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And here is another view of that customised block I showed earlier, with another one added in for good measure. As the product is so memory efficient custom versions of just a few of the texture atlases will not consume masses of memory but will still allow you to make a fair number of custom buildings. It really is extremely impressive how well it is optimised for saving memory. Once again it's an UHD render for those who have high res monitors.
OK, I'll be back to this in the next few days as I once again have more or less the full use of my right hand. Once the use of my right hand came back I got a bit distracted customising the Streets of Utopia as well. Feel free to laugh...
Great thread! Looking forward to what you do. Of all the city sets I've used/kitbashed, Urban Spwarl 3 is the best. I need to revisit my big city thread some day as I have other products I've accumulated since then.
Have you tried putting Urban Sprawl 2 buildings onto Urban Sprawl 3 bases? They can make extra blocks above the five already provided and are similarly well optimised for memory use.
No I haven't but it's a good idea. I'll have to give it a try myself.
OK, here's a quick account of the other customisation project I embarked upon when I started to regain the use of my right hand; The Streets of Utopia. I'll be getting back to Urban Sprawl 3 in the next few days as Streets of Utopia is now pretty much done as far as I can tell.
This first view shows a few customisations in my base Streets of Utopia: I added ramps to all buildings that had steps leading up to them; they are a requirement for new buildings just about everywhere nowadays, and I don't think that will change in the future, so I added those promptly. You can also see I raised the ceiling heights in some buildings as it was too low for practical use by people over four feet six inches tall (less than one and a half meters). I also changed the glass colours in a lot of places and added more lights so night renders are better lit. Note the text on the building in the middle distance, visible at the left of the image; that will be of interest later.
Next additon to the set was doors; only one of the buildings in the central area had any doors! This is a nuisance as depicting people actually using the place inevitably involves entering and leaving buildings, and even if it doesn't open a proper entrance makes such images much more convincing. This image depicts the most difficult of the entrances to build; the geometry of the building made it tricky to work out how to go about it, though once it was worked out it wasn't hard to actually model it. The door opens inwards and outwards and has Blender contraints added to prevent it swinging too far, like all the doors I added. I may add logos or a clock in the circle above the door.
And here is a similar view to one of the promo images but rendered in Blender rather than DAZ Studio; I have made two more versions of the Streets of Utopia and you can see them below the first render. The alien typefaces are of my own design and mean that when I use the customised sets to depict a city on an alien world it reflects that by having alien text in the appropriate places.
Another set of views of all three versions, note the text on the building near the right side of the images:
Last one for now; just a view showing one of the customised versions of the signboard; I also set it up so it can light up to be more readable in night scenes, and added a separate material around the edge of the sign so the edge doesn't light up:
Most recent of the recent images are missing.
My fault; refresh the page and please let me know if I have fixed the problem.
Yes, I see them now.
Thank you! Hopefully I won't make that error again.
looks cool with the new fonts!
Thank you!
Would you like a few of my alien fonts for your own work? I made them some years ago and I have been meaning to put some of them on sale as OpenType fonts for a while. Because they are OpenType fonts they can be installed on a Windows, Mac or Linux system and most 3D packages can use them for their 3D text. I also find them useful in Photoshop and Afffinity Photo when I am texturing stuff. EDIT: I just added an illustration of the fonts currently available to me. The top one and its bold variant and the last one have never been used on a texture project so they could add a unique touch that currently only I could replicate.
Here's an opposing view to the outward looking view of the Aetheria Dynamics building; looking into this area originally it was just an opening, but now there is a wall and a sign indicating which way to go for the reception area. Of course in the other versions this sign uses the alien fonts. You can also see the added ramp, which doesn't look as neatly integrated as it might; this is because the area didn't have one originally and wasn't designed for one. I have thought of a better way to integrate the ramp now, but it isn't implemented yet.
OK, here is the better ramp; I removed the central planter, put the ramp in the middle and added two smaller planters for decoration. I have now done this to all three customised versions of The Streets of Utopia and it does look much better.
....love what you did with the Streets of Utopia, particularly the alien fonts..
Thank you! For years I have been meaning to put those fonts on sale somewhere for sci-fi and fantasy modellers and texture artists; I wonder if DAZ would be interested...
Ok, I got carried away today. No no no, it's not an obsession, really...
OK maybe it is an obsession.
This building is designed to be viewed from the south only:
While the building does look great from ground level and from the south, I wanted to make it a focal point in a story, so I decided to add to it to make it usable for aerial views and from a wider range of angles. The result is below:
This is the result of taking the orginal building, duplicating it and mirroring it to make a full circle, then once it was stitched together I added the dome to hide the inner parts which previously made it unsuitable for aerial renders.
The result renders nicely from all angles:
The memory footprint when rendering has increased only by a modest amount, as the new parts reuse materials and texture maps so only the geometry takes up new space.
OK, I am fairly sure that's done and I will return to customising Urban Sprawl 3, which is what this thread is supposed to be about...
...love the kitbash. Fits in perfectly.
So is Utopia Labs going end up in this somewhere?
Unlikely, Utopia Labs never appealed to me, The Streets of Utopia did from the second I saw it. To fill in the background I may get Utopia Cityscape Blocks or Greeble City Blocks 04, for the close in area the resources are already there, at least combined with what I am going to add.
..I have both all the greeble and the the Utopia Cityscape Blocks as well.
True Utopia labs is also a pretty big set on its own. I got it to for the company HQ of Aeon Technoligies in my main storyline.
Well this morning I didn't have the Utopia Cityscape Blocks but now I do! I've been setting up the Blender shaders for maximum effect and minimum memory use and overall I am quite impressed with the set. They aren't foreground quality but then they aren't meant to be. The set offers a lot of scope for customising your futuristic skylines. Some of the blocks contain a number of buildings and in Blender it will be easy to separate those buildings out so I can use them independently of their original blocks. The Render below was made during the process of setting up the Blender shaders properly.
Utopia needs a shopping centre...
Another kitbash, made mostly from bits of the Aetheria Dynamics building, this only needs a few signs to suggest the shops inside; actually it will be mostly restaurants and cafés as online shopping gradually takes over from most face-to-face retail:
Wow! Stumbled upon this thread and am blown-away! The work is fantastic and gives newbies like myself inspiration and an appreciation for what's possible once one masters this software. Kudos to you, Fire Angel as well as to RGcincy for his kitbaching thread/help and to barbult for her inspirational work/inspiration (and generosity in helping/sharing throughout these forums!)
Fire Angel - hope that hand heals post haste so you can get back to enjoying your art!!! - Ray
Thank you, my hand is once again fully functional which is good news to be sure.
,,,good to hear the news about your hand.
And here's those Utopia Cityscape Blocks again once I have had time to customise those too. The front row is the most obviously altered stuff. Note the two tiny little low-polygon entrances in the front; those can be added to any of the buildings if required. One customisation that isn't visible is that I rescaled the entire set so the buildings are actual size, basing my new scale on the street lights on some of the blocks. I imported the street light from The Streets of Utopia, already life size, and then used it as reference before deleting it as the final step of the process. Below it I have linked in the image of the original set — without uploading it again — to make the comparison easier.
Original set before customisation: