"Garrett's arrival in El Paso presented a vivid picture of the chaotic vibrancy of a small post-apocalyptic boomtown. As he drove through the bustling streets, the town unfolded before him in all its lawless glory. Despite its small population, it crammed in a whole lot of living. It had only recently been reclaimed by the Republic, and still had a long way before any real resettlement project could start. The first thing that struck him was the cacophony of sounds – the raucous laughter of drunks practically singing their phrases, the occasional cracks of gunshots ringing out, and the loud music spilling from the numerous bars and saloons that lined the dusty streets and whose neon signs screamed of a good time within. The sidewalks teemed with a motley assortment of people. Rough-looking men with holstered guns and wary eyes patrolled the area, their presence a loose attempt at maintaining a semblance of order amidst the chaos. A committee of vigilance at best, with some paid-for mercs here and there just to add some solid tactics into the stew-pot. Garrett smiled, feeling good about snapping a few armor panels into his leather jacket. Women in various outfits, from tattered rags that spoke of hard times to flamboyant pre-ruin dresses sauntered by, showing off their high value. Some moved with a purposeful strut, others with a carefree sway, but all bore the hard-edged look of survivors. Amidst them, he noticed a few with an air of defiance, their revealing clothing a statement of reclaimed power in this lawless world, though they were clearly “for hire”. As he maneuvered his car through the throng, Garrett observed a mugging in a dark alley – a quick, violent exchange that the bustling crowd seemed to barely notice. Further down, outside a bar whose interior lights pulsed rhythmically with the loud music, a group of men tumbled out onto the street, embroiled in a fierce brawl, fists flying and grunts of effort echoing in the night, until the flashes of cold steel were to be seen. A few seconds later, that scene went quiet. Despite the chaos, there was an underlying sense of raw, unfiltered life that he couldn’t help but acknowledge. This was a place where every moment was lived to the fullest because tomorrow there was a pretty good chance you would be dead, lending an intensity to every action, every desperate laugh, every yell. It was like a bad full-moon night in bigger towns, only here it was 24/7/365." - copyright 2024 by me, so don't copy the text or image it or mess with it. Pursuant to Renderosity's policy concerning AI: This is a Photoshop work combining several elements that were originally generated by AI (the people, each on their own layer) as well as the background (several background elements on layers). If you think you can get an AI to generate a crowd that does exactly what you want, then you're using an AI that's being used by DARPA, not anything the public can use. So I had to use Photoshop to bring the elements together. If you're going to try your hand at rendering people and pasting them into the background be sure to make good use of Layer -> Matting -> Defringe because it won't blend right otherwise. Then place 'em, then blur individually based on distance to give them some depth cueing. And all of the drop shadow work to make 'em look "in the scene"...boy, won't you have lots of fun there.... Please click the image or open it in a separate window so you can see more detail. It's a large panorama 6000 px wide. This is a background for a future written story, so enjoy. If you hate AI, then don't enjoy. Your call. But it's "street legal" according to the published regs as far as I could tell.