August/September 2017 Challenge: Dwarf City

[Ilanthar]

Well, I've checked it out, and it does look really cool .

[Falconius]

Pine trees inspired by that Blender Forums thread I linked earlier:

It's a set of fifteen trees ranging from 105 feet to 17 feet, plus two dead trees. I think that's enough with random sizing turned on.

I intend to work on a deciduous tree set to go with it, and a small bushes set. You'd think doing trees would be faster. But at least I'm finally getting some vegetation resources together for my stuff. It won't work for the guild city section I'm working on because that is far more realistic style, maybe I should change that...

It turns out half way through the set I started to look up reference photos, and the truth is most pine trees look way different than their stereotype with the Christmas-tree type down-swept boughs, in fact they tend to be the exact opposite. So I'm also considering to make a different pine set with things pointing the proper way. There are some species that have boughs that point slightly down (usually more like straight out though), and in winter the snow can often cause the boughs to bend down to look like this, but it's not inherently structurally common, but I feel like I'll get away with it, since everyone does.

[Redrobes]

Speed Tree used to have a couple of free demos. Not sure what their current demo / promos are like. Also some free 3D models like:

https://free3d.com/3d-models/tree

But always check the license on them.

[- JO -]

This landscape is really very inspiring! A nice place to create stories ! Beautiful 3D rendering work! I also love the light on the summits, and the tones you have chosen!

[Falconius]

Thanks Jo.

Speed Tree used to have a couple of free demos. Not sure what their current demo / promos are like. Also some free 3D models like:

https://free3d.com/3d-models/tree

But always check the license on them.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Speed Trees looks pretty great. Problems include pricing (because if I try it and like it and then want it, that's no good), there are other programs I'd want first, such as MarvelousDesigner, but even before that it's about time to upgrade my machine (and with AMD's new chips on the market a good time). And the fact I'm just looking for low poly results, and of course practice. I find that with procedural stuff I rarely get the results I want, and if I do it's because I put in as much work as I would have had I just started from scratch anyways. For procedural stuff it only goes fast if you actually know what you are doing, and you only know that once you've done it and have experience in it.

As for the free stuff it's limited I've got a couple of free models from model swapping sites and they in general are not of unified style, or you just get one or two of unified style. And frankly even then the quality generally sucks, there's a reason they are free. If I was going for more realism there are actually more options in that regard, because reality is the style guide for that, so you can pick up a bunch of different separate models and they will still work together.

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SO I've been trying to figure out how to approach this map and what I have so far for a few days now and I think I finally may have one that works for me: I intend to section the land off in levels and then just kind of do a 2d plan in each level, using svg and then finishing the levels that way, and then maybe taking the paths and extruding them to 3d objects? Or alternatively modelling the basic 3d town, and then section it off into levels with buildings included and map the 2d from that. In either case it's going to involve sectioning off the map at various ascending levels.

In the meantime this is where I got to with the deciduous (hey look I actually learned how to spell it after typing it so many times!) trees:

I learned from my mistake with the pine trees and actually used reference for these, so from left to right: Generic Oak tree (based off of Garry Oak), Quaking Aspen, Douglas Maple, Chokecherry, Black Hawthorne, and then the giant tree was going to be a Black cottonwood. The black cottonwood trees, as seen here, can be enormous (this example is 150 ft tall), which requires a lot more detail, and obviously more iterations to seize it down, probably like 10 or so, as such, I've put it on the back burner in the mean time. I may be better off focusing on the smaller trees and bushes anyways. Also I'm putting the trees on the back burner altogether to start implementing the city approach, so I don't know if I'll get to them before the contest closes.

These species are all native to British Columbia whose government has a super handy little booklet they put out, which can be found here. I think in the future, I may redo the pine trees using actual reference, and maybe eventually get a lot of the major tree species of BC covered, which would be kind of nifty.

[Falconius]

So instead of doing what I was supposed to be working on (the map), instead I spent my time making a dwarven canal boat.

Obviously it is built to the Dwarven Unified Canal System (DUCS) specifications. It is 15 meters long, 2.05 meters Wide, has an unladen ride hight of 1.40 meters (with tow masts lowered), and is 2.2 meters tall (with tow masts laid down). This one comes with the latest gear driving technology and was built by the King as a demonstration boat celebrating the successful integration of the DUCS.



I put a mannequin Dorf in the top one for size comparison. He... (it?) stands 1.2 meters tall.

[Diamond]

Oh, that's cool! Really brought a smile to my face.

[Mouse]

Excellent modelling, Falconius

Couldn't you use it as some kind of inset?

[Falconius]

Heh, thanks guys. No I don't think it will be too useful to my map other than knowing the canal and lock dimensions.

In other news exporting my landmass as an 8-9 million quad object means that blender has "issues" trying to handle it. It makes it too choppy to actually work with in the way I'd like, so instead I've spent all day hand re-topoing this damn thing, and I swear, I'm losing my mind and seeing quads even when cooking my supper.

Now why might I be doing this you ask? Why not just find something that can do it automatically? Well I tried with my limited selection of tools and I just could not get it to come out like I wanted. I'm sure more professional map makers would be able to use some software like qgis or whatever to make this come out right, but I'm sick of learning new software(s), it honestly just gets tiring after a while. So I'm just going to keep on trudging this way even if its the wrong way and a train runs me over. On the plus side once I get this done I can bake some normals and textures and etc on it, which will be convenient.

[Mouse]

LOL! I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about Falconius, but it looks amazing