Well spotted. Its a vacant plot behind that fence. No plans as yet for what if anything will be there.

I've been busy building on the 5th block recently, trying to complete this and a 6th block before I can focus on the city overview and its surroundings.

http://imageshack.us/a/img708/3205/99ax.jpg

God himself couldn't do a better job. :tup:

Loving the reflection of the city on that building, looking forward to an overview shot!

Somehow it's the windows that ultimately make a building look real, excellent effect here!

Thank you kindly for the comments.

he windows are probably the most time consuming element of these buildings - and I mean time consuming!
I've spent too long on these buildings and it starts to become laborious, so once these immediate blocks are completed I'm going to fall back on
whole textured buildings rather than individually textured windows. However one problem with whole textured buildings is they start to become less
convincing the closer you get to them so its a compromise between quicker modelling and a greater loss of texture detail. I'm hopeful that
by combining high res whole textured buildings I can avoid this issue in the most part.

http://imageshack.us/a/img849/5619/ub79.jpg

Yep, the windows and especially whats right behind the glass - curtains or blinds - is very important for a realistic look. The curtains and blinds need to be set quite irregularly for them to look convincing - and you've managed to do just that. They look very convincing. The showcase windows are also a good way to add life to a 3D scene. Maybe they could use some illumination, though.

I really like the massiveness of that brown brick building. Great shot once again!

W O W - beautiful shot~

I say go with the textures, I was a huge fan of Sta Fee because of it's vast expanse, truly one of the most realistic virtual cities I've ever seen, I would love to see this city on a bigger scale :tup:

Absolutely. I did actually add an illumination channel to the shop fronts although it really dosen't show up in these renders.
It may be something I need to push in post pro.

Thanks Patrick. Sta Fee used fairly crude low res textures, but worked because it was such a huge area. The problem is getting
good enough textures that work closer to the camera without losing resolution and spoiling the image. Although I'm thinking the further out
of the centre of the city I model, the smaller the texture maps get.

This view is from the opposite side of the block in the previous image. Another larger residential 1930's building covers the full
width of this end of the block. 5 blocks are now complete.

http://imageshack.us/a/img853/2411/gkh4.jpg

Great lighting, I also love the amount of detail on the street level, there's only one thing, the curbs are not lowered at the pedestrian crossings ;)

Lovely! I get a feeling of Upper West Side near Broadway. I really can imagine how much effort you have to put into every building and I feel your pain. The results are outstanding.

Noted. To be frank I started doing this at crossings, however gave up as it was yet another detail that was slowing the modelling down.

Cheers Vellu. Pain is the optimum word.


A lot of the renders I make for this city I don't bother showing due to texture/modelling errors or I'm just not happy with the results. An example below shows the sort
of thing I mean. With this shot the 1970s Brutalist building (University of Art & Design) looked far to dark, even for concrete and the render material on the original
apartment block on the left looked like clouds (not sure how I missed this as this was the first building in the city and has been there from the start). So when rendering
I find it a useful exercise as it allows me to see the results and I can then go back and tweak details and hopefully improve the renders to follow.

http://imageshack.us/a/img811/7790/81yx.jpg

I never paid attention to the cloudiness of the concrete texture on that apartment building. I guess it's usually the artist himself, who spots the "errors" in his work - I know I do.

That brutalist building adds nicely to the diversity of architectural styles in this city.

Thanks Vellu, Love Brutalism, may have to make another building in that style.


Low Poly Modelling

One of the biggest headaches with modelling these kinds of projects is the lag. The main city model now lags horrendously and with the vehicles
activated virtually grinds to a halt. I gave up modelling in the main city model along time ago because of this reason. I now model individual
buildings and blocks and then import them into the big model for rendering, but even with moving the render view camera in the big model its
taking forever.

My main concern at present is either the whole model fails to load due to its size, or crashes on load when being moved, rendered etc.
It has happened before with previous work. So for the most part the blocks further out from the central area will be much less detailed.
I am going for low poly modelling with textures rather than individual window recessed buildings. There will still be detailed buildings here
and there, but I'm hoping to achieve a detailed look with minimal polygons. The other reason to go down the all out texture route is the
labour intensive factor in making such detailed buildings. Its taking forever! I am actually incredibly impatient when it comes to modelling
in 3D I like to have things immediately rather than wait for 2 years, so hopefully the city will speed up somewhat in the months to come.

Here's a view of Somerset and 7th showing the greyscale illumination channel for this view, clearly showing the simplfied polygon approach
with the resulting render below with textures.

http://imageshack.us/a/img132/7217/fx95.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img10/7118/14y6.jpg

This next view is of the First Irrational Bank Tower a relatively unispiring building from the early 80's although I kind of like it in an ugly way!
Its basically just a filler building, bland backdrop architecture that all cities have, but go unnoticed.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5809/eh24.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Even with far less polygons it still looks very good. The textures are great and I love your attention to detail, especially with all those little signs and billboards and murals etc. Makes this feel a very lived-in city.

The First Irrational Bank Building is a very good filler building; you've even designed a logo for the bank!

You've already established that your work is absolutely superb. I've already acknowledged that it is, but It doesn't hurt for me to say "awesome" one more time. It's always a joy to see the stuff you produce.

I remember drooling over old PC games like "Midtown Madness" back in the day, thinking they had awesome graphics. Just for the sake of conversation, in terms of both model detail and texturing, your work beats lots of professional creations... though the system requirements of a fully functional PC game with this kind of detail level would probably be totally out of this world.

That boring filler building is exactly the kind of building that inspired me when I stepped off a bus downtown Seattle for the first time and looked up.

I really enjoy this city!

Pyngyao, still using Cinema4D? What renderer are you using?

How much damn RAM have you got man??? You have tons of different car models on your cities (not ultra detailed, but detailed enough! Btw, what is the car package you are using? Seems to have a nice compromise between quality/detail and low-polygon), plus trees with individual foliage (a triangle for each leaf), plus tons of detailed textures!!!

It must be consuming TONS of RAM.

Also, interesting how you achieve your asphalt texture detail... it´s detailed from upclose (texture in the asphalt like the little grains) and at the same time it has large area textures, like the tire marks, dirt, road painted signs, etc.

Happy New Year! Thank you all for the comments, much appreciated.

I use C4D's own built in renderer. I have got 16Gb of RAM, when i got my pc 2 years ago RAM was one of the most important considerations.
I do not model the cars and trees, I use a free model website for these. All the street furniture is modelled.

............................................................................................................................................

So with Christmas and New Year, a 2 year old and work I have spent less and less time modelling. But I have made a new render.
For the first time really I have taken a more raised perspective to show the city, which is starting to appear more dense and
more what I envisaged, although its taken a long time to get to this stage.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/160...0/837/d80n.jpg

Great shot! I especially like how those buildings farther away from the camera look: slight glimpses through narrow openings between nearer buildings. I really like the New Yorkish vibe the city has, so I'd like to see at least some shots with the kind of street traffic and crowds of pedestrians New York has. I know that's a lot of extra work, but I'm sure it would look awesome.