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22/11/2013 11:17:30

DyllyMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dylly
Posts: 555
I'm getting a little bogged down with piecing together an urban landscape. I think I may have started in the wrong place...with the wrong item ie the low poly housing. I've since corrected my starting position and I'm laying down the roads and pavements which seems to be speeding the process up a little.

Does anyone have any tips on building a large townscape, is it better to build 'tiles' of buildings & roads?
To what depth would you advise creating & importing low poly models before a Matte Painting becomes more effective?
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22/11/2013 17:49:14

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
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Posts: 1786
This is how I do it but I also have a powerful Pc.

I put in the roads and main buildings that I want to have detail first (the ones I might need them to go into the front entrance or something where I would do a close up shot) and I do that in medium to low polygon and then as I move out towards the edges where I just want the buildings to be a backdrop I change to simple cubes and cylindars and use photos on those or drawings (whatever depends on your needs) I then create low polygon landscape and trees all the 'no collision' type (well my version of no collision is a cube or something in such a way as I can superimpose the stuff). I dont use 2d backdrops I hate them I just use cubes etc (primitive shapes) that might have an extra face or two (very low polygon stuff) and this looks better you can fill up the entire set that way I make massive sets using this method although I think if your pc is a bit on the low end it might have issues. I also do this with landscape in the distance and trees in the distance i might change the scale to make it seem far off if your using the right camera views. For roads leading off the set and whatnot I tend to like to make tunnels at the end with a photo at the very end have them taper to give the optical illussion of distance and use a photo of the same road with identical lighting taken from elsehwere in the set as I built it half way. I also do this with buildings I will make the roads taper down in size at an angle and angle the buildings inwards and taper it off to the distance etc.

Dunno if that helps but it works for me quite well. Anything you absolutely need detail on make it medium res and then i build the inside versions of things in a second set but I create enough detail to make it as seamless as possible.

Its kind of like making a 3d painting but this is how games are built as you get farther away from the perspecitive point of the player you drop the LOD of the objects down there are usually 3 levels. Of course in a set you have to plan your cameras etc as you build it sort of decide how your going to shoot the scenes to decide what has to be higher detail and what can basically be a cube or triangle or cylindar
edited by urbanlamb on 22/11/2013
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