Planning a City

[nevets2001uk]

Hi,

After playing with sketchup for a few weeks and being heavily inspired by the quality of work on these and other forums I'm considering having a go at building a 3D city or at least part of one to develop my skills.

I'm wondering how other members approach the initial planning stages for such a task. Do you simply build section by section or map things out first. How is best to handle road layouts and markings etc. I'm UK based and will probably take my inspiration from London as it's the only big city I have really visited often.

My plan which may well kill sketchup, kerkythea and my PC is to model is moderate detail as I want photo-realistic renders of the views. I have considered using lower res models to "layout" sections of city before developing higher detail versions for the rendering of the various scenes. That way I can keep my polygon count down as much as possible.

Basically any tips and advise from the experienced city builders would be much appreciated.

[Pingyao]

See my reply on my 'Sta Fee' thread about level of detail and textures, but basically from reading this I definitely feel you need to go down the texture route as what you're proposing sounds pretty large.

In relation to planning a city, I'm sure we all have different ways of going about it. I prefer to have an overview in my head at least. If you can - get something down on paper, but don't feel like you have to stick to that rigidly. The thing with cities is although they are man made they often have an organic sense of planning. Just look at the chaotic randomness of Tokyo.

A grid layout is a good starting point especially North America based, but if its London inspired then a random/bendy/haphazard street plan is essential. Also try to come up with key landmark area's such as the twin bridges in my city, then roads and stuff can spring off this. A river may also be essential to help define your city and enable zoning i.e residential and commercial areas, industrial areas, ports etc.

Hope that helpful, let us see your ideas.

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks for your reply Pingyao. Having seen your work I recognise that you really know what you're talking about. Before reading your reply I have been tinkering with some ideas on my first building and have produced a couple of very quick renders which I've attached. I think perhaps I've included more detail than you are recommending. For example each window is modelled to allow me to glass/mirror texture them. I'm already reworking the model as I feel the ground floor needs more height and a step into the entrance.

I've seen some other examples where more detail is used and think perhaps I'll try a mixed approach in my first attempt. More detail for some buildings than others. I may hit the limit of the software or my PC but at least I'll gain some more detailed modelling experience.

That said I'd be very interested to see one of your buildings broken down to compare your model detail with mine and to see how you place textures. Is it possible to see a few screens of a building as it develops to see how you go about it. I appreciate you may not have the time for this but I'm sure it would help many others as well as myself to see how an expert goes about making building models.



Door Detail

[M.K.]

i planned all my life and nothing happened as i planned, just close sometimes. I think most city planners are equal, they plan something, but then we have the feeling the cities they planned was never planned. Make a general pic inside your mind what you want to have and just starting dropping and doing trying to follow it. At end you will have a city...