Roger Bootsma painstakingly hand-modeled all the major buildings in Lower Manhattan and rendered them in Cycles!
Roger Bootsma writes:
My name is Roger and I would like to share this animation of the Lower Manhattan island model that I modeled.
The buildings are accurate representations and the taller buildings above 50 meters have accurate building heights. Even the small buildings are modeled so only duplicates where used when the buildings were geometrically identical.
Everything is hand modeled, no special scripts were used. Before I started this project I wanted to model a city as a personal challenge and also to offer for sale online.
I started with modelling Vienna (where I live), but found the geometry very challenging and Blender at that time was lacking the modeling tools to tackle that city. So I then set my sight on Manhattan and so I started. along the way I learned new techniques. But for sure it took a lot of patience. since I have another part time employment I did not do this full time. so stretched out it took around 13 months to model. I estimate in full-time it could be around 7 months.
I am hoping to model also the rest of Manhattan Island but I think I will make a crowdfunding campaign for that so that I can hire other modellers since it would be to much to take on my own. A one man army can only get you so far :)
Rendered in cycles. Render time was around six weeks with average 5 cores of one I7-2600 720p 400 samples.
For my next project I am planning to model a high detail fully hand modeled (all unique buildings) fictional city. I will WIP it on blenderartist in a month or so.
well hope you all liked it. And happy blending to all.
25 Comments
Very impressive, but...
Does this guy know about Google Earth, sketchup and the 3D warehouse?
This looks a lot like reinventing the wheel to me.
Why does a person paint a tree, if trees have already been painted? Or paint a portrait if photos exist?
great answer!
I think this guy does :) google 3D warehouse does indeed have a bunch of the higher buildings, however when you import them into blender you will discover that those meshed are usually a complete mess. litterally with most of them it would take more time repairing the mesh then building them from nothing, believe me, i tried. And you from google earth you cannot take the buildings. however i understand the sentiment behind your comment.
put that on the game engine and we have GTA VI :P
Well except textures are missing. But Google seems to have good data.
It's interesting how Cycles baking could help with so static scene but with so many models. Or if internal renderer would be faster with similar results.
Hah! I forgot about Frank Gehry's building. I bet that one took a while.
Frank Gehry´s building, i knew it before as the beekman tower, yes that beast took three days, but it was worth it.
Very impressive - I can very much see why Vienna might be overkill to start with but also to do with full details.
Awesome work! Would be very useful in an epic Godzilla/Mechs/Avengers type brawl!!
You really are a patient guy! :) Impressive!
Well done sir!!
That's a huge amount of work! Out of curiosity, where did you get the building data from?
the render style in this video is indistinguishable from BI
could be, somehow i did not did it with BI, perhaps that would have been much faster, but done is done.
I know. I was just wondering how many people use cycles without using features that only cycles produces. it looks nice though! :)
Hello Marius i used the building height data from skyscraperpage.com, and mostly i used satellite imagery as reference,
That's incredible.. I'm actually working on modeling downtown Portland, Oregon..
nice, i wish you much succes and patients :)
Thanks! It's good practice..
That's just stunning. Incredible work!
That is incredible- well done!
Very nice miniature!
thanks you guys for all the nice comments. :) the next city is going to be more awesome, at least that is the plan :)