55 houses

[lasco]

…but fortunately their are actually only 4 types of them :)

[lasco]

errr…
tried to post 5 images but mistaked : only the last one worked,
here's a general view

[lasco]

and one more :)

[ingo]

Nice graphical style, and the trees and brushes add much to the image ;)

Your lighting is great, maybe a bit more contrast and less saturated grass will help. Since the architecture is, well, very simple, how about adding more detail ? Or as always not enough time and not enough money ? Overall nice composition. BTW, are the rooftiles modelled ?

[lasco]

Hi Ingo,

You miht be right about the grass, actually I'm not yet fully satisfied of
this model. This saturated rendering is mainly due to the fact that I only use textures on luminosity and difuse channels on it, and disable the self shadow to
decrease rendering time. Have to work more on these textures so.

Adding more details ? Well on the buildings it's not possible : believe it or not but
this is the exact looking of the houses : it's a social lodging project and already in such type of lodging a good thing to have enough money to built individual houses, that's why the style os so 'simple". But you're right in the absolute it would be great if these houses had a bit more details and differences between them.
The rooftiles are modeled only in the horizontal direction, bump is applied on the vertical one, so at the end it's a bit like your own scene in the previous thread :
I have there a scene of 1 000 000 polys but only 60 000 for the houses !!!!
(and including the fact that a part of the interiors is modeled !)

I use Tree Designer for the trees and bushes : not bad but produces to heavy models in standard and it takes much time to reduce them, hope I'll manage to
create little bushes like yours :)

one more pic for the fun…

[iandavis]

I don't know what can be done when there are so many instances of a model, and a small change can add up to a huge addition in geometry.

Nice rendering and texturing. The one thing (for me) that screams CG is the ultra clean and sharp corners. I'm not sure the best route to address this in your circumstance. the buildings should show a measure of randomness and the corners of these kinds of buildings are actually not too sharp edged.

If building the geometry is to much of a task, personally I might just add a bit of variablility to the finished render!

Nice work!

[arnoldawson]

Nice houses Lasco.
They could use a bit more texture/weathering I think as they look too perfect. Unless of course that is the effect that you are after.

[Hiraghm]

I hate drivot :(

[lasco]

thanx for comments
Hiraghm > sorry my english has holes, what is "drivot" ?

Arnie + ianddavis > I completely agree with you about the too sharp angles / too perfect houses, this was not really what I expect (though as it's for an architectural competition you are asked to show very clean things…).

I try to get more texture playing with bump but it's not easy : you have to
bump at a level of 3 to see something on some images while on other point of
views a level of 1 is already too strong… well you know this anyway I'm not learning you this ;)

And of course as I choose to render images of evening with high contrasts
I took the risk to get very (too) sharp angles… guess I have to get stronger with
that damn soft but if LW could include some special shaders to "bump" the edges
of models (like cartoon and NRR shaders that exist for Maya) it also could help…

please have also a look at the work I made just before this one,
2 weeks ago, not really architecture but rather urban landscape project :

http://www.chantiergraphique.com/fumay

[arnoldawson]

I like those urban landscapes. How did you do the trees and the statue?
And yes I know what you mean about the bump textures they do seem unpredictable. Personally I use trial and error till I get it right.

[lasco]

I find these pictures are also a bit too clean,
but this scene took me even more long time to built and render
than the architectural one… so I did'nt spend much time n the environement
buildings and there I have no excuse in a sense as I made "perfect" cubes
when this is only old buildings of course…

I use a specific plug'in called TreeDesigner for the trees,
quite good but models are not optimized enough so you must spend
much time to reduce them after.

For the statue I modeled it's "foot" very quickly with
a simple bevel tool, textures it with UV,
and the character is just a clip map on a plane ;)
(would have take me 2 more weeks only to really model
it in 3D !)

[richpr]

I think there is an Instance tool (HD Instance) for sale that helps with having many copies... From what I read/heard, it does it smarter and way more (memory) efficient...

[freedik]

Just a small and easy improvement. In reality roof colors of different houses vary very much(at least where I live). Maybe you should try to change one roof type to something dark?(You said you have 4 types of houses)
I think it would add a lot of variety with almost no effort. :)

[lasco]

richpr > I know about HD Instance that you're right seems to be a great tool.
unfortunately it only works on Windows and I'm on Mac :(
Anyway this plug in such a scene would be helpfull for trees or grass but not
for houses, it's a plug indeed made for items that you need to clone not tens but hundreds or thousands of time…


freedik > I agree but it was'nt possible. I actually asked to the architect
if I could change the colors of rooftiles frome one house to another onne,
and even if I could quite vary these colors on a same house, and he said : no.
Not because he wouldn't like but because again this is a very low cost project
and the exact type of rooftiles that will be used (if the project wins) is a large size (cheaper) unified model that has always the same colors…
(it's already a chance the architect said yes when I asked permission to change
the colors of the wall and also that he allowed me to insert so many trees and bushes in the scene ;)

well that said the general comment I'm receiveing from everywhere that
these houses are a bot too "simple", "clean" and maybe "sad" at the end,
is true. I do agree with it but I'm not the architect and for more as I work with him for years I know that if he did'nt detailled more his houses it's because he can't afford…

[merlinux]

yes i really like your town, but if i must say something i could say that your procedural on the wall look too "procedural" maybe try to smooth it and second point tne size of the trees it seems too big for the age of these trees, they look youngs due to the size of tree trunk...
And why don't u create an open endomorph for the garage doors ?

[lasco]

:D I did not use any procedural for the walls…

only a hand made texture in cubic mode that actually
you almost can't see (that's why the walls looks too flat…)
and anyway whatt you especially see onb the walls is the grain due to the low level of radiosity (2x6 one some images and evenn 1 x 3 on others)

about the trees well yes this is always a problem : should you show
off something more "real" (what it will be just after the works) or something
"ideal" (15 or 20 years old trees)…
In France many landscape designers are a bit mishonest in the sense
they always shows 20 or 30 meters tall trees (ok this exist but you'll have to wait
60 years…). On the other hand showing too small does'nt help the project and
has not really sense : people must undderstand you show a PROJECT, a GOAL
for urban space…
And the other thing is that in architecture as you might guess if you put too small
trees they will on such images completely hide the houses that would be ridiculous. In real life you walk in the street so you see everything but on a still image it's different.
However I usually try to put "middle-aged" trees that are believable (let's say
we show what it could look like in about 10 or 12 years, I hope it's honest for everyone).
Besides you maybe did'nt noticed but the trees on the flyoverview (mean along the street) are half sized compared to the same tress on the perspective views,
so that people have in a way an idea of the short-term and long-term project.

About endomorphs : well must say I never used them and don't know any animation functions of LW yet (except moving the camera for little films),
i's a large part of the soft I should learn in the next months…

[lasco]

Merlinux j'avais pas vu que tu étais français
et je me suis cassé à te répondre en anglais !!!!

Enfin tu l'auras compris : l'idée de ce truc c'est que c'est du HLM
donc pas cher et du coup un peu trop simple.
En fait j'aurais aimé surtout travailler plus le concept de cité-jardin (si ça te dit quelque chose) mais ce n'était pas le programme…

PS : ahaaaa… Parisien en plus !!
c'est cool, quel arrt ?

(la petite cité là c'est à Aulnay-sous-Bois,
un quartier de riches comme tu vois ;)

[Fozzybear]

I couldn't help but notice that the trees are encased in concrete. Kinda hard for any water to get to the roots. It also looks like the eaves have no down spouts. There are also no sewer drains in the gutter.

Looks like anyone living in these houses might need some flood insurance.

I realize that there may be little detail required for the houses but downspouts of somekind are a necessity and are required by most building codes. (just my 2 cents worth)

BTW I like the lighting. I'm currently working on modeling a non conventional house and some of the eco friendly and sustainable systems it uses and would appreciate it if you would post your light settings. Alberta Sustainable Housing (http://www.ecobuildings.net/index.php)

[lasco]

Hi Fozzybear,

eer… after so many critics and so few kind words about my work I'm not sure I'm able to give you any light settings, I usually only give them to people
who first call me Master.


well OK just kidding man :D

Few comments about your comments :
1/ had to translate almost all of your sentences with my Harraps,
well I don't have any architectural words in english, aaarrrrhhh!

2/ Trees are not in concrete, it's a material in France we call "stabilisé"
and that I'm sure exists everywhere, mainly in parks. It's actually
a mix of around 95% sand and 5% concrete so that it's a bit hard
under the feet, see what I'm talking about ? So the color is generally
in the yellows, with less or more grain, sometimes it might be gray or even red
depending on the light… anyway mine may lack some grain but it's not concrete
and trust me won't be taken for concrete by the clients ;)

3/ about all other details you mentionned : you're right on every points
but if I had added all these details it would'nt have really changed anything except
that I would have spend twice the time on the pics… I don't intend to do any
photorealism as you might have guess : not sure at all I'd be able to and even if was will never have time or money for this so about these kinds of details
I know the project won't be judged about such things. If I had to work more it would certainly have been on the material of the houses as many people
here told me before…


Well for the light I will give you the exact settings later if you want,
now I don't have them in front of me but the base is this one :

- a spotlight very far from the scene with a cache shadow map and a fuziness of
1.2, this for the blurryed shadows as areas light really take too much time to render. Oh, this spot should be "neutral" so it's white or very little yellow (say 255 / 250 / 245 for instance) - intensity between 90 and 100%

- I enable a Sky Tracer (standard sky, blue, more or less clouds) and
the radiosity as backdrop only with a low level (not more than 2x6 or I explode my rendering time) = render in HIGH RES to avoid grain due to this low level of radiosity (exept as you might have noticed the 2 evening images have much grain cause precisely I had'nt time to render more than 1200 x 800)

- the radio is setted between 100% and 115% according to the images

- Now the real stuff of this lighting is that radiosity in Backdrop Only creates
very blue shadows (due to the sky) and you must answer to this !

A friend of mine (salut Eddy !) advised me to set a white or light grey flat backdrop but I don't like it much as all the images comes grey while in real world there are colors everywhere, so you have to decrease this blue
at the same time you need to keep it a bit

So I setted 2 things :
- another spot light (can also use a point light or a distant) quite orange
(240 / 225 / 150) intensity around 20% with shadows disabled that is in the opposite direction of the main one

- and / or : an ambient lightning of the scene also in "orange" colors,
at a level of 15%,

with this you'll be sure you'll have subtle varies between hot and cold parts
of lighted and shadows areas in your scene…


To conclude the main thing for me with lights and shadows is that you should always avoid neutral tints (no white lights, no black shadows, no grey)
but rather try to get this neutrality by mixing colors !

Example set your shadows quite blue and light them in the other sense with
a dark orange light is much better than basically setting your shadows as grey…

[Fozzybear]

Thanks for sharing your light settings. I'll be able to apply them to my current project which has me pulling my hair out regarding the lighting.

Thanks for the explaination of what "stabilisé" is. I've haven't had the opportunity to actually see that type of material before so I automatically assumed it to be concrete.