Urban American City Block

capone

Trying to create a nice portfolio piece within 2 weeks. Loosely aiming for current gen, will use normals, spec and alphas at the very least. Spent most of yesterday looking up reference and have been blocking out shapes, quite happy with the general shape of it now and am working up the blockout tomorrow with windows, extra building details and props.

Barnstable

Interesting shape variations. But I think you're trying to add to much variation into one block, and so, some of the shapes aren't in real life proportions. For instance, a building as tall as that main building, usually would not be that wide. It would either have more of a squarish footprint, or a rectangle with the longest part leading to the back of the building (if that made any sense).

Can't quite figure out what the other structures in the back are. What are they?

I think this could make a really nice library, or even an older style movie theater.

capone

Thanks Barnstable. I kind of see what you mean, though the variation makes for nice composition. Will try equalling it out, bring down the main building by about 40%. So maybe I just presumed it wouldn't go far back but in reality it should? unless I bring down the height?Here is a ref shot of what inspired it,





I tried a quick mockup of changed sizes. Lowered it, pushed it further out at the back, raised others...

Ack Master

bj 99 cents?! yo where is this place? greeat reference!

mrturtlepaste

Ack Master wrote: »

bj 99 cents?! yo where is this place? greeat reference!

haha.

Yeah, I am also wondering what the pieces in the back behind the building are? Other than that should be interesting to see this come together.

capone

update, starting to detail the front

capone

Update, more or less done for modeling now minus tweaks and props (if I have time). UV mapping next...

n88tr

looks like a cross between a library and a prison

capone

Update : Some rough screenshots showing 90% UV pass with (mostly) block out textures. Only have 1-2 days left on this and yet I could happily spend another week. So much to do but need to concentrate on having something that can be handed in.

Essential tasks still to do...

- Tweak/change textures. Create some variation textures (different type brick textures especially)

- Window Textures

- Normal maps and Spec maps for all textures.

- Clean up scene

Tasks I'd love to do if I have time

- Dirt alphas placed over scene

- More props (streetlamps, bins, benches etc)

- Full UV2 lightbake pass with colour info to help break up any large tiling surfaces

kYo

looks coming together real fine, i bet it would look much better with UDK´s lightmass tho...

if i can suggest one more thing its put more stuff on the roofs, mainly to create more interesting silhouttes (watertank, antennas, electrical boxes, rails, garden?, ..) when you´d walk on the streets but it wouldnt harm your aerial shots as well

iuli4n

and dont forget the windows. and I agree that you should work a bit more on the textures.

capone

Update, going to work on this for another week. Still more to do,

iuli4n

I can see a major improvement.

Pedro Amorim

add a directional light so we can have some big shadows on the floor. Just a plain skylight makes this too plain

capone

Just some quick renders just to show progress. Next is the colour map, I've set it all up in UV2 and done tests and it's really working well. This is really going to help make everything feel more unique and hide the tiling. Then the final step will be to go in and adjust geometry to be more natural and create light damage.

jrmenace

i think ya should add a pebble texture to the roof like a pebble asphalt give it more realism

sampson

^ depends if the render is ever going to be from head height or that same angle. not worth it if the camera never sees it.

capone

Finished. For everything you can visit http://www.caponeart.com/urban.htm

Tom Ellis

Looks great!


Could you post some texture flats along with some insight into how you UV'd bits / grouped geometry sets.

capone

Finished. For everything you can visit http://www.caponeart.com/urban.htm

TrentSnow

wow, great texturing!

Tom Ellis

Looks great!


Could you post some texture flats along with some insight into how you UV'd bits / grouped geometry sets.

konstruct

this is really cool- I like what you`re doing with all of the shape diversity

Rico

creationtwentytwo wrote: »

Looks great!


Could you post some texture flats along with some insight into how you UV'd bits / grouped geometry sets.

Yeah, I would also appreciate this. Would really help me out in a project I'm working on.

You did a great job!

pangarang

While I agree, that it's kind of weird to have a city hall, corner store, apartment and an industrial loading dock all stuck into one city block, I also think it's a great way to show the variation in what you can do.

sidenote: Those parking stalls are HUGE!!!

Everything is looking pretty clean so far and I'm sure you have plans to grunge the necessary portions up a bit. But overall a very impressive piece of work. May we see some wireframes?

capone

There isn't really a specific routine, just something that's become more natural to me over time. With this project there were no restrictions, I was aiming towards 'upcoming large open world sandbox game' . Anyway, generally my routine would be something like,

- Block out buildings on one layer

- Taking block out up in passes (but NOT adding damaged parts or making straight
things more organic, deal with that after you're confident with UV's later)

- Start playing around with camera setups early on to force you into thinking about placement.

- Block out and detail up extra bits on another layer.

- For large areas you'll likely want to use a tiling texture so start producing some of those. Just blockouts will do at this stage, just so you can UV correctly.

- Maybe cut up the geometry further at this stage to allow some creativity in texture use? For example the residential building (red bricks) used a tiling texture but I also made vertical cuts along the side that use another texture. Another popular technique is to do horizontal cuts, then replace the bottom with a duplicate texture that includes grime where it connects with the ground (did this on the blue concrete texture that holds the 2 metallic front doors). Also did unique cuts for the top parts of the cafe windows.

- Of course the biggest part is just going back and fourth unwrapping and creating simple textures just to make sure it all generally works. Once it does I'll start to work up the textures. Don't kill yourself by doing one massive non stop unwrap session, just go back and fourth on elements doing unwraps and basic texture work. You'll find your own routine with this bit, it always depends on how you work.

- Once it's all coming together I'll start thinking about alphas (on different layer) and smaller props to give a bit more life to the scene. Once UV's are ok you can start to add cuts so that you can add slight bends/irregular edges to make the scene more natural. Some people are fine with doing this before doing UV's but I find UV's easier to manage when they are as simple and box looking as possible. You can also see if edges are screwing up your UV's.

- Lastly should mention the colour map. Everyone has different names for this, it's just a technique where you unwrap everything (again!) onto UV2. Then you render out the UV's to use as a template to paint on top of in photoshop. You can also do lightbakes/ambient occlusion maps on this channel to overlay in your PSD as well as a render2texture diffuse to further make it clear what you're painting on top of. This is a massive process that deserves it's own tutorial but essentially it is done to break up tiling. You don't really need to unwrap everything though, if you don't have the time you can just unwrap the big tillable areas that really need it. Then the rest you just map to a little 50% gray square on the colourmap so it's unaffected by the process.

Some flats, I think in total I had about 20 ID's.

capone

Thanks for all the comments by the way. I do take them on board.

The wireframes http://www.caponeart.com/urban_wires.htm

Rico

Thanks a lot for the breakdown man! Really appreciate it!

Tom Ellis

Thanks for explaining man, very helpful.