The 311 Wacker, AT&T, and Sears Towers together in those picture look incredibley realalistic, 2 Pru needs a little bit more work but looks great! :) Hotel Intercontinental North looks like a good additon to the skyline.

535 St. Clair might not do much from above, but it is still one of the best and most innovative proposals out there (green tech-wise).

^Still....meh. They're spending all that money to make it green ,might as well come up with a design that isn't unbelievably bland.

I guess I'll have to politely disagree. I think its design is much better than most of the proposals out there, especially considering its height.

^Well, far be it for me to say you're wrong, even though you are. :p

900 North Michigan Avenue
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4076/xt1.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7292/xt2.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8126/xt3.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5694/xt4.th.jpg

300 North LaSalle Street (first 3 have an inaccurate crown, the last 3 are fixed)
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8748/xt5.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1665/xt6.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1056/xt7.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7013/xt8.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5576/xt9.th.jpg http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6184/xt10.th.jpg

2 Prudential Plaza version 4.29 (or thereabouts), the most frustrating, infuriating, anoying building by far. 3 times more work than 311 South and it still doesn't look like I want it to. I'm done with it for now and maybe forever.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6819/2p10uu.th.jpg http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8735/2p20cb.th.jpg http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/2636/2p38tg.th.jpg http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/434/2p41tt.th.jpg

Aqua massing model
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1530/2p50bl.th.jpg http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6567/2p62xo.th.jpg http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/3019/2p73op.th.jpg http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/7608/2p89jl.th.jpg

Incredible. What software do you use? I use Rhino but even with Flamingo, I dont think its very good for textures... I love the way you make very photorealistic buildings using only textures... I usually try modelling everything, including each floor plate, transparent windows, etc, and my results are not as photorealistic :(

What do you use as a base to build all your towers? Pics only? GoogleEarth?

Modelling: 3D Studio Max 7
Textures: 90% done in MS Paint. Final work done in GIMP for Windows, but I mostly use GIMP to fine-tune the colors and generate bump and reflect maps from the basic texture map.

I picked up this method from my time as a game mod maker. The key is careful use of bumpmapping and getting the reflections just right. 60%-70% reflection seems to work best for almost all buildings. It keeps the poly's to a minimum. Forham Spire is the most complex building I've made with 3,000 faces. Good, but not complex, lighting is essential for making the whole thing work. You can throw in really advanced lighting, but I like to keep render times low (<30 minutes max, 10min average) and basic ray tracing is fine for what I need.

The downside of using the texture method is that you need very large texture maps and those maps take up RAM. You need a well equipped PC to run a large scene with lots of maps.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a base, but if you mean the ground, I just have a couple of planes textured with some aerial photos. For the downtown area I created 3D sidewalks and roads.

FOR EVERYONE CONCERNED: I'll be out of town next week. Any shot you want rendered should be requested now.

I would love to see some texture on OMP and OMPW as well as the buildings that are missing in that small south Loop skyline, whenever you have a chance.

FS just has to be built

For texturing, I'm more or less going down the list from tallest to shortest. 1MPE is th only tower tall enough to be done anytime soon, but since I don't have a final plan of it, I won't do it. 1MPE is a temp model right now, until I can make a final version, it's staying as is.

hey STR, please, check my questions at the bottom of page 10

I did. Is there something I didn't answer?

Stuff looks great, STR. I continue to be amazed at what you're creating.

Sorry, really I dont know how I hadnt seen your answer before! I even checked the 10th page again and I couldnt remember seeing your reply there! I guess I am becoming Ozzy Osbourne, my mind is sick! :D

Thank you for the answers. WHen I asked about "where you base your buildings", I meant... from where do you get the correct location, shapes, etc for EACH of your buildings... there are hundreds if not thousands of buildings in your city. Yeah, the larger and most famous ones you can get quite a lot of pictures from every side, etc, etc, also locations are pretty well known... but all those thousands of buildings! Where did you get the needed info to create them all and place them in the correct places?

Thats why I asked about Google Earth, cuz it already has the 3D buildings, so I thought that maybe you copied by eye many of the 3d buildings in Google Earth and their respective locations...

oh yeah, one more thing... how high is the resolution you use for the textures? (pixels per meters, or in your case, maybe pixels per feet or yard?)

Generally, the maps are 2 to 4 pixels per meter, or 1024x1024 pixels, whichever is less.

Many of the smaller buildings were copied from Google Earth. The Downtown area was done using a map aerial photos and conventional photos. Once you know the size of the street grid it's very easy to scale buildings.

Does this imply that the task would be vastly harder for cities that don't have a pretty measurable grid like Chicago? Or are you able to import the street network from something like Google Earth?

ha, luck of you there IS a street grid in Chicago and it has a constant size... check this map of a small area of the downtown of Porto Alegre (btw, check my thread Gerdau Steel Tower)... no street grid whatsoever!! :(
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/4913/gerdaumap6md.jpg

Well, Chicago doesn't have a uniform gird. Every 6 blocks or so, the grid changes. There's also numerous diagonal sections as well.

My tip would be for you to trace over the roads on you map, then between them put 1 foot high blocks to mimick sidewalks. That's my trick.

No. It's basically the same procedure as long as there aren't a lot of curved roads. I basically type in the location I want the roads. Something like:

X: 400, Y:0, Z-0.99
Length 3000 Width 40

Then I fine tune the ends.