I've been working on a western animation for some time and am now at the point of fleshing out the environment in a more realistic fashion. Still lots of texture tweaking to do and more elements like a more buildings, vegetation, critters, furniture, etc. I'm wondering how other people handle making their buildings or other models look like they are actually sitting on the ground and part of the environment. I usually do some post photoshop work but that doesn't seem practical for an animation. I'm thinking of using a terrain for under each building with some creative shader work. Here's a shot of one of the buildings. All suggestions are welcome.

I think this is a great start. My first instinct is to say, just do more of what you're doing. And I'm sure others will have better suggestions, but I can offer this:

I think that once you add a road the scene will come together a lot more, because the buildings will not be so completely separate. And you can consider tying the buildings together with other elements: a sign that spans two buildings, or a single porch across a pair of them. Add a shared railing to the porch, maybe. These things would give the sense that the street was built up in phases.

Also, this doesn't really apply to your question, but in real life the interior of each building would be almost completely dark when seen from the outside, and there would be much more stuff reflected in the windows. Try turning off the light-through-transparency rendering option to see how that looks. Or maybe make the windows much darker and more opaque to fake it.

Finally, the viewpoint is a little higher than eye-level, so it feels a bit like the 7/8 scale buildings at Disney World. If you lower the camera a bit it may feel a bit more real.

Message edited on: 06/27/2004 12:42

I think that looks pretty good. One thing about those towns: they sometimes elevated the structures on posts and beams to get above the mud and flash floods. So if you did that, you would not only have the shadow of the elevated building, but you would also have heaps of dirt and garbage around the posts. Tumbleweeds, small plants, you name it. Uneven levels of dirt and dust.

Attached Link: http://www.emll.net

Try to use AnythingGrooves for the ground. That could help since it would create a more terrain like feeling and the houses would not look so separated. Although it will effect rendering time.

mateo_sancarlos suggestion is right on the money. It would require a bit more work but he is right. Yo could add a balcony type porch with wooden railing too. You can add drinking deals for horses too and beams ware they would be tied up.

One problem I think you're going to face is the fact that you're using an atmospheric tool that can make some things reallly challenging. For instance, I'm going to guess the ground we're seeing in your image is the ground plane generated by the atmosphere tool. This may reduce your control. You can add another infinite plane to the scene to do more stuff and lower the ground plane in the atmosphere control. Turning off the light through transparency will darken the inside of your buildings but again, I suspect your insides are too light because of the atmosphere. While the atmosphere you're using does have great aspects to it, the side effects are aggravating. You might try using no atmosphere and using a backdrop image for your skies and such. So far, the model and textures look great. I think you're on a great track! -Kix

Go get some free weeds from www.3dplants.com or in the free section at 3Dcafe. and put them around the edges of the building to help anchor or ground the buildings. You would do the same around trees, fences or other structures that poked out of the ground.