My Jerusalem Project
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This is the beginning of a huge project: modeling a first century view of Jerusalem. I will be primarily modeling in Hexagon; rigging, rendering, and animating in Daz Studio; and I might try some texturing in 3D Coat.
This first image includes a mostly finished ground elevation with a brown shaded topography map, a multi-colored city section map, and a few basic 'blocks' to place where major buildings will be going. Now the work of real modeling begins.
Comments, questions, and critiques are welcome as the project progresses. The Jerusalem Project Gallery will have all the images used in this thread.
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Comments
Wow, that is a huge project. There's a video going around about a guy who spent 35 years on a model of Rome. Hopefully in 3D things will be at least a little faster!
Best of luck! I'm very interested to see how this comes along. Ancient history is really fascinating.
Looks good so far. I think I will bookmark this! Is that Hezekiah's tunnel in the lower right? Nice detail.
can sell it to Ubisoft afterwards for Assassins Creed the Nazarene
Well... bookmarked right now
!
Good observation. Yes that is a marker for Hezekiah's tunnel. That will actually play a prominant role in some of the images / animations I hope to do with this project.
Should be absolutely fascinating. Must admit I am surprised there is enough archaeological evidence remaining to be able to do a comprehensive re-building given the milennia of subsequent occupation. However, that statement may well just show how little I know...
I am aware there is enough surviving historical and archaeological info to be able to model large parts of Rome through various stages of the Republican and Imperial Rome periods, though decoration may well be an educated guess.
I shall watch your progress with great interest.
Regards,
Richard
My original vision for this project was a very detailed set of buildings and groundscape for Jerusalem. In setting up the simple clay colored scale image in the OP, I realized this is not needed for citywide views. Therefore, I have decided to do this project in two stages. The first will be a quick low resolution set of buildings and objects that should work fine for city wide views. Then, I will go back through and detail things.
This simple tower and wall segment is an example of my low resolution model ... I can simply paste many copies of it into the city to form the walls ... and the second image shows that in a citywide view this should work. Eventually, multiple towers, various wall segments, and especially each gate done individually will be desired for close-ups and other work.
(and, yes, I see that I need to re-orient my texture maps on the tower and wall). Also, because I will probably be rendering with canvases I will not be able to use instancing but instead will need to have actual copies of each piece ... which will make this a very high poly set in the end.
Insanely high poly, in my opinion. Is the chance to use canvases really worth it?
Have you considered using the Medina Cityscape Generator to fill in some of the streets? Even if you don't use the script, you might be able to incorporate some of the buildings and people into your scene.
Are canvases worth it? That might be a good question to ask. Since this will probably have a single light source (sun or otherwise) and not multiple lights and I will be texturing the scene myself (nothing too wild) maybe I can do without. Instancing would be quite useful here. Furthermore, I will want to eventually animate this ... canvases and animation would not be a pleasant mix. Instancing is looking better and better.
Medina Cityscape? Ooooh ... good reminder. It would take some tweaking to remove the domes and make the buildings look more Israelitish rather than Arabic, but that is doable. I have the set and played with it before - but do not think I used it in a finished product ... yet.
Thanks for the ideas !!
I have begun my Low Resolution version of buildings for first century Jerusalem. This is the Pool of Siloam. The short side of the pool is known to be 160 feet long, but the other sides are unknown.
Modeled in Hexagon, Texture mapped in 3DCoat, textures from Daz3d vendors (for now).
This weeks Jerusalem Project update. I have started low resolution objects for Fort Antonia, the Temple Mount, and Herod's Palace. (and found a much easier way to make stairs in the process).
The scale of these buildings is amazing. The temple mount is 600 feet long and the fortress is about 37 acres.
Okay ... I went a little wild this past week. Not only did I model some more items of my own ... but I used some PA assets to fill in the lower city portions.
This project has also pushed me to new resources including: ultrascatter, scene optimizer, and billboards ... along with heavy use of canvases.
Interestingly, it was not the number of polygons holding me back from rendering this in one layer (instead of many) ... it was the maps. I experimented by replacing everything with straight colors (like those above) and it even rendered on my laptop. I also reduced texture size and eliminated bump and displacement maps and suddenly it rendered like it was almost nothing.
This will probably satisfy me for a low-poly version. Now I can see about animation and start considering how detailed I want the high resolution model to be.
Interesting project. Will be following.
^__^
With the gallery down, I have not felt like updating much. I will comment that I went through with Scene Optimizer and removed the bump, displacement, and normal maps ... and now I am able to render the entire scene in a single render.
Damned galleries. I just came across this thread and would very much like to see the progress. Sound really cool! Bookmarked.
Hmmm .... it might take a few days since I have other projects with priority, but I think I can make a short ( few seconds ) of animation just panning around the city and then post it ion my animation gallery.
Okay ... I made a few seconds of video so the current status can be seen. It is the top video at: Daz Practice .