Finally got the first city test :D

I ran into so many dead ends trying to do this *sob* First I wanted to use CityScape but the company died so there’s only the trial version that couldn’t import the various buildings that I needed. Then I got CityEngine and that would have worked if it didn’t crash all the time. I think I would need 24 gig ram for that program but my computer only has 10. 

I ended up using 3DS Max’s Ghost Town plugin but the plugin is buggy and often crashed as well. Eventually, I got an acceptable city but it took up so much ram that 3DS Max refused to work properly (wouldn’t let me instance materials…). After repeated head-desking, I found a way around it and rendered 3 versions. 1 for basic color, one for contour outlines, and another thinner outline because it’s not distance sensitive enough.

After that, I painted over everything in SAI for color adjustment and brush texture, then Photoshop for minor distortion (it takes away the hard edges and jarring straight lines of a 3D image).

This took a lot longer than I expected (about 6 hours but still faster than drawing by hand), but it will be way faster in the future after I figure more stuff out (and get more ram lol)

Tutorials in the future after I get back from AX and SD Comic Con!

(Source: yuumei.deviantart.com)