Blue Collar Neighborhood Update [Commercial]
Collective3d
Posts: 446
I know a lot of folks have been asking me about the "neighborhood" portion of the Blue Collar series of houses, and I wanted to stop by here and let those who are interested know that I haven't forgotten about you! As I think I've mentioned before, the Blue Collar Neighborhood was initially conceived as a 4-person project that would have been completed in a 3 month period ending in March of 2014. I did my part, and then my three partners up and vanished on me without doing a single thing. So in addition to the other projects I've had going on, I was kind of left holding the bag (and taking the heat) on that.
After doing a little work on the Blue Collar project this past spring, while I was in the process of wrapping up another smaller project today, I reopened the Blue Collar files to have a look and see what can be done. I'm in the process of laying out plans to complete the entirety of the project and would like to begin on it this week or next. The first step was to decide exactly how to fit the existing Blue Collar houses into the new plans, as well as figure out exactly what else needs to be built.
What I have decided on is represented by the attached grid layout. There is currently 1 style of Blue Collar House, the Brick Bungalow, which is available as a higher poly full-interior house, and in 5 variations of a medium poly exterior-only. I will now be building a set of medium poly exterior-only Brick Ranch houses, with 5 variations. I will also be building 5 variations each of a sided medium-poly ranch exterior and a sided medium-poly ranch exterior (each with different rooflines/features to distinguish them from the brick versions). Additionally, I will be doing low poly versions of each of the 4 styles for long distance, fill-in shots for backgrounds. In total, the completed Blue Collar Neighborhood will feature 720 total houses (Brick Bungalow, Sided Bungalow, Brick Ranch, Sided Ranch, plus long-distance low-poly background variants), with roads, fences, power lines, trees, and a central park that has a baseball field, a soccer field, and an American football field surrounded by a running track.
It's going to take quite a while to finish all of this, and I will be working smaller projects into my schedule along the way. But I did want to give everyone who has been interested a heads up on what's happening with this project. Available sets will probably be the existing 5 low poly brick bungalows (with the roads and fences added), and a similar set for each of the others... sided bungalow, brick ranch, sided ranch, plus an additional set for the long-distance houses of all variations, and a final set for the center park.
Check out the layout attached. I will also be posting more frequent updates at the Collective3d Facebook page, which is linked in my signature. Come on by, give the page a like, and share it, if you can! There are going to be lots of goodies coming between now and the end of the year!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
..ummm like wow, that's a lot of real estate.
Now in MIlwaukee (and I beleive most Great Lakes towns) there were alleys that went down the centre of the blocks beween the lots on both sides of the blocks. Will those be included?
Good to hear — I got the bungalow and garage bundles recently, and I haven't really had time yet for much more than test renders.
And don't worry too much about the time it's taking; remember how long it took for the huge Dream Home project to finish. We know now it's being worked on, and I'm impressed at the size of that layout.
So happy to hear this! I love the house, so excited to have streets and lots to add it to :) I am also happy to hear about the addition of ranch houses to your neighborhood, and the park will be a wonderful addition as well. -Cathy
That mean you're due for a name change?
;)
This is welcome news and perfect timing for me. I bought the houses already for use in storyboarding a graphic novel project starting production next spring, and even though I've only played around with them a bit, I really like them. I'm pretty excited by the prospect of having not just the houses but a whole neighborhood to work with. :)
Not able to open that image or do anyhting with thumbnail.
Most, if not all, of the neighborhoods in Detroit have (or had) alleys as well. The particular neighborhood I grew up in, there were originally alleys, but the fences had eventually been moved back on each lot until the alleys were completely absorbed and disappeared.
Not currently planning on adding them to this scene.
And yes, there is going to be a LOT of real estate. It is going to be difficult to keep the total scene size of the final assembled product under 5 million polygons (exlcuding any characters), so for those of us working without a supercomputer, I'm designing it so you'll be able to load only the areas visible to the camera. The park and the rows of houses facing it will be the "hero" areas with the most polygons, and everything behind them will be low detail for filling out the distance (billboard trees instead of polygonal ones, etc).
The first step is going to be designing and building the block for the existing Blue Collar Bungalows, since folks have been asking for the roads and lots for those for a long time. It will be designed with the mid-poly exteriors, but since those are based on the original full interior house, one of the lots you'll be able to replace the exterior only house with the full interior one and it should fit right in.
I do have some VERY preliminary renders of the baseball field portion of the park from last year when I started working on it, so I'll attach one here to give sort of an idea where this is going.
Cheers!
...that looks really good.
I can understand about the alleyways, as it would make the full set even larger to accommodate the extra space needed.
Yeah, it is already almost a half mile across, and the polygons are going to be getting way out of hand if I start adding too much more stuff.
Yeah, it is already almost a half mile across, and the polygons are going to be getting way out of hand if I start adding too much more stuff.
Got a link to this Blue Collar thing? What is it? Where do I get it?
Wow that baseball field looks great! Seems like alot of work for you to put all this together, I hope you add renders on occasion.
Are you planning on adding an interior to the ranch house(s)? I really love that the bungalow has both exterior and interior. -Cathy
Here's the link to my store page:
https://www.daz3d.com/nfxstudios
Right now, the Blue Collar houses and garages include only the buildings, but I'll be adding the blocks to them retroactively once they're finished.
Thanks! The baseball field is going to be pretty fun to finish putting together.
I am trying to post daily updates and in-progress renders on my Facebook page, with more or less success. Earlier today I posted the first WIP render of the 4th Contemporary Portrait Vignette that I'm trying to have finished by this weekend. Right behind that is one more Contemporary and one Sci-Fi (#2) that are already in the works, and then I'll be able to dive into the Blue Collar stuff again.
For those who haven't already, come on by and give the page a like and check out the updates when I post them. It's possible that in the future I'll run some contests and such there for free goodies, maybe once the page reaches 100 likes or whatever. So come spread the love!
Also, just to give you an idea of the scale of just how big a baseball field actually is, I'm attaching a shot here of my baseball field with my Farmhouse model sitting in left field. Keep in mind that this is a high school baseball field, and significantly smaller than a Major League ball field. Crazy, isn't it?
...wo!
That park in the middle's going to be a bit bigger than I thought. Which reminds me, I know there's an old (American) Football outfit in the store that should be convertible to modern figures without too much bother; is there a baseball outfit anywhere out there?
It could use a neightborhood gas station/convenience store where you pay twice as much for the convenience.
Yeah, that area depicted is about 1/4 the size of what the total park will be.
I think I actually own the American football uniform for Genesis. Don't think I've ever seen a decent uniform for other sports. Maybe another PA would be interested in doing a set of unis for M6/V6? :)
That's looks exactly like a neighborhood in St. Louis, MO, except for the roll carts.
My parents' home has that arch entry way between rooms as depicted in the Blue Collar Bungalow too.
I think pretty much every major city in the Midwest looks exactly the same :P
Have you considered making a smaller neighbourhood unit that represents a single block of these buildings? If I had one decent looking block, I could use node instances to repeat and reuse it over whatever area I wanted without killing my PC.
That's basically the general idea. There will be 4 blocks of distinct medium-poly houses, and you can duplicate them however you'd like to achieve your shot. I will be adding a few variations of a stupidly low poly long-distance block of houses for those who want to fill out the background with a little more variety. But in the end, the whole project is about being modular.
All of that said, my preloads for things like power lines and utility poles will probably be designed to fit the specific layout I have in mind, but the pieces will also be available separately for you to put them where you want.
Really looking forward to the baseball park.
I've been wanting to do a baseball story using DAZ renders, but I can't find any assets for it. Just stuff for Aiko 3 which I can't put onto Genesis 2.
...I remember seeing a baseball uniform here, I believe for Mike 4 or Mike 3, however the store search engine seems to be giving me random results.
I did find one at PoserWorld for M4 but you have to be an unlimited member to download it.
Update:
Hoping to have some preliminary renders up for the streets, grass, and sidewalks for the Blue Collar Bungalows and Garages by next week. I'll be posting them to the Collective3d Facebook page, along with the other product updates I've been posting this week.
This is definitely a must have. I hope it comes out when I have money unlike DAZ's sales that are always when I'm broke.