Looks cool, 30 day free trial...Integrates with Vue, available at C3D

Price is too steep for me at the minute, but hopefully soon I can purchase this..

http://www.procedural.com/cityengine/trial.html

haha, was just about to post about this...

looks... AWESOME.   saw the demo of the standalone when it was posted a while ago, think that was about 5000 dollars or something, blew me away, so glad its only 300 or 200 depending on your standpoint..

That's just feakin cool...I wonder if it can be used with older versions (Vue 4 Pro).

Interesting deal; you can see many video examples here.

A word of warning: it is not a point-and-click thing. If you want to really create things, get ready to learn quite a deal about rule based procedural generation :sneaky:

CE for Vue works only with version 8.5 or Vue 9.

This special version exports selected building "models" as Vue *.vob  objects. The resulting objects are fairly low-resolution buildings suitable for background use. Most of the apparent detail really consists of facades that started as texture files and are simply applied to the rough building shapes.

The great thing about City Engine is that whole city blocks or neighborhoods can be generated fairly accurately from real street data, or made-up (drawn) street and topo data.

City Engine IS cool, and as Alexcoppo says, it has a fairly decent learning curve. Not at all point-and-click. More on the nature of the Vue Material Editor Advanced - in terms of compexity of use. Anyone can go download the trial version for free, and take a look at the tutorials. The purchased product interface opening sequence includes plenty of links to tutorials. And for what it does, its is as good a product as exists.

You also will need to be a reasonable hand at creating or editing building facade texture files in something like CorelDraw or Photoshop to make good use of this product.

If you're not into procedural programming/editing, don't worry about it. Some of us have been following the developments of City Engine for the last couple of years, and have purchased it. We'll be making products from City Engine that can be used in Vue - as regular city blocks or neighborhoods - for background use.

I was not happy with the regular version as small defects creep into the *.obj model files that it generates. However, I purchased this special Vue version in the wee hours of this morning, and I've not yet found a flaw in the exported *.vobs. Plus, I can tell you that Procedural.com's technical support is snappy and right on top of things. I made a mistake in installation that I could not recover from myself, even though I'm a techie. They had my installation fixed and up and running sweetly within two hours.

This may motivate me to upgrade Vue...darn it!

I tried the demo a year ago.  Get ready for more frustration than using Vue, is all I can say.

Quote - I tried the demo a year ago.  Get ready for more frustration than using Vue, is all I can say.

It is not easy because it has to perform a fiendishly complex task.

I advise everybody to start by reading the papers on which the program is based. If you are new at procedural content generation, go to this wonderful wiki; there are also lots of interesting information (though getting out of date) on this site.

Beware... highly addictive subjects, even more than the best game you could dream of.

Bye!!!

can the city be easily lit for night scenes?

Love esther

Attached Link: http://www.procedural.com/

The buildings consist of rectangular (irregular and highly variable) objects that have facade - texture files, and depending upon which version of City Engine you are using, they may have some roughly modelled features, such as balconies. But, they don't have glass windows. In the Pro version of City Engine, it is possible to create street lights and such, but not in the Vue version. So, ... there is no where to put lights.

To help answer some of your questions, I'll make some renders of the results, so that you can better visualize all this. But of course, you could just go to Procedural.com and take a look for yourself. (See above link.)  But keep in mind when you look at the items on their web page that you are looking at the products of the Pro Version - not the Vue version.

so if I had the pro version would my pz3s import into it like they do in vue, and if it was pro and not part of vue then I wouldn't be able to add trees and car ecos etc?

why don't they make the pro version work with vue?

Love esther

I found this one brief thing when I searched night on their site "A new night/day city template has been added to the City Wizard. "

but would that be part of the vue version and how does it look? I can't find any image examples of this in use?

Love esther

City Engine is not so much a rendering enviroment like Vue and Bryce as it is a tool for laying out cities. It does have it's own "enviroment" and rendering engine, but these are more for visualization purposes, and not for photorealistic purposes.

I don't actually know whether or not Poser files can be imported into it - it never occured to me to consider that.  But, I kind of doubt it.

City Engine is not really designed to replace Vue. Rather, itin theis particular case, it is designed to layout streets and buildings that can be imported into Vue.

thanks - seen any night examples?

The night example I've seen looked like the city had a power outage.

Click on image to enlarge.

At this price the version on sale through Conucopia I take it is equivalent to the Indie version?

but from what i'm reading here export only to Vue?

Quote - At this price the version on sale through Conucopia I take it is equivalent to the Indie version?

but from what i'm reading here export only to Vue?

Based on their website, Indie is $495, the Vue version is $299 and currently $199 on sale. The difference is indeed that the Vue version does only export models as VOB where as INDIE has addional export options and a higher price.

I played with the demo for a couple of days and then  immediately bought the Vue version. Marvelous peice of softare. Tons of fun to play with. I find it quite easy to use.

TD

Not knowing the Vue version (or the Vue enhanced version) was on the way I picked up the Indie version to start learning it for a project I want to do a month ago.

The procedural language it uses is quite simple to learn although some of the demo scenes make it a bit hard to get started with because they do too much out of the box to illustrate doing the simple stuff.

The complexity of the models you can create is really a case of how complex you want to make the procedures.  In principal you could create a procedure that will model a building down to the level of bricks, doors and roof tiles but it would be very complex and in 99.9% of cases pointless to do so.

For me, it's really resource intense (I may be wrong on this).  It looks impressive for a start, I just need to get my head around doing some things with it, and learning the ropes of nodes/procedural -- wow!

In order to do for example a map-like mesh from SketchUp, I used the plug-in to make it .dxf (cad) and import it into CityEngine -- still like the others it takes some learning curve to do it, and I think a pretty robust computer to do the trick.

that night scene looks good.

Can you light up the streets and show me how it would look?

Love esther

Does it have Medieval/ancient style buildings? As I mostly do fantasy work, not scifi and certianly not contemporary. :)

 PS

did I miss a sale? still $299 on C3D (though I don't have C Club, alas)

Quote - Does it have Medieval/ancient style buildings? As I mostly do fantasy work, not scifi and certianly not contemporary. :)

 PS

did I miss a sale? still $299 on C3D (though I don't have C Club, alas)

Hi !

There is one sample scene that has medieval buildings and a city wall. You can see it in one of the previews at Cornucopia.

The sale price is with c.club membership. I got it a couple of days ago and really like it.

TD

"Can you light up the streets and show me how it would look?"

No, sorry. I didn't save the scene after the render.

I 'm reinstalling Vue at the moment. It gave me an "error 2" and wouldn't start.

Quote - that night scene looks good.

Can you light up the streets and show me how it would look?

Love esther

The "Windowe lights" in that example are simply an alternate texture set. There is no light coming from those unless you set up luminosity in Vue manually.

There is no pre-defined way to light up the streets. One needs to set that up in Vue or by using custom models/textures.

I can see a couple of possible approaches. The street models/rules that come with the "Modern Streets" example have light poles included. One can easily set up a mask based on the texture map and then use that to drive luminosity in Vue. Another approach would be to select all light poles, duplicate them and then replace the duplicates with point or spot lights.

I am playing with this at the moment. If I come up with a good way, I'll post it.

Ciao

TD

TD

okay, will be interested to see if the duplicate and replace thing works too.  that luminosity may not be enough to light all the streets well.

Love esther

okay, am downloading it right now.  Now how do I stop my c-club monthly membership from autorenewing?

Quote - okay, am downloading it right now.  Now how do I stop my c-club monthly membership from autorenewing?

I think you need to send a message via the contact support link at Cornucopia3D to stop the auto renewal.

The duplicate and replace approach did not work because all light poles ended up as one group and it wasn't possible to split them in Vue (and thus all light poles would be replaced by a single light).

The luminosity is definitely not enough to really light up the streets. You need to add some some real lights. I am experimenting right now. I might post an example tomorrow.

Ciao

TD

thanks - looking forward to finding out what u come up with.

I downloaded the application on my mac. Moved it into my applications folder, opened and started playing with it, and then later when I was clicking around on my desktop I saw this message:-  something about "download the installer"

well I closed it before I thought about it, and then I thought, what if city engine is meant to somehow install into vue or something, because I haven't yet worked out how vue and CE will connect and just assumed I will export my city when I've finished and import into vue.

should I have downloaded an installer?

So far (after two days of using it) I find the best work-flow is as follows:

• generate the city terrain in Vue and export as 16bit TIFF

• use the material painter in Vue to generate the obstacle map (i.e. where the city should be and not be on the terrain). You can also generate additional maps that can be used to control the distribution of building heights or type.

• Load the heightmap and obstacle map into CE via the city wizard and generate your basic city layout

• optimize and modify as you like

• select all models (and streets if desired) and export

• This generates a .vob file

• Go back to Vue and your original terrain, load the .vob and position it to match the terrain.

Above is a test I did using this work flow. It's just a small city of high risers on a plateau terrain generated in Vue. It uses the buildings from the New York City 2259 example and the elevated road ways from the modern streets example. I modified the materials in Vue to add luminosity to the billboards.

I am still messing with the street lights.

Ciao

TD

I generated a luminosity mask for the lights and used it to generate the "glow" for the lights. However, this is not enough to light the scene (even with high radiosity gain). Hence I set up a spot light for one of the lights (large angle, very soft, 5% power) and the copied it by ALT-drag to the other lights. This works quite well in a small to medium scene. It would very tedious in a large city... I will try a large city next and most likely fake the lights by using luminosity and ambient light. More later.

Ciao

TD

This is really quite good even at this level of detail. Can't wait to see more.

on the left is my webbrowser with the tutorial o n it and on the right is city engine with a blank grey box on the left side which is meant to look like the grey box of the webbrowser.

Odd. Have not seen anything like that yet. Is it possible that you accidentally zoomed in too far and now only see the gray background? Hit the "frame all" button and see if anything appears.  Also try to switch between the different screen layouts (text, both, graph only) and see if that resets it.

The rules are still there because you can see them in the text window above thye gray space in your screen shot.

TD

I think I found the problem - I had connected the roof rule to the wrong part.

(I tried the unzooming before but it didn't help)

thanks.

Even when I try to follow the tuts exactly I run into problems.  Things aren't quite the way they look in the tutes, perhaps because of older versions or because Idon't have the pro version or both., orjust because i make mistakes.

I sure wish I could buy a stack of rules.

Love esther

Glad it works now. I think you are right, most of the tutorials seem to be for the previous version.

Have you downloaded all the example scenes and tutorial files? There is a ton of rules that can be used and modified in there.

TD

yes I did.  what I've been trying to do, but haven't succeeded yet, is to take that first city that gets generated the very first time you open CE when you run through that wizzard thing, but then add all the cars and people and plants to the roads, but to also put in some of the posters in the newyork city.

Love esther

Getting the roads and cars is easy. Select all your streets and apply the "modern streets" rules from the "rules folder in the Modern streets example. Then go through and set the correct start rules (sidewalk, street, criossing, etc.) and generate. Depending on the size of city, t might be easier to select "by start rule" and replace the rule file for each group.  I have done it a few times, it works quite well. Don't forget to set "highLOD", otherwise the cars and people, etc will not show up.

The billboards are more complicated because they are a sub rule. I'll have a look and see if I can come up with a simple setup that I can post here.

Ciao

TD

Hi, really interested in this City Engine for Vue, I have been playing for while with the Trial but find easy to work with the rules than come with the samples, but find a bit hard to start a city with my own rules is this the case for you guys?   also I notice the python scripting is not available in the Vue CE  version, how limited will be this to create my own style cities?  Can I use the sample Script for my own used? for example I love the ModernStreets rule but not sure hot to import it to my own proyect.  I also have been playing with the 3d MAX Building generator which I found a lot easier to created realistic building models but again is limited to created modern buildings without streets. 

Hi Andy!

Yes, you can use the example rules for your own cities. See my post above yours.

As far as starting: I either use the "City wizard" to get a start layout or if I want a specific arrangement, I sketch it out in Illustrator using the path tool and then import to CE  (via DXF) and generate the minor streets.

For me as a hobby user the lack of Python isn't an issue. If you want to do seriouis production work it might be a different case.

Ciao

TD

Hi thd777, I did what you said regarding the rule and apply it to a street and works really good thanks 

what about those restrictions on the assets.  It mentions drugs, porn and alcohol which the figures might not like.   But they are such low poly figures, how could they ever be recognized?

What if I make a city where bad guys and good guys fight and drink etc.

Love esther

Quote - what about those restrictions on the assets.  It mentions drugs, porn and alcohol which the figures might not like.   But they are such low poly figures, how could they ever be recognized?

What if I make a city where bad guys and good guys fight and drink etc.

Love esther

Well, I see the provided resources as examples for learning only. With the exception of the ones generated by the city wizard, they are restricted to non-comercial use anyway based on the EULA. My plan is to set up my own buildings, vehicles, etc. using low res models and textures in my library and some simple home made models.

Ciao

TD

I got the impression they could be used for commercial renders but just not for selliing the models was my interpretation of the EULA, with a few riders.

You might need to ask at their forum, but I was going by the following part of point 7 in the EULA:

"With the exception of the provided resources in the library project CE.lib and generated City Wizard projects, the commercial use of the provided resources for any other purpose than the evaluation of the Software is prohibited. "

Ciao

TD

I didn't see that bit. I found a different EULA I think in the assets folder with the people and cars.

Love esther

Quote - I didn't see that bit. I found a different EULA I think in the assets folder with the people and cars.

Love esther

I see. I think I found the other one. You are referring to the license in the assets/people_by_lowpolygon3d.com folder, right? That one is specific to the people models provided by lowpolygon3d.com. It does allow renders and animations withn restrictions. If you look at the textures, they are actually photos of real people. Hence the restrictions of use that are listed in the license (drugs, etc.).

My best guess is that this license will be in part overwritten/supplemented by the overall EULA that you get from the help menu (which is where my quote was from). Thus commercial use is likely not possible without separate permission (as stated in point 7 of the EULA). However, only the company will be able to tell you for sure. Can't hurt to ask. They might be willing to allow renders/animations.

It's not an issue for me. I don't do anything commercial and I am planning in any case to set up my own bulding/prop set.

Ciao

TD