Hello, I already created a topic about my AEC Routemaster bus, but as it is finished and as it is only a part of a very bigger project, here is the whole project link.
My goal is to create a big enough scene to allow view from many interesting angles.
Currently, I do trials to allow some interesting views with the few existing buildings. The location and shapes of the buildings will probably often change until the end of the project !
I want to re-create the typical atmosphere, like it looks like in the imagination af anyone thinking about London.
I am french and I have never been in UK, but I love British architecture and vehicles, and especially vehicles of the sixties/seventies.
The project started some time ago with the construction of the “Blenderton Hotel” and some luxury cars parked in front of it. Now, the set is slowly increasing and I wouild like to build also a part of the parliament building and of course Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben clock). I think that I will also model later a part of Westmister Bridge to re-create some well known views, that any tourist take on photos.
The colors look a little too much like plastic in my opinion and the characters seem too stiff, but other than that I really like this image. Perhaps some more people on the sidewalk behind the trolley would add a little bit more character to the scene.
Did you look at all the images ? About the characters, I have created 25 walking animated characters so far, but as I render in Octane I am limited by the capacity of the VRAM on my graphic cards, and also limited to still pictures due to huge export and load time per frame. So, currently the priority is given to the buildings and environment (there will be trees and grass, much consuming in term of memory), and so there are only few characters other that taxi drivers and bus crew.
This is amazing work. I lived in London for a year in the 70s and you’ve captured it very well. Biggest issue as far as reality goes is that everything is too clean and shiny. Even the air is too clean, more like a country town. The detail is excellent.
Hi, Thanks for the comment ! You are right, it is too clean, but I will add more texture later. As I am rendering on GPU with Octane, the number of allowed textures is limited and I will wait until the whole set will be completed (I still have to create many buildings on one side of the street) before coming back to textures. I will have to fight with the limits. Currently most textures on buildings are procedural,and some dirt is added in post pro here and there. So far, I have used mainly textures for details on and inside the bus and for the vegetation.
I will also add some fog on some pictures.
I am French, and I have never been in England, so I have studied from documents and photos taken most probably by tourists visiting in summer
Thank you Steven and 3dementia. Yes, characters are my very weak domain.
I have created 25 animated characters, walking and doing simple things, in the goal of making an animation of this London scene, but currently I can’t render an animation in Octane due to huge export and loading time per frame on my system with only 8GB of RAM (more than 17GB required to load the 3GB of VRAM without needing Swap on disk).
Maybe the characters would look better when moving, but anyway they have not been made to be seen in close up. I have still much to improve in this area, and I have also not made woman characters because they require even more skills to look nice, and also need more variety in clothing andmore difficulties with hair style.
About the lighting, I hesitate much about the choice between environment lighting (mainly LDR, giving nice soft ambiance, but weak shadows) or the Daylight system of Octane giving more vivid colors and sharp shadows.
Sometimes I Blend two renders (one with LDRi and one with Daylight). The choice of the Date/hour is also not obvious and I often also cheat by changing the North direction.
For a more dense atmosphere, I should use more the Z depth images in compositing to get a smog/fog effect.
So, still muck work, but it is pleasant to build a large world and take views inside, like a tourist in a virtual London !
