Weekly Update #5 – Game Development Reference Gathering in Salzburg Freilichtmuseum, Austria

1. What is the Freilichtmuseum?
2. Reference Material
   1. Buildings and Interiors
   2. Gardens
   3. Textures

Last week, we looked at real-life references for a forested, ravine environment. Similarly, this week we are looking at building and interior references. We are focusing on older farmhouses and alpine huts.
For that purpose, we are visiting the Freilichtmuseum in Salzburg.

What is the Freilichtmuseum?

The Freilichtmuseum – roughly translated to Open Air Museum – is a wide natural area at the bottom of the Untersberg covering about 50 hectares.

The museum is divided to represent the five different provinces of Salzburg: Flachgau, Tennengau, Pongau, Lungau, and Pinzgau. Each area showcases its individual styles of building and differing traditions.

A vintage railroad runs throughout the whole area. Visitors can utilize it for a lovely and chill ride through the museum.

All buildings in the museum are real buildings. They have been meticulously disassembled in their original location, rebuilt here, and furnished.
Their origins span over six centuries. This is probably the best way to explore the different traditional building styles of Salzburg’s farmers.
Using these as a reference, I hope it will lend an authentic feel to any buildings I create for my game.

Reference Material

Following are some of the relevant references gathered and their likely use cases in the game.

Buildings and Interiors

Older Austrian farmhouses tend to be quite big. They are multiple stories high. These houses often accommodate multiple generations. Some even have a stable within the house.
They are usually built in one of two ways. The first is a combination of stone and wood, where the ground floor is made of stone and the upper floors are wooden. The second way is that they are fully wooden. Obviously there are some exceptions, but that is a pattern that I have observed mostly so far.

Here are some examples from the Museum:

and a quick mock up of a version in-game:

What I really enjoy about the older living and farmhouses is their attention to detail and craftsmanship. Something I will have to really make sure I include in-game as well.
One thing in particular I personally enjoy are the different roof decorations like these:

And then also some interior references, including living spaces and stables:

Gardens

One thing that is really important to me is to feature a proper ‘Bauerngarten’ (Farmers Garden) in my game. The player can fill it with all kinds of herbs, veggies, and flowers.

These kinds of gardens have been really popular until more modern building styles have no longer allowed for them.
Their main purpose is to be practical. They are used to grow everything that can be used for cooking and medicinal purposes. They also support the growth of flowers, which can either be decorative or useful (or both 😄).

Usually Bauerngärten show the following features:
🪵 Enclosed with a wooden, wattle or ribbon fence – to protect from farm and wildlife.
🌱 Multiple plant beds with different purposes, e.g., herb beds, flower beds, etc.
🚶Pathways throughout the garden to make everything easily reachable.
🪑 Some space to sit and relax (although this might be a more modern addition as I am not sure farmers used to have a lot of time to just sit and chill out😅 )

Let’s look at some examples from the Museum:

Here are some mockups of what it could look like in-game, obviously being up to players’ discretion how to fill up their own little garden paradise:

Textures

One thing an excursion like this is also really useful for is to get an idea for textures for things.
What kind of stones and woods are used? How are they arranged? How does it weather over time? And so on.
As someone with no formal art training, having this reference is really useful to me.

And that’s it for this week. Now that I am back home with my lovely PC, I will focus more on hands-on game development again and move away from just gathering references.

As a reward for getting all the way to the bottom here, have a picture of a lovely velvety sunset. ☺️

Have another great autumnal week and hopefully see you next week for some more gamey things 😉👋.