Night City

[KenH]

I'm doing a "fly through a city" animation. Here's what I've got so far. There's going to be lots of motion blur and movement so these buildings don't have to be perfect, but am I missing anything obvious? Does anything stand out? I'd appreciate any comments. I'm thinking right now there's too many lights and the buildings need to be a little more varied. Thanks.

[John Bigboote]

Yeah! That's looking good! A trick to remember.(The bloom, that is.)

[robcat2075]

looks cool!

 

Is the "Window" material you refer to the one in Enhance A:M?

 

 

Does anything stand out? I'd appreciate any comments. I'm thinking right now there's too many lights and the buildings need to be a little more varied. Thanks.

 

I think the tops of the buildings look too simple compared to the sides. And maybe too bright.

[steve392]

Thats looking good Ken ,maybe a river or a road in between the foreground buildings and the further away ones might look good,but its a nice efect as is

[pixelplucker]

That looks really nice. I would do one of a city in China, this would allow you to use fog and hide all geometry beyond 3-4 ft in front of the camera. This would save countless hours of modeling and texturing

[Tralfaz]

Hi Ken,

 

This is looking pretty good, but I do have to agree with the tops of the roof looking a bit too bright. Once you start doing a fly through, it may not even be all that noticeable. Maybe you could have a nice big full moon to account for the brighter roof tops...

 

Hope you are able to post a video of the fly through (and in cross-eyed 3D!!!).

 

Al

[HomeSlice]

I would put a few towers with red blinking lights on top of the taller buildings. You know, those lights that keep airplanes from hitting the tops of the buildings.

In the cities I have visited, the lights in the buildings are all different tints of white/yellow. They aren't all the same color.

[Paul Forwood]

Looking good, Ken, though a variety of building periods would be better, especially if your going to be flying any distance. We can't have just one architect taking over the whole city.

 

Regarding detail on the buildings, do a shaded render of your fly through and add details just in the places where the camera lingers long enough to focus. Where neccesary add junk like aerials, lightning rods, cables, pipes, air conditioning, pigeons and grunge.

 

That's a great tip on using bloom with ambiance to add glow. I've often wanted to do that and this method should enable more control, allowing individual selection groups to have their own glow values. I'll have to play with bloom to test if this works.

[KenH]

This is going to be pretty generic. But I will add a little more variety. Good suggestions. I'll darken the roofs too. There is some fog, but I think it needs a little more. There's going to be a T junction at the end of these buildings. Then the camera will swing right on to another street and reveal the main "beauty building". I'll post some of the animation anyway.

 

Is the "Window" material you refer to the one in Enhance A:M?

 

Not sure what that is Robert, but the windows are just an image I pulled from a picture on the internet.

Thanks guys!

[mtpeak2]

Ken, this is an ambiance map and with glow ON. With low light levels, the ambiance map will provide the brightness for the glow.

[Paul Forwood]

Even better!

[robcat2075]

Is the "Window" material you refer to the one in Enhance A:M?

 

Not sure what that is Robert,

 

I don't know if he's still selling them but they are a set of additional shaders and combiners for A:M.

 

I have them and they still seem to work in v15.

 

And there is a skyscaper-window texture among them.

 

 

Edit: this looks like a more recent edition and a lower price

[KenH]

Oh yeah. I remember those now. But I'm happy enough with the map approach.

That looks great Mark.....particularly the one on the right. I understand you (and William) now. I never turned on the glow in the chor to see it. I'll experiment tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the help guys!

[pixelplucker]

Very nice job on the textures, the windows look great.

[KenH]

I don't know if he's still selling them but they are a set of additional shaders and combiners for A:M.

I have them and they still seem to work in v15.

 

Robert.....do you know if that window material renders quickly? If it does, I may consider getting that pack. It's good value.

[agep]

Very nice Ken. Do you mind me asking what the plans for the project is?

[robcat2075]

I don't know if he's still selling them but they are a set of additional shaders and combiners for A:M.

I have them and they still seem to work in v15.

 

Robert.....do you know if that window material renders quickly? If it does, I may consider getting that pack. It's good value.

 

 

This test took about 13 seconds per frame

 

citytest_MAT_11min_14secH.mov

 

 

that same chor with the mat removed was about 1.5 seconds per frame.

 

A hit, but not a bad one.

 

I didn't try it with a decal.

 

 

One hiccup... the windows texture doesn't have an ambience parameter so i had to set that on the object to get the windows to light. This particular one is not like a typical combiner that exposes all attributes.

[KenH]

Thanks for doing a test. The windows look more similar than I thought they would.

[paradymx]

Looking good Ken. Maybe some Helipad decals(the h with the circle around it) and mabye some simple cubes to represent the A/C system

[robcat2075]

Thanks for doing a test. The windows look more similar than I thought they would.

 

There's actually two window colors to set but mine were almost the same.

 

There are other parameters I didn't fool with to vary the effect.

 

But there's nothing to put people in the windows.

[jason1025]

Did you ever see the tv show "Birds of Prey"?

 

The cg city looked a lot like what you have made.

[KenH]

Thanks Stian. It's a flyby for a client which will eventually zoom into a "centre of excellence" building and show some of the activities inside. Quite ambitious!

Good suggestions Paradymx. See attached.

I think I'll go with images Robert but I'll play with the demo of the pack.

I don't know the show Jason, but I'll assume it's a complement.

 

Thanks all! Here's a little more progress. The camera is on the path ready to start the flyby. I've still to add some more variety to the buildings.

[3DArtZ]

wow! looking great Ken!

added some nice stuff like the roof lights!

Mike Fitz

[KenH]

Thanks Mike! Quite surprising what can be done with a couple of images.

[NancyGormezano]

Looks quite good - I like the variation for the contents of the windows

 

For a still - the only crit is that there could be more variation of window sizes (too many horizontal long windows) - but for a fly by, one might not notice - depending on how fast the camera is moving.

[pixelplucker]

Really Impressive. Someone have a godzilla rigged up to run though?

[HomeSlice]

Oh yes. Much better!

[KenH]

Thanks all. Yeah Nancy, I'm having trouble finding decent images to vary them. If I can't, I don't think it'll matter on the flyby. These will literally only be in frame for 3 seconds.