Awesome. Thanks for all your work to make the original set compatible with the Poser Editions that are for sell. I bought the second set just a few weeks ago and the latest set is in my 'wish' list.

Great looking set. Thank Ajax, Moebius.

Thanks! :) Jay

Excellent work guys! I had the pleasure of testing these a couple weeks ago & couldnt help thinking "Why are they just giving these away!" Your generosity is much appreciated:)

Oh wow. Not only Dystopia but a great tip about depth cue! Thanks for both :o)

Ouch Ajax - what a disgusting sky lol! :o) And thanks for the atmos tip. I'm actually working on something like this right now for the gallery. Aha - so one shouldn't use the volume? So that's why I've been getting hangs in render. :] Fish

Don't get me wrong - I think volumetric is great, just not for Dystopia and not when you're in a hurry. And if you think that sky's bad, you should have seen some of the ones I threw away ;-)

Thank you for this great freebie, much appreciated..........

Thank you so much for these I've been eyeing the dystopia stuff but couldn't make up my mind. Now I can check them out.

These are fantastic - many, many thanks!

Hey guys. Any plans to make some overlays or something to add traffic to the Dystopia blocks? Like ground and air traffic? To me this is the only think lacking. The current stuff is fine for far away shots, but up close and it looks like a ghost town. Some MATs to add traffic would be an incredible add-on to an incredible set of models. Also, some tips on getting people figures in the set would be helpful. I'm a relative noob to this stuff, and find that trying to place a figure that's been scaled down, or scaling up the block and trying to place a figure is an exercise in futility. I'd love to be able to put someone on a rooftop having them look out over the city, but it never works out right. Thanks for these fantastic models!! Jeff

Thanks guys, these blocks are amazing. The detail is incredible.

I do have a problem with shadows, however. Anything I render in the set will not cast shadows. Not even on itself, where a body part is in line with the lights.

Remove Dystopia and the shadows come back. This is rendering in Firefly and P4 mode, with the P5 and P4 sets.

Any suggestions?

Message edited on: 05/25/2004 14:31

jeff
overlooking the city like this?

Tyger, something like that, yes. But I'm thinking on one of the Dystopia buldings actually, and looking out from there. I'm probably trying to use it incorrectly, and should try to use your three-tier approach.

SamTherapy, have you tried raytraced shadows too? I know you said firefly but you didn't mention raytracing. My guess is that Dystopia is too big for Poser's shadowmaps to handle, so that the shadows will be so faint that they in effect disappear. But raytraced shadows should show up.

I've just downloaded it myself and I'll give it a try :o)

Message edited on: 05/25/2004 15:06

Not incorrectly, just different. Dystopia is made more for further shots. Get close enough and it seems like something is missing because the minute detail is not there. I choose to build it separately so that the textures would look right in the extreme foreground. One way I have found (the way I did for this shot) to put characters on buildings is to identify where you want them. To to the top camera and zoom out till you can see the whole block. Insert the figure. Hold down shift (to keep poser from selecting a different figure) and drag your character (from the top camera) until he reaches a point directly below where you want him (under the balcony or inside the building you want him on. Then enter a value into the y trans until you get him close to the roof/balcony. Then zoom in and do the fine tuning. Another option (which I used in a scene I havent posted yet) is to place all the characters you may want in the scene near the origin point. Then put in the dystopia block/figure and push the block down into the ground (its best if you turn off shadows at this point to make it easier to see) and shift the dystopia roof/balcony under the figures. This is easier if you have lots of things you need to add or you want some different camera angles from near the figures. I have found it is easiest to move these things around in top front and left/right cameras. Zoomed way out so that you can see most everything.

Sam - most likely you have your light disappearing behind the buildings, so everything down on the stage is in a sort of soft shadow. That's happened to me, I had to use the shadowcam for my 'sunlight' light to line it up right so it shone from the right angle. If this makes any sense... :] Fish

JeffAlberts, I know what you mean about the traffic. I'll put some thought into how we could do it, but off the top of my head I'm not seeing any practical way. Textures won't work because all the blocks are different but they all use the same textures. That means the textures can't have specific details on them. Trying to model traffic is going to add too many polygons. I'll see what I can think of, but I'm not at all confident we can do it. Moe made these with the idea that they should be background material. There was a real lack of background cityscape models around and the idea of these is that they should be seen from a window or something rather than have people rendered in situ. It's not really possible to make a model that will do both of those things at the same time. We knew a lot of people wanted to put their people in the city, so we compromised a little by putting the scale poses in. I sometimes think that was a mistake because it gives the wrong impression. My oppinion is that you should really have a separate model as the set your Poser people stand on and then have the Dystopia models seen in the distance through the window or off the balcony or the rooftop or whatever. I'm sure you've spotted the problem with this already. There just aren't that many models out there that have a view. I think that's because most modellers think "If I put a window here, people are going to have trouble finding something to put on the other side of it". We're aware of that and we're working on room-with-a-view type models to fix it, but it's going to take time. Tyger_purr's approach is pretty much exactly what I'd recommend. You don't have to render in separate passes, but I'd strongly recommend using a separate model for your people to stand on, keeping the people close to the centre of the scene and moving the whole city around underneath them. There's no easy way to position a model as large as a city in relation to something as small as a person, no matter what 3D program you use, so it's always going to be hard, sorry. SamTherapy, I agree with Ernyoka1. Poser tries to spread the shadow map out over the whole city, which means no matter how big you set the map you won't be able to see the shadow of something as relatively small as a person. Raytraced shadows should work, but be careful the person isn't in the shadow of a building or you won't see the person's shadow. I've found that if you use a spotlight, placed relatively close to the person, you can get a shadow that way. Try looking through your shadow lite cameras to get an idea of what's happening with shadows. If an object doesn't occupy a reasonably amount of the view throught the shadow lite cam, then you aren't going to get much detail in it's shadow.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try 'em out. I did cheat the shadows in my latest pic by rendering the figures separately and compositing in Photoshop.

Thanks Ajax. You're right on all counts, of course. Ok, throw out the possibility of street traffic, but what about air traffic, similar to the stuff you see flying all around Coruscant in Star Wars. Nothing with that kind of detail, of course, but some overlay sheet that can be placed in front of and in between te city blocks might work. Like the Non-volumetric fire and smoke props. 90% of it would be transparent, except for small craft here and there. I wouldn't expect something that would look good really close-up, but even seen from a distance this type of thing could really improve the visual appeal of the city blocks. Thanks again, Jeff

Hmm... Yeah, I think we could do something like that easily enough. Let me talk to Moe and Billy about it.

Yeah! Cool idea. Makes me think also of 5th Element. Yum. :] Fish in his maglev

Thanks Ajax, for even considering it. Don't want to take away from anything more important of course. This might even be something someone else might want to tackle.

Jeff

Message edited on: 05/26/2004 10:08

Suggestion: Dystopia up close. a block or two of buildings that can be used up close. maybe a couple of balconies, a few rooftops Instead of blocks maybe do a few buildings. With a figure to assemble them into a block. (that fits with existing dystopia blocks) Possible? desirable?

That sounds a cool idea as well, Tyger.

I've asked Moe and Billy to stop by and take a look at the thread. Up close sets are on our to do list already, including balconies and rooftops. I'm not sure about whole buildings but I see the need for something like that, for sure.

Cheers, Ajax! :o)

Thank you everyone for your interest, support and input on Dystopia. Like Ajax has already mentioned, this city was never really intended to work for close-up shots. It was always our intention that these meshes are background objects to help support the main features in your animations or renders. However, there seems to be a strong demand to get closer into the city... so we're working on it. :o)

As for traffic (ground and air), I already do have some extremely low polygon box vehicles with very low detailing that can be used to fill the streets and skies of Dystopia. Here is one render with both air traffic and ground traffic. Here is another render with ground traffic only. They might seem tiny, but rest assured that they are modeled to scale. :o)

I'm not too interested in doing detailed traffic, since there's a whole lot of vehicles out there and our intention is not to compete, but to compliment. I suppose I should get these out of LightWave, send them over to billy and Ajax so we can post these as freebies. :o)

Going to keep watching this thread. Thank you very much, again... :o)

Cheers! MMessage edited on: 05/26/2004 20:27

Moebius, please add my vote to those above for a close-up version of Dystopia! To try it out, I downloaded the first freebie set, and quickly saw this was not something I could really use as a city set, other than background--as is its intent. A modern or slightly futuristic city setting seems to be seriously lacking for Poser. Everyone wants to do fantasy or historic buildings. My stuff is meant to be set in the 21st century or, as Max Headroom used to say, "20-minutes in the future." I've found very little to create a photorealistic city street(s) scene, but from the look of Dystopia, you and Ajax seem to be the blokes to do it!

Moebius, The ground and air traffic stuff looks very nice!! That's the kind of stuff I was talking about exactly. If I want a bigger ship here and there I can add one manually,I would think. I like the smoke effects as well. Didn't even thing=k of that. I'm looking to do more 23rd century stuff for an RPG I'm writing, and this stuff fits for the gritty feel I intend. Have a few close-ups such as balconies and/or roofs, or even building entrances, would be a great addition to an already fantastic set. Thanks!! Jeff

Well I don't mind converting the traffic Moe, if you want to send it over. As for the close-up building props, as the guys said, they are already on the list of to do stuff. I already have a low detail set of entrance doors built to replace some of Moe's original ones, where textures are used instead of models, these where made to keep the amount of textures in the pack to a minimum, I could try to raise the detail on these and build some kind of proper entrance, then pass it over to Ajax to set-up in Poser, if possible using the textures already included in the Dystopia packs though this might prove difficult since the textures where not really set up for close-up stuff. I'm also trying to build an overhead road system, but with all the other stuff in the pipeline, (the next set of commercial blocks and the other set of free blocks), this is coming along at a snails pace, (not to mention that my modelling skills when compared to Moe's are pretty crap, LOL). Anyway, thanks all for some very interesting suggestions, and enjoy these blocks, I'm looking forward to seeing some cool images with them. Cheers Billy 8)

Hey folks, It's been a while since this thread was added to, just wondering how things are going with some of the items mentioned? The anticipation is KILLING me!! ;) Jeff

Stonemason has made some nice air traffic but it's not quite finished yet. I'm currently working on the Hyperion Bar, which is an interior scene. In the mean time, we've released a vehicle and a landing pad over at DAZ.

Any news on whenif the 051-060 set will get obj-ed and Poserized?

I've got the landing pad in my wishlist, already got the vehicle. Great Stuff. Just need a high-rez building to attach the landing pad to ;) Looking forward to the imitation traffic for Dystopia! JEff

yea, where is 51-60 for Poser (with the bridge)?

I don't have any news on 51-60, sorry. I don't have any of the models for that yet.

The bridge & other bonus bits, plus blocks 051 to 055 are now converted, I'll be sending these over to Ajax in a few days once I've checked them over for errors, then I'll carry on with 56 to 60, hopefully these will be ready by the weekend, then it's over to Ajax with these as well so he can do his Poser magic on the lot. Cheers Billy

YES!!! Houston, we almost have bridge!