Hello
I just checked Video Copilots blog as I often do. And there is a great new post for free buildings!
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2013/06/futuristic-city-pack/
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Summery
Anyone who wants can model a futuristic building and submit it. The complete collection of submitted buildings will be compiled into a pac and available to all. Andrew Cramer and company will be contributing several models, as well as doing the final quality control.
I am absolutely going to participate. I think I am getting very good at modeling, Im just very slow still. But I think I will do some good work for this. IM very ispired by the group effort idea. I think that is the real power of all these communities.
Efflux.
Since you are on a modeling binder too. THink about doing this! It will be a very speific way for you to channel your new powers for the good of mankind ;D 8)
Everyone else here who is modeling but perhaps just not posting about it. Please look into this and see if you have the energy and time to participate.
The building packs at VCP that you have to pay for are really nice. So if the same finish goes into this future idea, It will be such a nice thing to have.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers to you.
I guess if everyone builds just one decent model you could have something really great. My only problem with it is that everyone is going to have the same thing. It doesn't seem very creative. You'll see the same citys over and over again.
I see NYC in tons of movies, never get tired of looking :) If there are enough models it wont mater. And besides you can change them, rearrange them, retexture them.
You only get the pack if you submit?
No, it will be available to all at no charge, including non participants. So in that respect I understand Efflux's hesitance.
However, if there are 50 or more buildings it will be very easy for anyone who uses it to make completely original shots.
If you send 1000 people to time square with a camera, your going to get back 1000 different shots. Some will suck and some will be great. And no one will complain that all the photos are of time square.
And as I said, there is no reason that once you get the models, that you cant alter them anyway you like. And make new and totally unique buildings.
The thing about is that, modeling an entire city by your self would take a year. But with 100 people focused on just one or two building each it will get done fast.
Not to mention that the architecture of each building should then be completely unique, just like a real city. Then from each style you can copy and make groups. And build up an original scene.
Frankly, if you dont want to spend a ton of cash or spend a year modeling just buildings. Im not sure of any other way to get a whole city to play with.
Also Dune, I read that they are happy to work with people who use lightwave.
Lastly, Videocopilot will also make "several" models for the pack, as well as do all of the quality control and optimization. I think if enough people participate it will be a real nice thing.
Good. If I have some spare time, I will try some building. Future building, no Medieval one, although that would be a nice blend.
i might just take part of this... make some skyscrapers
ah hell, who am i kidding, i'm already modeling
;D I am going to crash my spaceship into your corporate headquarters! ;D
* you know when I wrote that I meant literally. But now it sounds like Im talking dirty to you.
I'd donate buildings to this even I never used it but first I'd check out all the details. Who stands to gain other than the downloaders etc. The trouble is I have no buildings anyway (yet). I only really just started along this modelling direction in any serious way.
The models will be given freely to the VCP community. All you need do is register and you will be able to download.
VCP will benefit from the promotion in the way giving free stuff benefits. Everyone else will benefit in the obvious way.
I have to say in all honesty, that I do not mind at all that VCP stands to benefit as a company (bringing in more people to look at their products) they built their name on giving things away for free. Things of value.
Their products are solid and priced for everyone (relative to the rest of this industry) I hold (in as much as I can know people from the web) VCP in a similar light as I do planetside... They are a good bunch of guys trying to make a living, and not pissing on others as they do it.
I have followed VCP for several years now. And in my opinion you have nothing to fear from them. They seem like decent hardworking people, not unlike some of the asset providers who serve the TG2 community. Friendly and rather straight forward... Just in my opinion.
But That you are new to modeling means nothing, you obviously have a knack for it.
And by what nearly everyone else has told me, modeling hard surfaces is easier than organics, so you should not find it to difficult.
Hope that helps Efflux.
Probably right in front of me, or my browser is hiding it. Where do you create and account? ???
If you are in the blog you must go to the forum ;D (I know, I had this problem too, when I first found the site :))
It is under the tab "connect" at the top of the site.
Here is a direct link http://www.videocopilot.net/forum/
Quote from: TheBadger on June 15, 2013, 01:14:12 PM
If you are in the blog you must go to the forum ;D (I know, I had this problem too, when I first found the site :))
It is under the tab "connect" at the top of the site.
Here is a direct link http://www.videocopilot.net/forum/
Thanks!
:)
Quote from: TheBadger on June 15, 2013, 11:59:38 AM
But That you are new to modeling means nothing, you obviously have a knack for it.
I can answer this now. It's not me it's the apps. I've spent a few days simply in the Modo modeler. It's absolutely crap compared to Wings3d. There are things you simply can not achieve at all or they are so long winded as to be hell. I don't have any knack for modelling it's because Wings3d in really powerful and easy.
The only modelling apps of any sort that are artist friendly are ZBrush, 3D Coat and Wings3d. Maybe some other sculpting apps as well because they tend to set up to be easy. Wings is the most amazing because it proves this type of basic poly modelling modeling can be really easy from a creative workflow point of view. I think even Blender's modeller is better than Modo's. I don't know what drugs these developers are on. This video here especially makes me laugh. Wings can do almost all of this with WAY less trouble yet they talk like these features are some kind of revolutionary ease of use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhzgr6hTcqw
So just use wings! If you like it, and it works for you than stick with it.
On sculpting soft. I do like Mudbox. Z-brush does not require that you have a modeler. But unless you only want to sculpt and make turntables, than you need another program. And in a workflow pipeline, making the low polly first in maya, is better IMO than having to re-topo everything after your done sculpting in Z.
I definitely prefer the low polly-sculpt-"send to" workflow to a z-brush workflow. No need to buy "topogun" or similar than. In linear terms, I don't think Z is very fun. I don't like ever having to go backwards in a workflow, if you know what I mean.
Hi Michael.
I'm working in Modo at the moment. It's not actually crap as a modeler but I'm seeing why I love Wings now. Wings is perfect for the topic of this thread in my opinion. The thing with Wings that makes it creative is the priority of workflow. First thing is navigation. Well obviously most apps prioritise that to be the easiest and most common task. Modo doesn't. You have crazy double key shortcuts to navigate the view as default. Next thing Wings prioritises its selections. This is the most interesting bit that makes it different. Spacebar drops the selection. It's not a click in the view like Modo. As you change selection in Wings from say verts to edges, Wings transforms the selection from verts to edges and then to polys etc. You always have a selection unless you deliberately drop it with spacebar. I really like that. There is no key command to add more selection to the polys, verts or whatever, you just click on another or click again to remove. It's all mouse driven in the workflow until you need to activate a tool. That can also be moused but you learn the shortcuts or make them which is also easy in Wings. In fact I think as default it has no commands for tools. You create them but this is what you end up doing. I think this sums up the correct workflow any app should have. Confinguring shortcuts in Modo is hell to do. You have masses of selection processes, random, similar, number of edges, length of edges etc etc etc. Last in Wings is the tools in it's system or priority. In Modo tools seem to be prioritised in ease of use with a mass of tools to do complex things instead of a simpler set of tools. What this creates is a workflow where in Wings you can play around very quickly. In Modo and other apps you have to think through what you are doing very carefully. If you're modeling a car or something then you can do that very precisely in Modo. However, the lack of just fun in messing around is why I have no folders of models from Modo but my Wings folder is full of experiments that got interesting basic shapes to use later.
Modo can be reconfigured though. I'm looking into that but it's a nightmare. Blender is much easier to reconfigure.
Both Wings and Modo or other modeling apps require a learning curve. Wings can not be simply learnt really quickly because a lot of the features are hidden but when you do learn it you start flying. It's not a toy but it does look that way at first.
Modo is different in other areas. Modifier tools, animation, matetials, particles, dynamics etc. All these other tools do seem to provide for a lot of experimentation. You can also drive functions with each other as far as I can see. TG2 once again shows it's crippling limits. As far as I can tell it's possible to hook up numerous parameters of different fractals to control each other in Modo. I think it's hooked into channels for animation but have yet to learn it.
The thing is, If you're working with polys it's best to just see it as that. Flat unsubdivied faces. You can see the smoothed result and subdivide in Wings but to me polys are polys. If you're working properly, it will looked fine when smoothed out. Modo tries to be inbetween this and sculpting. If I want to very organically sculpt something I want to forget about polys and sort that out after. Then I'll use 3D Coat, Blender dynamic topology sculpting or something.
I think Wings would fit into any workflow where you want to very quickly map out polys. You can also sculpt the polys in Wings. There is a sculpt tool and a tweak tool. Even if you aren't that concerned about topology, although obviously you can do that right if you want Then you can take this model to your sculpting app. After that you could retopologise. It's also a good way to build a model then take to Modo where any problems with the polys can be quickly spotted and repaired. Wings smoothed look in the view isn't very good. Wings is also a good app to assign all your materials to certain polys if needs be. The UV tools seem quite good as well because it has the same methods of manipulation as you modeling.
Wings is like a free Silo but much better in my opinion.
As for ZBrush. I've tried it. I spent some time in it a while back. I think it's great strength is a great realtime view with sculpting tools that really respond well and have nice effect. There are also cool ways to map out your model with zspheres. I think it's advanced in this respect since the last time I tried. I'm a bit biased because I like things to be Linux. I think 3D Coat has a much more user friendly UI than ZBrush but you need to have a powerful graphics card. Not needing that is a major boon for ZBrush. I also tried Mudbox. That didn't completely inspire me and seemed to be a bit limited in what you can do with it. It's also Autodesk BS. Not that cheap. It's more similar to 3D Coat is feel but with less features.
Ome thing I haven't really worked with much is the dynamic topology sculpting in Blender. What I really like about that is actually seeing the topology. As you sculpt more faces get added where needed for detail. This has a byproduct very cool look of faceted faces where there is less detail. It actually looks really cool without smoothing.
What I'm after, is something to model in and another app that can handle the rest as well as peripherary apps and the 2D stuff I use but the main app has to be good enough for landscape type stuff as well as Terragen. I think Modo now beats Vue. I don't like Vue and Modo's renderer is much better. Check out some of the images in the link below. I'm really not sure why so many people are messing with things like woodland scenes in Terragen. That's not it's strength. Most other 3D apps beat Terragen to dust for that. If there is distance with terrain showing hills and things like clouds and such like then yes, that's one of Terragens strengths. There is also Terragen skies in this link. Modo can now handle really big poly counts. I found this out when moving terrain from Blender to Modo. Modo handled big terrains as if you could have loaded several times the size with ease whereas Blender was struggling. When you get into instancing in Modo, it beats others apps easily and the real time rendering window handles this insanely well so you can see what you are doing:
http://paqwak.com/
I'm going off topic here but I think this is important. Look here:
http://www.luxology.com/community/profile.aspx?name=pixteur
Look here as well. In particular the image in the bottom left. That seems to have been done by using drivers in Modo to create Mojoworld type forms. I say Mojoworld because Terragen is too limited in this area of various fractal forms and driving them with other functions.
http://www.luxology.com/community/profile.aspx?name=ScoRo
People using these other apps will come to TG2 then abandon it due to hellish learning curve. That means people here need to go in the other direction. TG2 is isolated out of these pipelines.
Blender:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXxT3vIuud8
Here's another Blender test with Cycles. It lacks proper render time microdisplacement. That's why the trees look flat but everything else is there. I'm not happy about the now limits on the procedurals and also some terrain limitations. That's why I'm concentrating on Modo. Some Blender things aren't nearly as well executed as they could be so it's hard to judge but Blender is very good at some things now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1-WnPx68ig
Blender is beginning to knock out some of the bigger apps for a lot of smaller scale purposes.
Dead line is set for submissions to the buildings pack: July 20th
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2013/06/city-of-tomorrow-future-city-update/#comments
In the images you will see in the link above, only two models were used. So you can begin to se the possibilities when using 100 models.
As I understand it, the release date for the pack will be a bit later then the submission date. VCP has to QC all the submissions and make sure they are all at the same scale and such. I suspect there will be no trouble with submitting a day late or something. Its not a contest. So I don't think the rules are anything more than a way to organize the effort.
Imagine a Terragen shot from high altitude. A camera flying over a massive city looking straight down like a satellite. An aircraft comes into frame (maybe its a drone? :/ ). T3 quality render, Terragen Volumetric lighting, bet it would look good.
I've not got any buildings but I'm learning how to smash things apart. Not much to do that with yet though.
Those renders look really cool.
I've learnt how to replicate things in various ways in Modo but I found what appears to be a bug in the replicators micro poly subdivision. Despite this, it's amazing. Modo can replicate on vaste scale so as in that render you linked to, Modo could replicate that city to insane scales of distane for miles upon miles.
I'll add a still image from a small Blender animation test on the thread where I was on about Blender. Wings and Blender are my modellers. I'll create the objects in those but Modo will actually handle the replications, dynamics, particles etc. Terragen, well I'm not sure how that fits in but I know ways to possibly do that.
^^ as to how terragen fits into a bigger workflow, I think Terragen 3 will fix a lot of the issues, Efflux. From what I can understand, and what I saw in the release review, it should be a lot easier to composite for one.
I see awesome ways of compositing stuff. Even for animation, especially with Modo except I'll have to use Blender compositor. Modo is now Foundry which does Nuke. There will be integration coming for Modo and Nuke but Nuke is a fortune. Hopefull Modo doesn't end up this way as well but they keep raising the price. Modo is moving to full blown 3D app now though. I can upgrade quite cheap considered as a whole since I didn't upgrade from way back but upgrade is the same price. Foundry may well change that I suspect. I'm not upgrading until I know there are no problems. I found one already and I think it's a bug. Blender compositor is actually pretty good from what I can tell for basic things. All that stuff is a long way off here though.
@efflux - Over the years, you've been an inspiration to not give up. Thanks for posting what you do. It's appreciated and has proven a source of hope to me to find my niche. Thanks!!
I'd rather be posting work. I'm sick of going through all these apps just to find problems. A problem with Modo now. It might get solved but I'm having to send them the file. I just want apps that work.
I've been through this with audio, eventually threw in the towel and took it mostly back to hardware and chose Apple Logic for the DAW because most of the software is a disaster. I'm not alone either. Hardware is taking over again over the software.
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2013/08/future-city-submissions/
Did you submit, Michael? I didn't have time :(
No not yet. I can build a tower pretty quick though. I have a folder full of materials I can use. I built a 2.5D project of a city a while back for after effects. So more than have of what I want to do is already done. I just need to make some new shapes to apply the textures I made to.
Now available
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2013/12/free-future-city-pack/#comments
Thanks for the link.
Did you submit your model Michael?If yes which one is yours?
nope :'(
Ops!
Had not much time to look closer but the objects do look useful .
^^ They will be more useful to me if I can get a destroyed apocalypse look glued on. There are 30 models or so. Take that plus what else you can find on line for free, and you could put a nice city in a terragen valley!
One thing I have been looking for is a "suburbs" pack to surround the downtown style buildings. Free, and modern in appearance. Any ideas? Its easy now to find models of sky scrapers and such. But its way to expensive to buy an entire city, and way to time consuming to build one on your own. You would have to model 10 hours a day for a year to get a entire city done!
And you really need all the little details to make it look real... So suburbs/residential zoning areas.
But yeah, we all go through a lot of trouble to make photo quality landscapes. But don't you agree that a city scene (perhaps looking down from a bluff) would be a great terragen scene? Just like we need grass and trees, we need houses and the rest.
It's not free, but it's cheap. :P
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/sci-fi-suburbs-blocks/70101 (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/sci-fi-suburbs-blocks/70101)
http://www.daz3d.com/dystopia-city-blocks-011-020-lwo
http://www.daz3d.com/dystopia-city-blocks-001-010-lwo
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/3D-Models/suburban?max_price=0&min_price=0
http://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/architectural-exterior?author=&keywords=house&per_page=50&price[from]=0&price[to]=0&sort_by=best_match&utf8=%E2%9C%93
(select all the line above and use that for the link.The link gets shorted;not sure why)
It is a matter of Googling. You can find many other free objects probably.
Did you look at http://www.doschdesign.com ?
They are not free except some samples but have a look at this Michael:
http://www.doschdesign.com/products/3d/American_Houses.html
when you look at the content overview as a pdf file you will see 30 objects.
And that site does have many others too.
Yep 149.00 $ isn't free and i am not sure about the models.
I don't know them but they look usable.
If i had a project that needed so many houses i would buy them instead to model them.
My time is important too.
But there was a guy that said on another forum something along this line:
"And if it made me even my coffee i would not buy it; it is still so and so dollars that i haven't got and will not spend" :)
With one such a pack and another free or bought pack that does have bigger houses you could make your city much faster and better then you think.
Especially if you tweak those models to your will. You can make this easily .
But don't make it harder then it is for yourself.
It looks like from the post at the other thread that you are at last not worried anymore about the polygons at the other side of the mountains :)
I think especially guys who have more Terragen blood in them try to make worlds when good positioned objects and a little scene would be enough.
Making worlds is cool too of course!
QuoteIt looks like from the post at the other thread that you are at last not worried anymore about the polygons at the other side of the mountains :)
I will always worry about the polygons on the other side of the mountain, Kadri. I just take my meds now so I don't become homicidal about them.
Thanks for the leads Yossam and Kadri! I will try to pick through it all and find what I need.
Kari
http://www.daz3d.com/dystopia-city-blocks-011-020-lwo
I was confused to see that daz sells .lwo. I don't use lightwave. Can I use these models as is in TG? To the best of my knowledge there is still no OSX version of that soft you guys use to fix models (can't remember the name right now). Do you think I can open these in blender and convert them to OBJ there?
Also, as an OSX user, can anyone tell me how I can open and convert .3ds to obj?!?! There are so many models in .3ds and I cant get to any of em'
The Lightwave models also come in Poser format (DAZ) and there are two sets for free. :)
:) !
There are 3d model converting apps out there somewhere.
But since many (really many) 3ds models are broken or
messed up somehow you shouldn't worry at all.
Very few can be fixed with poseray,but as you said it's
not for mac users.
Michael as J meyer said there are converter programs like
Polytrans (expensive ) http://www.okino.com/conv/filefrmt_3dimport.htm
or like 3D Object Converter (cheap) http://3doc.i3dconverter.com/index.html out there.
I was interested in those in the past but actually did not needed them much as i thought.
The programs we use can mostly import export files like OBJ , 3ds etc.
(There are posts that you can import 3ds files in Maya http://www.3dbuzz.com/forum/threads/182101-Import-3ds-file-into-Maya )
The file format i hate and think is the most egoistic - if there is anything like that - of all 3D formats is .MAX by Autodesk 3d Studio Max.
When i see somewhere a file only in Max format i don't bother to download it anymore.I hope it dies along with 3Ds Max .
Converting,importing,exporting files was and is still so or so problematic.
But depending on your application you should find a way that suits you.
And you could always use the PM system here on the forum .
So far i know it can nearly convert all formats for its users here ;)
Edit: Found this. Your problem was this maybe?
- BonusTools 2014 Update - in this link http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/bonustools
Big thanks Kadri, every line of that last post was good!
But more thanks for the offer, and for pointing out that bonus tools is ready for my OS. When I downloaded 2014 it was not yet ready for OSX, and I forgot to check back on it.