Hey Si

glad to help, I think alot of images go by the wayside because people tend not to look at the job after the fact. Boom! one render and its 'next please'. I think its more of a 50/50 option in 3d and 2d to get the best out of it.

the image is looking better, but the specular pass is burning out. Perhaps use a blinn. I find that using a lambert can cause this issue. Theres no spec control at all. Also maybe worth trying to do the specular pass on the model itself so save time in that area.

With regards to layer comping, I found its what works best at the end of the day for you to achieve the desired effect, especially when it comes to layering on textures. Theres a lot of adjustment involved but in this case it sure beats the hell out of 'uv'ing another 'cube' LOL

Edit: Also with regards to spec, (think outside the box here) you may not want all the buildings to be shiny, regardless of being a future city

Cheers for now
Jay

Hi Jay,
hehe, I thought that it WAS mainly bang a render out and then touch it up in photoshop, not to actually take loads of layers and then play to get a nice effect afterwards (which is much better now that I know and have tried ;) ) :beer:

Yeah I really liked the effect of the reflections in the rear central skyscraper and stupidly thought it would look good everywhere (like you say, not all buildings need to be shiny). I've knocked the blinn settings down so hopefully that and maybe not using the color dodge will bring things back down to earth a bit.

here's another play but its mainly getting the specular levels down a bit and slightly moving things around to better draw the view in. Once those bits are finalised then I'll render the relevant layers out and start working things up :)

Si

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/city/test2_layers.jpg

Si

Well this looks like the one for me. Just needs fog for depth and scale and a bunch of cool textures and some more detailed cars (LOL)

Good job dude, looking forward to the rest....


Jay

Sorry Si

I forgot to mention Dylan Cole, a very good matte artist, check this lot from Superman Returns http://www.dylancolestudio.com/index2.html

Jay

Busy weekend hance no updates.
I've had a look into depth fog Jay and 'think' I've got it working (lightly applied at the minute):
http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/city/test3_layers.jpg

That dylan cole stuff is great - he must have a heck of a lot of reference material or just a great creative mind :)

think I need to start on the texturing pretty soon now!

Si

Hey Si

Yeah thats good dude. It will probably need adjusting once the color begins to stamp its authority over the image.

DCs stuff is a bit of everything, reference and his own skills. Its worth getting the Ballistic Publishing book MAtte Painting. Hes a featured artist in it, with probably the best section of the book.

Cheers
Jay

Hi Jay,
Yeah the colour will definitely throw things around :)

I may well start looking into more of this matte painting stuff. That book sounds like it could be a good first step.

here's a quick play with painting some areas in to see what might work where or what wont ;)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/city/test4_layers.jpg

Si

Here's a bit more playing with areas to see what could work.
I'm thinking for the foreground buildings it would probably have been a good idea to model more geometry and texture them and then just touch it up in post. With the mid and background buildings just doing matte painting would be fine :)

If anyone knows where there are highres references of skyscrapers or building textures then let me know - the original size of this is 4000x2500 and I'm having real trouble finding decent textures ;)

This one has the depth fog still in just so it shows a toned down version:
http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/city/test5_layers.jpg

Si

yeah - this is shaping up nicely! looking forward to seeing some detail on the vehicles and other stuff going on. :beer:

I'll have a scan around for some textures...

Jay

thanks arran :) hope you got your system sorted out btw

cheers Jay :)
I just remembered I have some in one of my many reference collections from ages ago (cant help saving stuff for later if it looks good). Dont know how high res they are but they might help

Si

This is starting to take shape nicely :beer:

If you still need some reference pics for city scapes I found the following 4 pics each at 1920x1080 .png's. If you want em, send me a PM and I'll send them you...

Textures!!

Theres a load of free building ones on the latest 3d world magazine's CD....


Cheers
Jay

cheers tiddles, I've pm'ed you :)

well spotted jay, I dont often look on the CD content (tut tut) but they will do nicely :)

I've also actually started creating some basic high res textures for the more distant buildings but these finds might negate a fair bit of that

Si

your scene is coming along nicely