COMMERCIA - A new City for the 21st Century
Whilst Detailed city design struggles on under a mountain of detail, I have been playing about with a new idea. I am planning a new project called Commercia. It will be a purpose built commerical and residential district built in a fictional location (probably the same country as where Pingahttan, Sta Fee and San Christoph were located). The concept behind this is a construction project with semi regular updates as and when. I was initially inspired by 'Dubai Skyscraper' Project Aurora, which was a fantastically detailed under construction model. I also enjoyed the many hours I devoted to Verticity and decided at the time I would one day do something similar.
The idea behind Commercia is to build, in an empty location, a purpose built city for business, homes and leisure. The city will have some form of master plan with towers, lowrise elements and infrastructure.
The main issue apart from lack of time, is the size of these models. I am currently trying to figure out a good way of creating such a model without my PC devouring itself. Most of my ideas end up in a sea of polygons that weigh the whole thing down. So the key to starting this new project is to make sure the work flow and modelling is as efficient as possible.
So far I have made a large context for the city. I already worked out a way of reducing the model size without loosing the detail, by using displacement maps for the landscape. This approach also gives me more control over the context. I am currently working on render streamlining. The shot below is just a test using Cinema 4D's built in sky and environment and was rendered with the proprietary engine, which has always been one of the best parts of the software. The image was straight from render, no photoshop adjustments.
I am currently working out a way to make semi detailed roads and junctions that I can 'slot' together to quickly create a road map. Once the roads are organised I will do some simple local context modelling on a nearby town and other landscape elements, trees etc. Then I can begin masterplanning Commercia itself.
So not much to show yet, but thought I would at least announce my intentions.
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