how the heck do you model a city

[dino]

well how do you guys do it? Do you model the road first or the buildings

Anyways help will do

Thanks

[Alan M]

Lots of hard work would be the short answer, with more Photoshop work and less Maya work than you'd think!

Rather than just give you a stock answer that is a little dry, why not put together a few questions that are a little more specific and I'll do my best to answer them

Alan

[The Furious One]

Where do you start?

I've modelled at small section of london for a uni project. We got plan off digimap and in autocad we mapped out all the roads, and buildings. Exported into 3D max and extruded the lines upward to their correct hights.

I'm this next change is where all the photoshop comes in, having to get all the building textures to appear in the right place.

[enzo_gt]

Is this the same dino that posted pics of an entire city he modelled a while back? 'Course, ofcourse..

[dino]

Is this the same dino that posted pics of an entire city he modelled a while back? 'Course, ofcourse..

I never posted entire finished city

[enzo_gt]

Maybe not entire or finished, but a city:
http://bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopi ... light=city

[dino]

Maybe not entire or finished, but a city:
http://bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopi ... light=city

a very very tiny one ,
its easy to model shenmue city, since i have the game i can just look at the game while modeling it

im talking about making entire city like the one you see on PGR and GTA
i give up half the way, cause its too hard i make too many mistakes

also heres proof its mine

[enzo_gt]

Didn't need that but thanks

Well if you've modelled a city before, wouldn't you know where to start? Or do you just want to know how the "pros" do it"?

[Alan M]

well how do you guys do it? Do you model the road first or the buildings

Anyways help will do

Thanks

The road first, well it's started first at least. The buildings then get placed as rough approximations. Later on the road and the buildings will be meshed together to prevent holes in the track.

There is very practical reasons for the road to be started first though, the Design team can race the city early on, even in its un-textured state with placeholder everything and get a feel for the tracks and make changes before too much work has been started.

If I was to make a city/environment in my own time (and for my sins I am, it's coming along very slowly though!) I'd start with what is important AND fun to do. It's too easy to get disheartened when doing something in your own time if it isn't fun!

As always Photoshop is king as is the quality of your research. If you can take your own photos of what environment you intend to model then you should, also try to take two types of photograph, a wide shot (Usually from the other side of the road with the widest angle lens you have) to give you an idea of scale and how the building looks in relation to those around it. And a close up shot, depending on the camera and lens you have you can take this from wherever you like, from a few meters to a few hundred meters away (but try to avoid cameras with digital zooms). The Idea is to frame exactly what you want to turn into a texture using the camera, minimising the amount of clean up time you spend in Photoshop later on.

Also take as many photos as you can, you'll never have enough. If you have 1GB to fill, then fill it! It's not costing you anything and even if you're not sure you'll need the photo at the time you might think differently weeks later. On quite a few occasions (read, LOADS!) a random photo I've taken on a reference trip has come in very handy six months later.

Too much time is spent modelling in details that either will not be seen or cause the model to look worse! A good texture can make a fair or simple model look great. With that in mind use your photographs as a rotoscope for the building you want to model, either with simple projections or as image plane to trace from. Get your building with textures on it as soon as you can, even if it means neither are anywhere near finished, it may sound odd but from here you'll be able to see what areas need time spent on them. Better to see any problems with the building when it is only a few hours old and has place holder textures on it than after days of modelling and Photoshop work!

Hope that helped, any questions just ask!

Alan

[dino]

well how do you guys do it? Do you model the road first or the buildings

Anyways help will do

Thanks

The road first, well it's started first at least. The buildings then get placed as rough approximations. Later on the road and the buildings will be meshed together to prevent holes in the track.

There is very practical reasons for the road to be started first though, the Design team can race the city early on, even in its un-textured state with placeholder everything and get a feel for the tracks and make changes before too much work has been started.

If I was to make a city/environment in my own time (and for my sins I am, it's coming along very slowly though!) I'd start with what is important AND fun to do. It's too easy to get disheartened when doing something in your own time if it isn't fun!

As always Photoshop is king as is the quality of your research. If you can take your own photos of what environment you intend to model then you should, also try to take two types of photograph, a wide shot (Usually from the other side of the road with the widest angle lens you have) to give you an idea of scale and how the building looks in relation to those around it. And a close up shot, depending on the camera and lens you have you can take this from wherever you like, from a few meters to a few hundred meters away (but try to avoid cameras with digital zooms). The Idea is to frame exactly what you want to turn into a texture using the camera, minimising the amount of clean up time you spend in Photoshop later on.

Also take as many photos as you can, you'll never have enough. If you have 1GB to fill, then fill it! It's not costing you anything and even if you're not sure you'll need the photo at the time you might think differently weeks later. On quite a few occasions (read, LOADS!) a random photo I've taken on a reference trip has come in very handy six months later.

Too much time is spent modelling in details that either will not be seen or cause the model to look worse! A good texture can make a fair or simple model look great. With that in mind use you photographs as a rotoscope for the building you want to model, either with simple projections or as image plane to trace from. Get your building with textures on it as soon as you can, even if it means neither are anywhere near finished, it may sound odd but from here you'll be able to see what areas need time spent on them. Better to see any problems with the building when it is only a few hours old and has place holder textures on it than after days of modelling and Photoshop work!

Hope that helped, any questions just ask!

Alan

hey Alan

thanks for the reply , sorry it took long to reply , iv been very busy with college work

i got just 1 more question , do you model the building in a same scene as the roads or do you model the in a different scene?

Thank you for your time