New year beginns with a new project. A short animation from photo i will post soon. There will be an old tram passing from left to right in front of the camera. I am now working on modelling the tram.
Reference image courtesy of Dusan Lipovsky
First i was trying to replicate this image, but i changed my mind along the way and started to stylize it.
For the tram i used image reference of refubrished tram which looks a bit different than the original one.
Excellent- look at my animation vid if you need to:
I’m also working on a modeling vid that shows texturing. Maybe tomorrow…
Progress 05
Tram is now done. Moving to environment part of this project.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]471500[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]471501[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]471502[/ATTACH]
Progress 06
I have started creating a blockout for the environment from a photo. Now comes the really mental challenging part - creating cobblestone. I have found lots of textures, but didnt find a way to place this texture on curved surface. So i decided to go the challenging way and created 15 different versions of cobblestone mesh. Now i am in process of hand placing every single cobblestone mesh. Then i will bake the height map and textures out of it and use adaptive subdiv for final render.
Progress 07
Still not satisfied with the result of cobblestone. Its not looking good even on 4K maps. So for now i have paused the work on the cobblestone just to refresh my mind and modeled some modular assets.
Well, I think the scene has great potential. Great Details. Maybe, the cobblestone street could work with less sharp stones and some sort of bumpmapping and texturing.
I’d also like to ask whether you plan on making the tram even more detailed? The first renders look interresting, but i think the side could really pop with some panelwork.
Keep up the good work!
Hi JS72,
Thanks for your kind words.
To be honest, this is my first attempt in such complex scene.
I have modeled cobblestone just to bake texture and height map out of it. I am still in a process of finding way to properly bake and create street with help of adaptive subdivs with true displacement (still have lots of artifacts).
At final stage i am planning to use more advanced materials. I plan to add more details inside the tram even it wont be noticeable in final image, just because i fell in love with this vehicle 
Progress 09:
Looking on the result from progress 08 i must say i don´t like it. Sooo i recreated cobblestone street again (what a surprise) 
Now it looks better or i think it does. Still with proxy blockout objects and basic shader for rails, but working on assets.
Progress 11:
Almost 90% of objects have only diffuse or basic shader except the tram. Reworked panel shader for tram. Bridge still needs top support structure. Wiring is only proxy, just to see how it will look and for concrete posts height reference.
Good job so far! It shows passion in every detail.
It looks a bit miniaturised at the moment. Maybe that was intended by you. I can’t put my fingers exactly on what it is. But most of the times it is a matter of scale and lighting. The effect is stronger in #15 and less apparent in #16. When I compare the environment to an human person (which fits e.g. in the tram) the rails appear to be very narrow and the sidewalk and the rim stones are huge. Maybe it would help to put a human silhouette into the scene, just to compare the sale of the objects?
im intrested in knowing, how much did you know about topology before starting the project. Im starting my first project and oh by do i have problems with the topology part
Hello, minoribus, thanks for you feedback.
Yeah, you´re right about weird scale looking. I am trying to achieve realistic result so i have to get rid of that miniaturised look, just still couldn´t find the right way. I will definitely try human silhouette as a scale reference.
Hi Peter,
There is next to no advanced topology in this project, or at least i think so It is all very basic, just planes, cylinders, boxes with modifiers. Try CGmasters, they are making very good indepth tutorials, you can learn a lot from them.
I highly recommend you to make a thread here in WIP section and post your work so we can help you.
