Roman Villa is a recreation of a house typical of a wealthy merchant or aspiring politician in Rome or Pompeii and based on extensive research into Roman houses and domestic objects.

This is more properly a "Domus" or urban house and they were usually divided into two main areas - on entering you would find yourself in the Atrium, a large space with other smaller rooms and bedrooms off from that, and featuring a central "Impluvium" where a gap in the roof would let in light and rainwater would be collected in a pool. To the rear of the property is an open garden area surrounded by a columned walkway or "Peristyle". Off from that is the kitchen, and the only upper-story room is a storeroom.

Between these two main areas, you will find the dining room or "Triclinium" with three couches for eating and drinking (Romans ate reclining not sitting) and a table ready for serving. There is also a lobby area where the head of the household could preside over the whole house and hold business meetings. Everything is decorated with bright frescos and mosaics in typical Roman fashion. In order to aid you in setting up your scenes, there are 16 cameras included covering all of the main areas.

In reality, the light levels would vary enormously from the bright garden area to inner rooms without windows which were virtually pitch black. I have addressed this in two ways, I have strategically placed hanging lamps that have several brightness presets and I have also included several exposure presets so that you can balance the illumination and achieve the optimum brightness for your scenes. I have included hourly time of day presets from dawn to dusk and a night preset, as the natural light can have a dramatic effect on the look of the more open areas. There are also presets for haze and bloom from the lamps.

As a bonus, I have included a simple external street scene to enable the villa to be seen from the outside. I have also included all objects as separate presets so that you can freely customize your scene or create your own vignettes.

Whether you are depicting domestic Roman scenes, political plotting, and scheming, or using it as a backdrop for a more fantasy historical story, Roman Villa will give you a stunningly realistic setting for your characters.