Large urban project - Management?

[Lupaz]

Hi,

 

I searched the forum and didn´t find an answer.

I am about to deal with a big urban project, and I was wandering how a project like that should be handled. I mean, are there ways of manageing these kind of projects?

One thing it came to mind is to render separetely a couple of buildings at a time with everything else "not visible to camera" so that shadows and reflections are seen, and then merge everything in photoshop or afterFx.

But poly count might be too high. So it is probably better to take lateral images of buildings, that will be seen far away, and map some low poly geometry, and only leave fully modeled buildings on the front.

May be xref (never used them) or proxys or render passes?

 

Tips?

I´m working with 3ds max and vray.

 

Thanks!

[Andrew Schroeder]

We have worked on projects as high as 2000 buildings, and we have found the best solution *so far* to be vray proxy objects.

[JamesTaylor]

if your modelling in autocad i'd use xref's as it allows you to easily update things individually. Then file link the main .dwg into viz and it'll bring across everything. In viz the layers for each xref will also be brought across again helping you keep things managable. If you keep a standard set of layers for for things in autocad, e.g. glass / red brick / window frames etc. you can set up all materials for one house in viz and you can then just work down the layer list and know the mapping size and material for each element of each house.

 

i've not found it nessacary to use proxy objects for the buildings before, but i'd suggest it for the trees and simliar things as it works brilliantly and keeps down polycount.

[Lupaz]

Andrew: Vray proxy objects? yeah, I've heard about that. I'll give them a try.

By the way, I have a comment about your site. may I? It's kind of hard to know where to click to see your images.

 

Jat: Xref's might be a good choice, but I'm not very fond with autocad for modeling. Besides I don't have Viz

May be using different Max's files instead...

 

I wander how the guys of ILM have done with Star Wars Episode III. Those cities are awesome.

 

Thanks!

[Tommy L]

I think the people on the star wars project might have had some really good computers....

Saying that, I dont reckon polycount is your biggest enemy. How close up are you going to see these houses? Anything in the distance can be texture mapped up, surely? Does it have to be one continuous track? they are ussually fairly boring. Sort clips put together are more easily managed, you can turn of stuff and map distant stuff. Its any reflections/caustics/opacity thats going to screw you over and if you cant borrow pixars render farm, you'll just have to map everything. and use environment mapping for reflections.

[Andrew Schroeder]

Hi Lupaz,

 

Check http://www.rem-system.com for more images.

[Lupaz]

Tommy:

Does it have to be one continuous track? they are ussually fairly boring

I agree, I'm going to work with separate short clips.

 

you'll just have to map everything

Yes, I know. But this never gets very realistic. And, as I have the time, I wander if there's a way to (in an extremist way) take a clip for every building alone with the same trajectory (fully or almost fully modeled), and then merge all these buidings together in one full complete and realistic animation, say in after FX or premier or whatever. That would be great because your limit would be only the number of people and PCs working, and not the power of each computer. I might be wrong though. I have no experience with this kind of scenes.

 

Andrew: thanks for the link.

I've been playing with vray proxies but don't get yet the way to use them. Do you proxy a hole building? or every part by itself? I ask this because of the materials.

[Sawyer]

I have never done it but I assume you could alpha map your foreground and composite it into your background sequence using the same camera path.

[Lupaz]

Yes, that is what I had in mind. I just wanted to see if there was something I was missing