Hi guys, Here is a small look at what is coming next. yes that is a 6 story parking garage, complete with elevator. Just add the guys who wreck your car when they park for you. There is also a dog legged alley for those dark lit night time scenes. Many other details that you can not see here but more on that later. Have not gotten to the fine details yet but this gives you and idea of where I am going with this set. Movie Sets, City Block Two for Poser Movie Sets, City Block Two for Vue Comments are as always welcome. Regards, Tom

Click the image for a 1920 x 1080 view.
Thanks for looking

.

 that looks fabulous!!!!

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Hi Estherau,
Thanks a bunch. This set is coming along pretty well. Hope to have it done in about a week, I hope.
Regards, Tom

Tom, that is looking great.

I missed the first one when it was on sale but I need to get that one too. Guess I'll have to wait until the first one goes on sale again.

Hi Cherokee69,
Glad you like it.
It is coming along quite well.
Tom

Quote - Hi Cherokee69,
Glad you like it.
It is coming along quite well.
Tom

That's good to hear. I love your sets.

Hi Cherokee69, You make me feel good. I really put my all into these products of mine and it makes it all worth the effort when I see comments like yours. :-) Thank you! I was not going to post many more images of this product until it is complete but here is a view of the dog legged alley that I just started to focus on. It runs around the six story parking garage. Complete with an adjustable water level on the puddles. Everything you see is included and more on the way. I just have to get it out of my head somehow. :-) Hope you like this view as well. :-)~

Regards, Tom

Quote - Hi Cherokee69,
You make me feel good.
I really put my all into these products of mine and it makes it all worth the effort when I see comments like yours. :-)
Thank you!
I was not going to post many more images of this product until it is complete but here is a view of the dog legged alley that I just started to focus on. It runs around the six story parking garage. Complete with an adjustable water level on the puddles.
Everything you see is included and more on the way.
I just have to get it out of my head somehow. :-)
Hope you like this view as well. :-)~

Regards, Tom

Tom,

That looks wonderful. There is only one thing I see that doesn't look right. It's to texture on the trash can top. It looks like you used the same texture on it you used on the can body. The "ribbing" effect for the can just doesn't look right on the lid.

Hi Cherokee69,.
You are right. I just have not gotten to making a change yet.
I will change it.
Thanks for the keep eyes. :-)
Tom
By the way what is your name?

Hi Stan, does this look better to you? Tom

Quote - Hi Stan,
does this look better to you?
Tom

The lid looks much better Tom, but I did like the "ribbed" look of the can in the other pic.

Looks like I will just have to include all three. :-)
Tom

Quote - Looks like I will just have to include all three. :-)
Tom

That would work. Takes some of the headaches out of deciding.

It is looking good.  I agree about the trash cans.  The ribbed looked best for the can, with a smooth lid.  Perhaps slightly dented.

I do have a question.  How easy is it for the end user to change the material of the ground?  I have never seen a brick paved alley before.  It just seems off to me. 

What kind of texture do you think it should be?
Brick is very, very, common in the mid-west where I get my inspiration.
Some are concrete.
Please keep in mind i shoot for the 1950's and forward in my sets.
Tom

Interesting.  I live in Chicago, and although maybe not the mid-west, it is close to it.  :)

Actually, i can't say I have never seen a brick paved alley, just never a red brick paved alley.  I guess it is possible it was red brick when first paved, but usually it is a dark brown or even black brick.  Most of the alleys here are asphalt under all the dirt and crud.  Just my thoughts. 

In the end, you should go with your vision.  After all, it is what makes your sets worth it!

John

Wow. I only live about 50 miles across the lake from you.
I am glad you said that as when ever I try to bend my designs in a different direction it takes the fun out of it..
Keep in mind I set the UVW mapping to turn 45 degrees so if you apply a different texture it should fit in a 3 foot square on a 45 degree angle. Here is the brick texture I used for the alley to give you an idea what you would have to work with.
You could also color the brick texture in a paint program and make it darker.
Thanks a lot for the feed back.
Tom

Wow. I only live about 50 miles across the lake from you. I am glad you said that as when ever I try to bend my designs in a different direction it takes the fun out of it.. Keep in mind I set the UVW mapping to turn 45 degrees so if you apply a different texture it should fit in a 3 foot square on a 45 degree angle. Here is the brick texture I used for the alley to give you an idea what you would have to work with. I had to reduce it from 1288 x 1288 down to 644 x 644 so this post would accept it. You could also color the brick texture in a paint program and make it darker. Thanks a lot for the feed back. Tom

Where I live here in North Carolina, in the early years of the town, the streets were dirt. The first paving was brick. In later years it was paved over with asphalt. Now, when they do any street repairs, they uncover the original brick but it gets paved over when the work in completed. There are a couple of streets that they have taken everything up down the the dirt and repaved with brick.

So I can see using brick isn't out of the ordinary. Brick streets isn't something that alot of people see too much of in the States. So, use the brick texture. If people want something else, it should be pretty easy to change.

Hi guys and gals, I am working on this set right now and on late into the night. I hope to have it tested and online by Monday, I hope. I refuse to upload a new product until I feel it is as close to perfect as possible, plus I like to ad as many models in there as I feel will contribute to the  realism.

My intent on this set of nine city blocks is to build a few loose items that can be used in the other sets. Such as the safety cones, the traffic control saw horses, an old tire, trash cans  etc.. Different models with each set.

This set will be on sale as well, like I always do when releasing a new product. :-)

Here is a look at the dog legged alley that encompasses two sides of the six story parking garage, that has a full interior complete with two way ramps, and a valet office.
There is even an arched bridge above this view that connects the Washington Apts. to the parking garage.

I changed the texture on the brick to a square repeating brick so you can change the texture to suit your needs, just apply your own image to the brick. The size of the UVW mapping is 112 inches by 112 inches so adjust your image accordingly. That means that you want a texture that in the real world covers 112 inches square.

I also turned the mapping back to square to the world.

There are three barrel kinds, two of which you can see in this image.

The alley starts on one street, turns 90 degrees and exits on another street.
I am even giving you  control over the water level in the puddles on the brick. The higher you move the water the more of the sunken down brick gets covered.  The fire escape ladder will move as well.
And the list goes on.
Hope you like it so much you buy three of them. :-)
Regards, Tom

Tom,

Just bought the first set and I just am amazed at how well it renders in Poser. With all the stuff in it, I thought for sure it would bog Poser down some but it doesn't. Renders pretty fast and it really looks good.

Now, with the second set fit in with the first one? And, how about Fisher's Warehouse and Coleman's Creates? Will those work with it at well?

That second set it looking awesome. Can't wait for it to get to the store. Keep up the great work.

 well while you are modelling is it possible to make a mat pose with the set to turn the brick street into a modern looking street?
Love esther

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Thanks guys,
Cherokee69 yes those sets are available for Poser as well.
Glad you like the City block.
Estherau,
I will think about it.
As I have gone to a square UVW mapping that is square to the world you could simply add your own texture and adjust the tiling your self.
The problem with me adding additional textures is there about a million different ones to choose from.
So most likely I will not include any more textures for the alley. Sorry to disappoint you. If you buy the set and want to PM me I could possibly walk you through changing the material with your square texture and make it work.
Once again guys thanks for the feed back.
it truly does help me.
regards, Tom

Tom,

What I meant was will Fisher's Warehouse and Coleman's Creates work with the 2 City Blocks or are they a different scale?

The scale appears to be close, but not exact.  it would take a lot of tweaking to get it looking right; however i think it could be done.  I didn't try for any great length of time.  Just tried a quick one.  Fishers Warehouse does dwarf the size of the blocks; but the scale is close.

Quote - The scale appears to be close, but not exact.  it would take a lot of tweaking to get it looking right; however i think it could be done.  I didn't try for any great length of time.  Just tried a quick one.  Fishers Warehouse does dwarf the size of the blocks; but the scale is close.

Yeah, that's true but not by much. I just loaded all of them in Poser and Poser just zipped through rendering the whole thing. All I did was just move them around so they weren't all loaded in the same spot.

Tom, as good as these are and how well they render and look, you going to make and entire (well, almost) city.....block by block?

Quote - Tom,

What I meant was will Fisher's Warehouse and Coleman's Creates work with the 2 City Blocks or are they a different scale?

No they will not work together as the city block set is smaller for the sake of polygon counts.
They were both exported out of 3D Studio Max at the same scale. They were modeled at real world sizes.
Sometimes I make the floor to floor height different for effect.
The city block set is designed around square city blocks that are a certain dimension. of 301.979 feet square. Both directions.

That is so you can move any one of the nine sets to the nine locations and rotate them up to four times for a combination of somewhere around 300 plus.

Please keep in mind these are not architectural blueprints so some creative license was taken on my part.
If you want me to build models that are that kind of accuracy and that amount of detail then they would cost around 10 to 25  thousand dollars and would be in the millions of polygons and would kill most computers. These models are an entire city block and do not exceed 100,000 polygons with the exception of Fishers Warehousing.

Also there is the issue of Poser not being an exact program when it comes to import. I picked .01 as the export scale from Max but that is because I can only export at two decimal places instead of 5 or 6 that it would take to get it perfect.
So on a model of this size the scale might be off by a foot or two overall of the whole nine blocks.
Hope this was a good explanation of the issues at hand.
Thanks for all the feedback guys.
Now back to modeling City Block set two.
regards, Tom

P.S. Yes I am modeling nine city blocks of buildings.
I guess that qualifies me for a trip to the mental institution when I get done. Just to rest up mind you. :-)

Hi Guys,
Thought I should give you an update on my progress. I will not be releasing this product before the end of the month.
It will be on the 8th of October.
Same old reason. Just want to wait until I know it is a great product.
Sorry about the wait.
Regards, Tom

That looks great!  I'm going to buy it to use as part of a web comic I'm doing!  Your work looks quite superior and as soon as I can I'll be grabbing up a couple of others.

Larry F

Hi Larry,
I am very glad you like my work.
Can I see your comic when you have it available? Please send me a site mail when it is ready, okay?
Regards, Tom

Yeah, you sure can.  Have been thumbnailing/storyboarding for some time now, moving on to character design, but as for sets, this one is JEWTDO (Just exactly what the doctor ordered)!  Excellent work!

Hi Larry
Don't forget to send me a link to your comic, okay?
Tom

Attached Link: Link to E-On softwares site.

Here is what you can do if you just ad a little fog in Vue. I more than recommend buying any version of Vue. Personally I use Vue 9 Infinite but all of the versions have pretty cool lighting features, such  as the clouds that are as you see here in this render. The cheapest version even has global illumination or radiosity  This image was posted in Paint Shop Pro to give it the black and white look. Hope you like it. Here is a link to E-On software if you are interested in checking out their software. The versions start at free ( yes you heard me free) and go up to $1495.00 for the very high end l version that connects with Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, and other software. Regards, Tom

I just downloaded the free version. I thought I should add that it carries a water mark on the render but if you want to get past that the cheapest version is only $49.00.
Regards, Tom

Here is an image I just rendered in the free version of Vue. just so you can see what the water mark looks like. All the rocks you see are 3 dimensional not just a texture. they were created with a material called an ECO system material. The material stores 3D objects and disperses them randomly.  The clouds were generated by the program as well, not an image. Very realistic if you fool with the controls a little. Click to enlarge the image to see the detail. regards, Tom