Western Town Environment

jbelcher · Mar 2011

Hello Everyone!

I have been wanting to make a complete Western Town for some time now. This will be my first large environment project and hope to learn alot in the process. I expect this take me a few months to complete and I already can't wait to see it in its full glory.

Any and all feedback and criticism is welcome. Thank you to anyone who comments and helps me along on this journey.

I am using this cool western town in alberta, canada as a reference that can be rented by film companies for their productions and was used in Shanghai Noon with jackie chan and owen wilson. I am going to try to recreate the town and then add my own spin and props to it. The town is called CL Western Studio and Backlot.

Here is a link to their website: http://clwesterntown.com/the_town.htm

I started modeling a little under two weeks ago. I will post some images of my progress later today.

polygonfreak · Mar 2011

Well boy, lets see the progress.

jbelcher · Mar 2011

Here are a few images of my town thus far. I do not have these stored on a website so i could only figure out how to add them as attachments. I am still early on in the project and can only work on this in my free time after work but I'm hoping to make steady progress.

Town Blockout

Close up of detailed buildings

Building 1

Building 2

jbelcher · Mar 2011

Hmm, the images didn't appear in my post like I thought they would and are only appearing as links.

<--- noob poster

Sean VanGorder · Mar 2011

No worries man. It's really simple to upload them to a site like tinypic, photobucket, or dropbox, and then link to them from there. But if you're going to use the attachment system, then just click on the little paper clip icon and upload them directly from your drive.

jbelcher · Mar 2011

thanks SeanEG, I'll upload them to one of those sites tonight and then repost them. I will use that option from now on.

ayoub44 · Mar 2011

great start dud

loving those house ... and nice scale you have there ! are you going to make the environment with udk ?

jbelcher · Mar 2011

thanks ayoub44, I would like to get ithe scene into udk but I have zero knowledge with the software. I have it installed and have tinkered around with an unreal level a bit. I've recently bought a book but found out its a bit outdated but maybe theres still some useful info in there. I am using maya so far for this scene.

sketch81 · Mar 2011

Very nice modelling and attention to detail, I really like the two storey building. Just a few questions, will you have a focal point and have you thought about a tri budget?
Keep up the awesome work

jbelcher · Mar 2011

thanks sketch81, I don't really have a focal point but I'm planning on doing an animation when I'm done showing off different parts of the town. I have a stagecoach model already built that I would like to animate as well but its stuck on my macbook right now that won't power up for some reason.

I don't have a specific tri budget and am not sure what a good budget to shoot for would be but I have been trying to make the models as low res as possible.

jbelcher · Mar 2011

Building 1

Building 3

Building 4

I'll submit more as I complete them and an updated shot of the town as it gets more filled out. I'll work on making my preview renders better to as it is hard to see alot of the details

3DVlad · Mar 2011

Hey nice start with the models jbelcher. Add some chamfering in those major corners so they do not appear so razor sharp.

Also for Unreal you don't need no stinking books! Google UDN tutorials, basically a series of tutorials by Epic that teaches you all the basics about using UDK. It should get you started

jbelcher · Mar 2011

thanks 3DVlad, I added edge loops on almost all parts with corners so when it is smoothed it will create a beveled effect, I just haven't smoothed anything in any of those shots. All the models are basically a first pass kind of thing and I figured when I go to UV a building, I'll clean up the model and smooth the pieces beforehand. I'm not sure if that is the best workflow or thing to do but its my initial plan at least.

thanks for the tips on UDK, Ill check those tutorials out for sure. Do you think it would be best to get the models in UDK right away or will it not make much of a difference work wise to continue on in maya and then improt at a later stage?

jbelcher · Mar 2011

Building 5

Building 6

jbelcher · Apr 2011

Texturing Update - Building 1

I haven't accomplished much modeling in the past 3 weeks but have been working on texturing the first building.

Western Town Environment

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