Medieval city

[Dune]

I first made the escarpment, then used 2 painted shaders to first level the escarpment back to zero in the entrance, then a second to move a part X-wise (redirect+displacement shaders) behind the bars. It's not perfect, I admit.

[inkydigit]

Hi Ulco, the last render looks awesome!
I would say embankment maybe, rather than escarpment?
Looks very much like part of a 'fosse' part of the 'bailey' from a 'motte and bailey' castle...

[Dune]

Thanks, Inky.

Two more tests while I'm busy building and placing objects. I have to change the masks so that the grass (which seems to lighten up  ) doesn't poke from under the houses. I will also place items such as recently made pile of casks and tables where you'll see them, not everywhere. At least not for this one image I have to make. Too much work. I did make some graves (beside the church), but doubt if they'll be visible.

[otakar]

The wall in the last image, is that procedural or an object?

Great progress, btw. This is a huge job.

[Seth]

lovely light and nice atmo too

[Dune]

It's an object.

[Dune]

A few more tests. Staying just under 5GB memory use at 4500 px wide, AA8 1/16 detail 0.65. Only 42 minutes to render these. I had to compress severeley though to get under 512kB.
I have a problem with the strange banding that's rendered in some walls. And I have the idea that if I load another object some older internal links are severed, hence some black houses. A lot of node titles are changed while doing that, with a 'TEMP STRING' line that disappears later. Although I might have forgotten to link them to their texture files...

[Dune]

another one

[Dune]

And a nice one at last 

[Axe]

It's been great watching this thread and following your progress.  The views from above look really good.  The sunset view seems to have an overly flat horizon.  Probably normal for this area of the world, but a little variation (trees, distant villages, hills) would help break it up a bit.
Fantastic work!

[masonspappy]

I have a problem with the strange banding that's rendered in some walls.

The banding comes about when repeatitive iterations of a single image are viewed at reduced size.  Looking at the attached graphic, the square image of bricks (1) is used over and over to come up with image (2).  When (2) is reduced in size, the result is what you see in image (3). If you resize the graphic downward, the banding in (2) will sort of jump out at you. 
The banding issue may resolve itself depending on what  size your final image will be. It can be fixed manually, but it's a major P.I.T.A.

[Oshyan]

Agreed, the banding looks like a tiled texture issue. I assume you didn't mean for them to be tiled in the first place, but if you did you'll have to either make better, more seamless tiles, or add some additional layers to break up the tiling.

Sunset looks quite nice, but with trees/fields/something in the background it would certainly look more natural. Not sure if the plan is to add that stuff later, or if this is just how the area actually is (in which case artistic license might be nice, but not possible for this particular client).

- Oshyan

[Dune]

Thanks guys, I thought as much. The walls are not that tiled, max 2-3 times on one wall, and they're seamless alright. Perhaps the same tile, but slightly shifted or horizontally mirrored, added and blended by a 'world' PF would help. I'll test that maybe. The final size will be a lot bigger (10.000px wide), so it might not be necessary.
And the horizon is empty because the client needs a top down view of only the city and immediate surroundings. No need to fill it up, maybe later. I was just playing about  
Right now my main concern is to fill the city with all these houses (only 3/4 done) and then make the light, fields and surroundings as photo-realistic as possible. I think the 'ditches' and sides of the 'gracht' (canal) need some work, for instance.

Any other suggestions are most welcome!

[Dune]

Another test. Some minor post cloning and brushing, I admit.

[j meyer]

Enormous amount of work,impressive.
Just out of curiosity is the window of the church postwork or
plain texture?
Keep going,J.