Sta Fee - 3D city - Page 3

Flamesrule · #41 Posted **Oct 12, 2009, 10:49 PM**

Nice.So how tall is the UAM tower?

The detail in the city is awsome!

nevets2001uk · #42 Posted **Oct 13, 2009, 7:34 AM**

Looking great. I love the park view.

Can I ask, are your street textures from Google Earht direct and based on a real city layout or are you stitching sections together to make your own layout? I'm starting to think I may need to employ a similar approach on my city.

Pingyao · #43 Posted **Oct 13, 2009, 8:03 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by nevets2001uk

Looking great. I love the park view.

Can I ask, are your street textures from Google Earht direct and based on a real city layout or are you stitching sections together to make your own layout? I'm starting to think I may need to employ a similar approach on my city.

I am kinda using the stitch together approach, but its pretty time consuming, so I might fall back on actual city layouts. However I still have things like the river, docks and ring roads all outlined so I need to work within those. What I do is use the measuring tool in google earth and take a screen shot of a portion of road. Then in Photoshop I apply that to a 1000x1000 pixel resolution file, which will become the 1km square plane in the city. There are parts of LA, Houston and Phoenix in Sta Fee.

As I build up the city I have to lay the completed plane next to the neighbouring plane in photoshop to make sure the roads connect. The reason I'm doing this is from experience once you get high res textures, i.e 2000x2000 pixels, in cinema4D it starts to run into memory errors. By keeping the layout of the city as 1000x1000 planes I keep the overall texture sizes lower and hopefully can avoid memory errors. Plus I can concentrate on building 1km square sections at a time and then just paste them all together purely for rendering. This keeps my workflow smoother.

Hope that makes sense or I'm probably just rambling...

nevets2001uk · #44 Posted **Oct 13, 2009, 8:17 AM**

That makes perfect sense, thanks. I was thinking of a similar approach although possibly with hand made road textures as tiles but that may end up being as time consuming as laying it out in SU.

Pingyao · #45 Posted **Oct 14, 2009, 8:45 AM**

Maxwells shopping centre was completed in 1972 and is still one of the largest malls in central Sta Fee. In 1998 it had a 20 million dollar refurb. Above the mall is the 78m (256ft) Maxwell Tower, office space (same height as UAM tower, joint tallest south of the river). Maxwells joins onto the Searle Parker Convention centre next door. The shopping centre forms the western limit to Sta Fee's man retail strip, Park Avenue.

ertiikus · #46 Posted **Oct 14, 2009, 9:15 AM**

if this city was real i would definetly come visit it

Pingyao · #47 Posted **Oct 15, 2009, 2:25 PM**

It takes so long to build a 1km square section. If I'm ever gonna finish this city I'm gonna have to simplify this somewhat, maybe just make the buildings less detailed and grey in the suburbs. Anyway more of Sta Fee's downtown, a few empty plots have been filled up.

This view from the bridges looking back south.

ertiikus · #48 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 10:33 AM**

i think for the suburbs you should just use colors

huggkruka · #49 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 11:21 AM**

Weeell, the burbs doesn't need that many unique buildings anyway. A realistic suburb is cookie cutter houses and some strip malls here and there, copy paste really. As long as you get a good satellite pic for background, I think you could get away with very little actual variation.

Still, you're really moving fast, and the result is incredible.

Pingyao · #50 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 12:05 PM**

Thanks for comments. Yeah a simpler technique is definitely needed, I agree with your idea Huggruka, that way i can concentrate on the city centre more - less time on the 'boring burbs'. Thing is for a truly big city feel i need to build the suburbs in some from, I'm just not looking forward to that part.

Just built Park Avenue Multiplex, a 12 screen cinema and retail complex opposite from Maxwells shopping centre.

Flamesrule · #51 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 10:08 PM**

The city is bigger than I imanaging.Anyway one of the best cities on here!Good building too.

Pingyao · #52 Posted **Oct 20, 2009, 9:54 AM**

War memorial...Built on a man-made hill 50ft above the surrounding parkland of Maberley Park. The war memorial commemorates those that fought in the world wars and most recently in the Gulf. The memorial is a peaceful and reflective spot in the middle of Sta Fee's urban environment.

Pingyao · #53 Posted **Oct 21, 2009, 1:34 PM**

Plane 2 I am nearing completion of plane 2, this 1km square section immediately south of the first plane has taken me ages, but there is quite a lot of detail and i will probably have to simplify somewhat the next section if this city is to grow. It is however starting to look pretty large (ok 2 square km's ain't massive i know) and I'm pleased with the overall effect.

Here is a view showing Sta Fee Memorial Hospital on the far left. It is a respected training hospital and one of the cities largest. It also has the busiest A&E department. The hospital is housed in mass of interconnecting multistorey slabs rising to 73m (240ft), built in 1973.

Immediately next to the hospital is the blue glass facade of the Carisbrook Tower, built in 1991 a commercial address rising to 87m (285ft), Sta Fee's tallest structure so far.

This final view is taken above the Northbank looking south.

nevets2001uk · #54 Posted **Oct 21, 2009, 4:28 PM**

This is looking stunning. I wish mine was coming on as well but I just haven't found the time.

Flamesrule · #55 Posted **Oct 21, 2009, 8:55 PM**

Woah thats huge in the air!Are you doing suburbs?

Pingyao · #56 Posted **Oct 21, 2009, 9:39 PM**

I'll probably have to post an overview of what I'm planning. I'm not working on the 'burbs' yet, although they will help to give the city that realistic sprawl that I'm looking to achieve.

huggkruka · #57 Posted **Oct 22, 2009, 6:18 AM**

That looks amazing. It reminds me of one of the screens from SC, where you simply couldn't tell it was a 3D model. If you can keep this level of detail that would be great, but you decide. I guess it's hard to find the balance between what looks nice and the time it takes to create it!

Pingyao · #58 Posted **Oct 22, 2009, 10:25 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by huggkruka

That looks amazing. It reminds me of one of the screens from SC, where you simply couldn't tell it was a 3D model. If you can keep this level of detail that would be great, but you decide. I guess it's hard to find the balance between what looks nice and the time it takes to create it!

Thanks for the comments. It is hard to find a balance, usually i end up detailing stuff too much, like spending ages on lamp posts when the reality is you don't see them.

Plane 2 is done...phew, so I've added to the map http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=173867

A bonus shot from behind Maberley Park, with the war memorial and hospital in shot.

Now for plane number 3....

Patrick · #59 Posted **Oct 23, 2009, 1:07 AM**

Omg, i'm a huge fan of your cities, I check here everyday for updates

Pingyao · #60 Posted **Oct 23, 2009, 3:50 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick

Omg, i'm a huge fan of your cities, I check here everyday for updates

Thx Pat, that means a lot from the king of Staunton