There were a few things though I used to cheat to shorter render times
I used a leafy crown shaped billboard with a leaves picture from leaves that would origionally would be on there but file size was going up like no tommorow and would’ve taken longer with real leaves.
I used a plane to generate shadows for the 1000’s of blades of grass in their little patches cutting render time tremendously.
I also have to something that went wrong with the image and could be a bug in blender.
Images seem to increase their alpha value if they go farther into the fog. Note the trees in the very edge of what’s visible.
<babytalk>Kansas! my little friend! You made something good! Little recognizable buildings and nice ligting. You little funny boy playing with you toys.</babytalk>
lol no, you have now proven you can blender welcome on elysiun
It will still be quite a few images before I get to the level of people like @ndy, but i’ll just keep at it. I’m still making firsts too. Like this one, first major use of 2D images to represent something. Another one i’m working on will include 2D images on planes for both the treetops and grass.
LMAO Selfirony is one of the most important virtues in my book. My commanding officer once asked me “Are you stupid?!”, and I responded “Sir, yes, sir”. Completely baffled by my response, he just walked away
I like your picture, and I admire the patience it probably took to make it. I would probably have started over 20 times, because I’m never satisfied :-?
It took a lot of patience, to shorten production time some of the buildings I started from copy’s of other buildings and gave them a little change here and there. The trees at first did have real modeled leaves but then finding it would be impractical I took a render of a single tree top of leave and saved it and used that on a plane to create the tops. I believe a good skill to have in CG is knowing the proper and practical use of using 2D images on planes to enhance a 3D scene with minimal computing requirements.
Unrelated to the image this topic is for. But it’s mainly to enforce my theory on using 2D images. The grass is simply an image with an alpha channel mapped onto a bunch of 2D planes put into the terrain. It’s also an early version of an upcoming image. It still needs a lot of work.
But I don’t think it does it on only part of an object. I got inspired to use image planes for grass after seeing a tutorial on it that was meant for Bryce and how good you can make it look. You put the planes close enough and you could get a real good effect. For scattered grass models are still recommended.
well, for once you post something decent (may it be art or words) so I may reply
Well, I guess it’s good but you really should learn to use Fiber. It creates very nice grass. and if you want it only on a part of a model, just go into edit mode, select the vertices of the part you want to have grass on, shift+d that part, then p to separate and apply the script to that new object.
the “1700” part of the image is good. I see you put some more work into that. The “modern” building thought looks awful. sorry for being direct but it’s my opinion. They are ugly as hell. Their windows’ dimension do not fit the smaller building’s size. It looks like the proportions are off on most of the things.
As for your tree disapearing away, well I think it’s because you use MIST. I don’t think it’s a bug…just a matter of logic or watever. I dunno how to fix that, except without using mist. You could block the rest of the view using other building and stuff.
Good job overall…and as other said, if you weren’t as dumb as you are, and if you would post less spam and idiotic things; just for this image, I would already have alot of respect for youl since you are semi-new to blender.
I did try to keep the proportions as close as possible between the buildings and about the modern look I was kind-of in a hurry to get the image done by the time I got there and out of the way since it was already a week into the modeling. And even if the disappearing thing isn’t a bug it would be good if mist didn’t cause it to fade like it did or make it fade the same way as would a regular mesh.
Why didn’t you enter it into the WC? It’s an effort and you’ll see just how many people respect that effort. My hint (after reading something about you tree-mist and using 2D images) is Photoshop. Whatever client, the bottom word is they’ll want to see a finished product, no matter how you make it. I’ve found this new philosophy to work great with learning images as well. For example, I now render the actual image and an alpha-mask, then combine those two and some other images in my app of choice (currently Fireworks MX, but I’m leaning toward PS) to create a background which would take a lot of work inside Blender. Sure, it’s not “pure”, but it adds a lot. Also don’t be afraid to go post-pro. On the first image in the thread, I’d suggest trying a “movie evolution” effect. That would take some PS layers - the foremost houses would have a paint-and-canvas effect, the next ones black-and-white photo effect, next ones scratched-color-film eddect and so on until holographic houses… Now that’s an idea I wanna try out myself!
welcome on elysiun 
Selfirony is one of the most important virtues in my book. My commanding officer once asked me “Are you stupid?!”, and I responded “Sir, yes, sir”. Completely baffled by my response, he just walked away 