Modeling Question: Best Tools for Layout of a Town?

Comments

• FSMCDesigns Posts: 12,843

  January 2017

  It'll be more about the skills, the preplanning and the layout with this type of project more than the modeling app. With modeling apps it's more about the UI and what works for the person more than the features since most modeling apps do the same things. For instance I have tried most modeling apps out there. Hexagon made no sense to me, Maya did. Blender is confusing as heck to me, especially since I am not a keyboard shortcut person, yet Zbrush makes sense to me. My app of choice is 3DSMax, but it is costly. There are trials for most, tell him to try them all till he finds one he likes
• DaWaterRat Posts: 2,885

  January 2017

  I don't know how far he got on it, but I am aware of one person who was using Hexagon to create a 3D model of a town from a table top RPG.  I think he imported the map on a plane of some kind and then built up from there.
• nonesuch00 Posts: 18,722

  January 2017

  There is a free Village Generator in the Unity Asset Store:

  https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/57470

  Your family member could start with that and then take tutorial lessons ad CGCookie using Blender to make improved buildings to place in the village.

  If that wasn't to their liking they could still like to model in Blender using CGCookie tutorials and then use Gaia and TerreSculptor to place the models in a village.

  https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42618

  http://www.demenzunmedia.com/home/terresculptor/

  With Gaia, Terresculptor Pro, and modeling skills to make the buildings & roads and such they should be able to reasonably replicate any old village.

  There is also EasyRoads Pro to help layout streets and rivers in a Unity terrain although the rivers at least will be handled by good GIS data in Terresculptor and Gaia.

   https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/469

  However, you are in total talking about almost $200. You can get EasyRoads Free & Terresculptor Free and do tutorials from Darrin Lyle on YourTube for free instead but the Gaia will still cost almost $45.
• WendyLuvsCatz Posts: 40,058

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  http://osm2world.org/

  http://www.openstreetmap.org/export#map=13/51.5033/-0.0661

  open street map OSM2world exporter will generate a blocky layout you can build on

  Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on January 2017
• WendyLuvsCatz Posts: 40,058

  January 2017

  this is how a part of London exported

  

  

  Capture.JPG

  1936 x 1048 - 376K
• nonesuch00 Posts: 18,722

  January 2017

  Yes, that is excellent program. It's also been ported to Unity but the Unity version costs money and it's substantially better.
• Mattymanx Posts: 6,996

  January 2017

  If he has a map, he can use that as a texture on a primative plane and scale it up to its proper size so he gets the layout correctly.  Daz studio uses metric so he should be able to get it very close to scale.
• TangoAlpha Posts: 4,587

  January 2017

  You can get DEM - Digital Elevation Model of terrain, covering most of the world in various resolutions. The USGS has DEMs down to 10 metres resolution (ie the points are 10 metres apart horizontally). I'm pretty sure there's a plugin for Carrara to convert DEM files to terrains. Probably one for Bryce too, maybe even Blender. Combine that  with a map / aerial photo and you've got a fair representation of your ground. Good enough to know where to put the houses anyhow.

  Then comes the buildings, the street furniture, trees, bushes etc. Here we get into "how long's a piece of string" territory. You'll get as many suggestions for modelling programs as you get responses, and all of them are right. Truth is, most programs will do most stuff and what you're faced with is the eternal triangle of features - price - usability, and you can only get 2 out of 3.

  Then you need to consider the amount of detail: something like the colonial mansion that was just released is probably too detailed if you're doing a whole town (unless you have a supercomputer...), but a box with painted on windows & doors is probably not detailed enough.

  Carrara (my prog of preference) has an add-on called Architools http://www.daz3d.com/architools-for-carrara which makes procedural buildings. I don't have it, but some people swear by it. @PhilW has a couple of complete village scenes in his store http://www.daz3d.com/an-english-village and EvilProducer has a free village scene on ShareCG http://www.sharecg.com/v/69697/browse/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain They're all easy to pull apart and see how they're done. Plus PhilW covers making something similar on one of his video tutorials.
• WendyLuvsCatz Posts: 40,058

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  http://terrain.party/

   also does quick easy greyscale elevation maps if not used for Carrara or Bryce in their terrain editors they can be displacement maps on a plane in D|S too

  Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on January 2017
• Daywalker Designs Posts: 3,586

  January 2017

  One thing to point out to those making suggestions; the person is wanting to do a recreation of a much older version of a specific place, so modern data may not be of much use if there have been significant changes to it in the past few decades.
• TangoAlpha Posts: 4,587

  January 2017

  It can still be helpful for positioning, even if the street layout and buildings have changed somewhat.