Advise: best software to create large 3d environment(s) to be used for illustrations?

henryleo

Hello, I am an 2d artist that wishes to learn some 3d software in order to help my work be more accurate. I have a sci-fi / fantasy world I am illustrating and would like the elements in the art to be accurate distances / sizes / perspectives (think buildings in the near & far background). I have essentially zero 3d experience, but I am willing to learn!

I would need large buildings/structures rendered from multiple angles accurately, but I have no idea where to start. If all goes well I may want to make interiors for these buildings to be used in a similar fashion.... For example a view out a window shows a skyscraper in the distance and its the right height and size when viewed from that specific window....is this possible? Ideally I would like to make a whole city-scape where I could maneuver a camera to get the desired composition for my characters to be placed in. Can this be done? If so what software would be best to use?

Note: texture/detail is unimportant, and lighting is only partially important. I can add all the extras and lighting myself, but getting the heights of buildings in the background correct is triggering my OCD

Thank you for reading this far and any/all help is greatly appreciated!

Eric Chadwick

I would suggest a tool like SketchUp.

henryleo

Thank you Eric = I made a Trimble account and am playing with Sketch Up now

Another question: I am wondering if I could make a top-down outline view of my world (think city map) and then somehow extrude these outlines into taller shapes? Like lift those shapes up into buildings? Is that something a 3d program can do? Like import a flat 2d line art and then pull shapes out?

henryleo

I am researching sketch up and it has a problem with things at extreme distances since it appears to be made for modelling things like homes as opposed to entire cities. Would there be another program that could handle something at say 10 miles from the source/camera?

Eric Chadwick

Then I'd suggest a more complex program like 3ds Max or Blender or Maya. 3ds Max has a history of working well with other architectural programs, so you can easily import CAD data for example. Blender is free, and quite full-featured. Maya is also quite capable with large scenes.

oglu

hmm if realtime is enough i would go with lumion..
https://lumion.com/showcase.html#prettyPhoto

if you need giant terrains i would go with clarisse...
https://www.isotropix.com/products/clarisse/digimatte-environments

CarlCraft

henryleo said:

Thank you Eric = I made a Trimble account and am playing with Sketch Up now

Another question: I am wondering if I could make a top-down outline view of my world (think city map) and then somehow extrude these outlines into taller shapes? Like lift those shapes up into buildings? Is that something a 3d program can do? Like import a flat 2d line art and then pull shapes out?

That is pretty much what SketchUp is made to do. Draw it in 2D and then use push/pull tool to draw out the 2D shapes into 3D models. SketchUp is also very newbie-firendly, and since you say you are new to 3D I think it would be a great fit for you as a starting point.

If you run into issues with needing larger distances, perhaps scale down your entire scene to like 1:10 and work from there? Doesn't really make a difference in the end unless you're going to like 3D print it but I doubt you will print an entire city

henryleo

Of course = I don't know why I didn't even think about working at like 100th the size

Also thank you all for the suggestions! My research kept taking me to sites for city planners using real maps and I was getting frustrated. 

oglu said:

hmm if realtime is enough i would go with lumion..
https://lumion.com/showcase.html#prettyPhoto

if you need giant terrains i would go with clarisse...
https://www.isotropix.com/products/clarisse/digimatte-environments

Wow this just looks astounding! Its amazing what these programs can do these days!

Since Blender and SketchUp are the cheapest I will start there and see how this goes. If I get anything worth while I will come back and share it here. Thank you all again!