated with cyberpunk. They both have considerable influence on each other and also share a very similar fan base. The difference between steampunk apart from the time period and level of technology, steampunk settings tend to be less dystopian.

These are some steampunk images.

Grass

To help bring our scene to life i attempted to add grass to our cliffside to give it more of a realistic effect. So i thought that i would research into grass to get a better understanding to help me to create a good grass effect.

Pictures of different grasses.

Reference

Websites used for information

http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/web/corporate/pages.nsf/links/358dbcf64e96265780257102004ee88f

http://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/Dutch-Windmills-3D-Screensaver-Screenshot-129964.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Different types of windmills and how they are used

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/wind_how.html- 5th November 2010

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-wind-pump.htm- 5th November 2010

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-windmill.htm- 5th November 2010

Videos

http://www.ehow.com/video_4951985_do-windmills-work_.html