Exterior Cinema model - struggling with workflow?

ColinR

In need of some help here, as I feel I've hit a brick wall with as to how to tackle this model and to get it finished.

I originally blocked out my model, and did a quick paintover to set the mood and style which is shown below.



I've then carried on from that base model and added to it, but this is where I'm now having my problems...........I just don't know where to start to break this model down overall, and it's annoying me with where to begin, as I don't want to backtrack later and realise I've done something totally wrong. I'm not sure which parts to separate on the walls, whether to sculpt the ground floor walls or just lay down textures and get on with it?




The gate at the ground floor I'm also unsure about. I'm not sure whether to bake this down into a plane from the high poly that is shown below.



The same goes for the walkway railing near the top of the building?




I also then have the main sign at the top. Should I bake the trim and the lower line of text onto a plane? I plan to have this corner building a little run down as well, and hopefully have the 'AERO' wording making use of a glow map.



So I come back to the thread title though, I'm unsure as to what to tackle next, and the order of things there after that? Maybe there just isn't enough interesting geometry already there, and more needs to be added?

I hope someone can nudge me in the right direction which will spur me to carry on, as I don't really want to give up on this after already getting something lightly concepted down and modelled.


Advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for looking anyway in advance.

frubes

When i create buildings at work its really important to first establish your goals.

- Whats this building for?
- Will it be seen close up?
- Whats your texture budget and polycount?
- What sort of style is it, cartoon, realism, styalised?

Theres tonnes of questions you need to ask yourself. These are just a few. Once you have those down and you know which direction your heading in then you will be able to overcome any brick walls you hit.

You have started off well by concepting your building although i think the concept needs more work. The little details are the things that make buildings work well, drain pipes, vents, air conditioners, holes, destruction, foliage, signs etc etc.

By taking these things into account at an early stage it also makes your texture budget and polycount easier to handle.

Also get a massive amount of ref of similar buildings. This will always help you overcome problems during production.

Your first two steps are fine. I would fit in what i have said above before both of those.

In answer to your questions. Depending on your goals and budgets. If its a low poly assett definately map the railings and gates onto planes. That sort of geometry is really expsensive. Same with the cinema wording. In terms of sculpting thats a bit more difficult. Personally i would look to map this building using 1 x 1024 texture with normals, specs etc. With that being said it would mean to get a decent resolution on the wall texture (approx 1/3 of your texture map space) you would need to use a tiling texture and sculpting the wall would leave you with unique detail. To then bake that detail down to a 1024 map (if thats your budget) would leave you with a really crappy texture resolution. You can easily hide tiling with good placements of other assetts like i have mentioned above.

This is all subjective and im sure people have other ways of doing things. Primarily i would go and gather some ref and finish the modelling (it needs all those little accessories at the moment) then go onto mapping and texturing. Plan your texture sheet out well to get the most of it.

ColinR

Thanks for taking the time to help me out frubes, it's seriously appreciated.

I previously did attempt to make an entry for the 'modular facade challenge' back in August, but I think I also got to this stage on that building and didn't know where to go with it. I guess the idea is to gather more reference than you think you'll require.

With regards to the style I wanted to have the building give the impression it hadn't been looked after for a number of years, maybe disused. The building could possibly be seen up close, but it'll only be the ground floor necessarily, so currently I'm going with using a 2048 for the whole building and using your advice to use a third of that map for a tiling brick texture.

I can't say polycount is too much of an issue, but the building will be imported into UE.

I've edited the siloette of the building a little and brought round the cinema showings panel on each side along the wall, while also adding an electric box coming off of that with the wire clipped to the floor. I still feel more could possibly be added though geometry wise, and like you said 'all those little accessories'?

I accept the window panel in the middle still looks a little out of place, but I'm guessing once the textures for the glass are laid down it'll be fine.

Two images to show progress with this.






Anymore pointers would be welcomed, and I'll try to keep this thread updated until the model is finished.

frubes

this is the closest thing i could find to your cinema. I started out by deciding what kind of time period the building was from. Its often a good starting point. A lot of more derelict cinemas have a kind of art deco feel hence the image.

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/1633/northampton4thedecogj1.jpg

Study the image closely. Go through it and look at all of the geometry on the building. Im not saying you need to model it all but it should all be represented in some way either via geometry or via a texture.

Pay close attention to the things that break up the silohuette of your building. Most notably the overhang over the doors. Dont worry about texture so much at this stage. Get the modelling to a point where you are happy with the details etc.

Theres a tonne of little details on this buildings, cameras, uplighters on the overhang, billboards, posters, freestanding signs outside, piping, the cool alarm bell, the cornicing around the top edge of the buildings. Theres so much there which you could add to your building to really make it pop.

Personally i would suggest starting again. Go through the whole process if you can. Take what you have learnt/liked from this building and incorporate it into a new one possibly similar to the one i linked.

Wendy de Boer

frubes wrote: »

In terms of sculpting thats a bit more difficult. Personally i would look to map this building using 1 x 1024 texture with normals, specs etc. With that being said it would mean to get a decent resolution on the wall texture (approx 1/3 of your texture map space) you would need to use a tiling texture and sculpting the wall would leave you with unique detail. To then bake that detail down to a 1024 map (if thats your budget) would leave you with a really crappy texture resolution. You can easily hide tiling with good placements of other assetts like i have mentioned above.

I would also create this building with tiling textures. But instead of sculpting the whole building, you can also simply make a sculpt for a tiling texture. That way you can still have nice sculpted normals, but tiling rather than unique for every part of the building.