Minas Tirith Rebuild

[And_And92]

Hi all, I'm using sketchup to completely rebuild Minas Tirith. I'm using Vray as the render engine. C&C will be welcome. I'm still working on the right side of the first level. If you have any question, ask me

[And_And92]

if you want more images here, in english:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... ge=1&pp=15

and here in italian

http://www.treddi.com/forum/topic/81746 ... struzione/

the italian one is more updated than the english one

[mitcorb]

Hi, And_And92:
This is just amazing! Gaieus is going to enjoy this presentation.

[dale]

Very fine modeling.
I'll certainly be following your work.

[And_And92]

Thank you guys, hope you'll help me to improve my modeling skills

[numbthumb]

Quite an ambitious project! I don´t dare to imagine the size of the completed project - probably several hundred buildings plus rocks
Impressive work, will be following with great interest!

[And_And92]

Vray brokes down when I render the whole scene, so I have to use 3ds max to render... there are nearly 5 milions of polygons.... in the end there will be more than 100 hundred polys in the scene... more than 300 buildings... but 3d studio is able to support everthing, however sketchup is the quickest way to model this kind f models... for rocks I use sculptris to add detail so I'm not using only SU I use its mot powerful features

PS: thank you for compliments

[Gaieus]

This is just amazing! Gaieus is going to enjoy this presentation.

Indeed amazing! (and indeed enjoying...)

Looking forward to more images!

[liam887]

Vray brokes down when I render the whole scene, so I have to use 3ds max to render... there are nearly 5 milions of polygons.... in the end there will be more than 100 hundred polys in the scene... more than 300 buildings... but 3d studio is able to support everthing, however sketchup is the quickest way to model this kind f models... for rocks I use sculptris to add detail so I'm not using only SU I use its mot powerful features

PS: thank you for compliments

Stick with this and it will be amazing, whats your time-scale for a project of this scope?

[And_And92]

I don't have a clear plane but I think it will take me mre than 2 years to finish everything

enjoy

[pbacot]

I think your models look great and, to me, it all looks very "Gondorian" and seems to be like Peter Jackson's (Alan Lee etc.) take as well. Seems very consistent Romanesque/Gothic mix. Where is the map from? How will you get it all together with the limits of SU? Thanks for posting.

[Pilou]

See Lemog for other crazzy reconstructions

[dereeei]

awesome works ! ...but is a little annoying to follow a thread with such big images inside posts. Maybe the shown image should be displayed scaled down and for full size to open it in new window? (this is for forum admins)

Again, I remained

[Pherim]

This is amazing. And you are doing it all by yourself? Have you ever heard of the "Minas Tirith Team Project"? That was an attempt to create the entire city and make it as an interactive 3D model which can be walked in like in a first person shooter game. Unfortunately, the project is dead now for over three years, but the results nonetheless were breathtaking. They even released a preliminary version of the walkthrough-application where you could have a close look at everything that was done already. Many of the houses were still only placeholders and textures were mostly missing, but it was still quite impressive. To see more about it, follow the link: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=153431

I am really looking forward to what will become of your project.

[Daniel]

Very impressive!

[And_And92]

@Pherim: I know very well The minas tirith project and more than two years ago I annoyed its members asking for suggestions, tips and references.... they didn't help me so much, and were quite unpolite... with the exception of Nerick, who gave me tons of images and not only... .
However I'm doing everything on my own, slowly the older buildings are a year old. To be honest, I haven't work at the project for 9 months.

@Daniel: thank you

[EscapeArtist]

This is a little OT, but there are obviously some Tolkien fans here so I thought I'd share:

http://www.herr-der-ringe-film.de/v3/de ... _35712.php

It's an illuminated manuscript of the Silmarillion done by a German art student. Absolutely beautiful, and there are lots of images floating around on the web if you search for "Benjamin Harff" and "Silmarillion". I'm a fan of all things Tolkien, so this work has me drooling and wishing I could be so dedicated.

[TLD]

This work is amazing

[Fletch]

Wow! I will definitely have to keep an eye on this ambitious project. Thanks for sharing!

[ScottyBoomBotz]

This is great, did you ever finish it?

[hellnbak]

This is so impressive! I don't know which I'm more in awe of - your talent, or you ambition. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and if I wasn't terrified of heights I would love to live in Minas Tirith. I really hope you will continue to post updates as this project develops.

[And_And92]

updates:

[Roidsan]

And,

You must be familiar with the phrase "breath taking" because you keep doing it. It is hard to stop looking at your work because it just keeps astounding.

You undoubtably use repetition of components. I've enjoyed identifying some of them. Would you comment on that and also what might be some favorite techniques (in case I ever decide to do a mega model)? Is there a particular shape that saves you a lot of time or do you have one that is important to the overall design?

I noticed some flying buttresses that are a subtle accommodation to Gothic building techniques, which by the way are still in use. Most notably in the tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai or Dubai Tower, that uses Y shaped flying buttresses

Do you differentiate the purpose of a building in your mind, or in your plan when you build it?

Speaking of a plan, do you have a "design guideline", or any preplanned approach to this model?

I didn't mean to hit you with so many questions, but once I started, they just spilled out.

Any insight you are willing to share will be greatly appreciated.

Lloyd

[And_And92]

First of all the unique component I use is the colum.... For obvious matter of time... I don't want to get bored modeling lots of different column, in addition to this Romanesque stile has not a rich variety of columns types. However, each building is built from scratch... Nothing is reused. If windows look similar in different buildings , you will be' sure they are not the same. My approach to this model is guided by a raw model of the city made of boxes so that i know nearly the measures of the building i'm modeling, Nothing like sketches of similar ideas putted on paper. Monover i would emphazise that each building is completly unique.. Lots of walls are not normal to the ground ect ect.... hope you enjoied My explanetion. Hope my italian/english is enough good to be understood.

[irwanwr]

amazing
it took almost 2 minutes for me to see the clay render only.
wonder how long it would take to see full coloured render

[kingsi]

I have been wandering the forums for a while now and so glad I stumbled onto this little (Ha Ha) project. Mightily impressed

[And_And92]

Thank you guys look at this:

[zapwizard]

I just finished watching the Lord of the Rings after getting the bluray. This is a sizable project, but your quality so far is amazing.

[Roidsan]

And,

Would it be possible for you to reduce the size of photos that you post? Your last one is 142+ cm wide, which is three times wider than my screen, and I have a very wide screen, so it requires me, and I presume others, to scroll and scroll and scroll to see your great work.

The 72 dpi is fine; it’s the width that makes it hard to appreciate the whole image without doing some resizing or viewing in another program.

I’m posting your image at 40+ cm just to see if it makes sense. By sizing it down to 15+ cm, it looks great on my screen. At that size I can appreciate the overall design of your building which is going to beautiful with the textures mapped. (The plus is the difference when converting from inches to centimeters, the 72dpi is “dots per inch”, I’m not sure how you designate video/monitor dot density in Europe, 2.54cm?)

's Jan27PicPost.jpg

You mentioned a “box” model that you work from. Did you actually mean like cardboard boxes arranged like the city? I would really like to see a photo of that is possible. I build models out of card stock and foam core, and imagine if I understood you correctly, that yours is quite a collection of boxes.

I have a lot of card stock models that I plan to use the textures from, to put onto SU models. Here is an example of a very simple model I did to introduce young people to card stock models, and you can see why I would be interested in your “box model”

Village6687Comp.jpg

So far I’ve only done a 12th Century Norwegian Stave Church model (another very simple building) in SU with my textures. viewtopic.php?f=81&t=39872#p3524232

My biggest problem is setting aside time to get better in SU. You must have time or you work very fast. That’s why I thought you used a lot of components.

I will be watching for more of your great work.

Cheers

Lloyd

[Drumstick]

Just mindblowing... ... I sent you a PM.