So I’m quite comfortable with making modular assets for the most part, but angled roofs still elude me.
So I have a side piece, a outer corner piece, an inner corner piece and a flat end piece.
This is all I need for buildings that are a 1x1 sized, 2x1 sized etc, single square deep, but as soon as it gets more depth, I am unsure of how I should fill in the gaps without it looking odd.
So I could do something like this and add more pieces on the top, but then the roof gets quite a high profile, and the bigger the building is, the higher and more pointy the roof would be, which just looks odd:
Then I also experimented with doing a flat roof, which definitely gives the building a better profile, but I feel like that doesn’t make sense as it would collect water and leak and therefore also looks wrong:
Hey, looking cool. I wouldn’t sweat that much reality. If it looks good, it looks good. Plenty of games have architectural problems that players don’t question deeply. Plus if the time is spent on the ground level then they won’t be seeing the rooftop much.
But if it really bugs you… I’d approach the modular design to this much like a hallway kit. You’ve got a middle section, a corner in, a corner out, and an end cap. Can do no wrong with those four types - essentially boiling the kit down to the smallest pieces possible.
I also have endcaps and inverted corners not shown, so they all fit perfectly together perfectly, however the issue then becomes when the house is bigger than the angle that 2 halves of the roof covers, how would you suggest I fill in the gap in between, or should just a flat roof do anyway?
As far as modularity, your problem is probably the pivot point location.
as far as architecture, you need to look at architecture for an answer.
The roof you are using has a specific name.
Open gable, or hips and valley.
Bigger buildings would require different types of roof, like a flat one, or an M shape one, or maybe a mansard one.
Depends on what you are going for.
If you look them up, some architectural rules about what roof type best fits what size house do exist.
They are also localized rules - what works in Germany doesn’t fly in America for instance. And they depend on weather a lot. You need a tall pointy roof to keep the snow from amassing on it in winter.
It sounds like what you really need is more reference material for the kinds of houses you want to build. Also, perspective matters – if you look at drone footage from any suburban sprawl, all you see is roofs. If you walk at street level, the roofs are all above eye height and not at all as prominent.
Large houses do indeed have large roofs. This is one reason why old “mansion” type houses often have both dormers in the roof, and an inner courtyard/garden, to make the “body” of the house thinner (and, thus, hollow.)
In the US, there’s an archetype of “western” house where the second story is entirely a fake front, and there’s actually a roof behind it, too
