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I need to put a city on a hilltop

cheardcheard Posts: 137
in The Commons

Hi! I’m modeling an ancient city that is supposed to sit on a tel (artificial hill) that rises about 25 meters from the surrounding valley floor; the top of the oval-shaped “mesa” can be roughly considered a circle 120 meters in diameter. I’m not quite sure how to achieve the proper look from the terrain. A lot of the landscape settings that I have are “the wrong way round” — that is, they situation the focal area in the valley and use hills and mountains as a backdrop. I need something almost like the Desert Depression set, but upside down. I’m perfectly comfortable with kitbashing and whatnot but I don’t quite know how to get a good horizon and match the close-up ground to the backdrop. Any suggestions? Or pointers to tutorials online or in the shop that will help me?

Comments

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 27,211

    What about one of the UltraScenery or UltraSceneryXT products, or a combination of the two for foreground (UltraScenery) and background (UltraSceneryXT). I recommend the most recent versions of each, e.g. UltraScenery2.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 41,209
    edited July 10

    if you are not comfortable modeling a landscape 

    (or using Carrara, Bryce, Vue, Terragen etc)

    can you flip the Desert depression set upside down?

    or as others are suggesting scale Y-100

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • rcourtri_789f4b1c6brcourtri_789f4b1c6b Posts: 292

    A couple of suggestions:

    https://www.daz3d.com/ap-modular-wadi-desert

    It has four mesas that could be reshaped using the Scale sliders to get your desired height-to-width ratio. 

    https://www.daz3d.com/infinite-sands

    The hills have adjustable heights.

  • kprkpr Posts: 420

    For $3.49 (if you're a member) this might be worth a look: https://www.daz3d.com/skyray-worlds--complete-world-builder

  • AsuCafeAsuCafe Posts: 365
    edited July 10

    UltraScenery 2 is definitely the top choice for customized terrain.

    For background transitions, you can try this: https://www.daz3d.com/parallax-backgrounds

    SkyRay Worlds　It's not very suitable for custom terrain, but the built-in terrain is beautiful. There's an "MGX SkyRay-HzPlus" prop in the scene that serves as a transition prop for the horizon; the effect is shown in the attached image.　Its function is similar to parallax-backgrounds

    The attached image shows that I removed the built-in Sky Sphere in SkyRay Worlds and replaced it with a custom HDRI sky and the "MGX SkyRay-HzPlus" prop.

    I'm using "https://www.daz3d.com/skyray-worlds-ultimate-worlds-builder"; and I'm not sure if "https://www.daz3d.com/skyray-worlds--complete-world-builder"; has this item.

    In addition, I would use "fog" or "smoke" props to blur the boundary on the distant horizon (there are definitely smarter ways).

     

     

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    AAAA.JPG
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    Post edited by AsuCafe on
  • memcneil70memcneil70 Posts: 5,958

    If you go the UltraScenery path or are curious, the second commercial thread may help you. There are a lot of examples posted by users, requests for help, advice and explanations how folks created their renders. The first entry has a list of the required and add-ons products.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,864
    edited 4:07AM

    I have Desert Depression so I put a quick scene together. I used a push modifier to raise a flat top hill.on the depression and added a stone iray shader to the depression floor. Added Medieval Fantasy Village on top and a curved backdrop in the background to show one possibility. 

     

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    Hill 2.jpg
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    Post edited by RGcincy at
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