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inetgrafx — CyGen - Cityscape Generator II
Published: 2008-04-18 15:17:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 20598; Favourites: 127; Downloads: 715
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Description
Finally I managed to implement the procedural texturing / shading function. I had some big issues with fixing the UVs dynamically, but finally made it more or less after some mathematical odysseys ...Those are some first results straight out of the boxx.
No shaders were tweak, except a basic overall color correction on the image.
Some technical specs:
Generation time: 5 hours
Generated polygons: 5.5 Million Faces
Software: Autodesk Maya 2008 P02 x64, CyGen, Photoshop
Hardware: AMD Boxx Dual Dual Core 2.4 GHz, 12 GB RAM
Rendertime: ~15 mins
The project is a work in progress, and there's a lot more to come in near future ...
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Comments: 125
Amazing! I would absolutely love to have access to something like that, so many great ideas that I could use this for. Can I borrow? lol!
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umm wow such a plugin exists?
this could be fun to destroy a city, generate a new one, destroy that, generate another...
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Oh i was thinking this is an free maya script
btw this is really awesome..
nice work
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Oh wow, I've heard of this software but this is the first time I've seen it used in a deviant's work 
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thanks a lot for your kind comment!
What do you mean exactly? I guess you heard of a similar program. CyGen is part of my own development and is so far not for sale.
I'm curious to hear more about it from you!
Best Regards,
-Dan
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Oh, what I really meant was "Citygen" that someone told me about. I just thought the deviation title was just an abbreviation for that 
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That first render is amazing. I think there's still a tad too much uniformity when seen from a distance, although ironically it's the textures now instead of the models that are doing this for me. Regardless, this is awesome and I hope you find commercial success with it.
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I can give you an idea. What I've seen in most cities is more buildings under construction. You can perhaps apply this to it. Like having construction equipment/machinery. Would make it even more realistic. I know here this is only a test and you are simply showing what its done so far but what I mean is for future works around this. Great work so far, I cant wait till I get to that level in my animation class.
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meh, the first one is the only pic I like. the rest just looks like it's some 3d thing (so does the first one but at least you don't see the building repeating 50 times) so yeah, definitely need more building types and designs, some empty lots for parking or something, a park or two, and don't make all of the buildings dark grey. make some a lighter shade, make some whitish like marble, some brownish-red like bricks. also, some cars here and there on the road wouldn't be bad
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Simply breathtaking!
Only 15 mins rendertime!
The name 'Cygen' reminds me Cinema 4d's plugin 'Citygen' !
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hehe, I actually started on C4D and I used Citygen as well, but I didn't liked the result that much ...
Thanks for your comment!
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Yes! Only simple box type structures!
You're doing with Cygen extremely well. I think you need to work with the roads.
& by the way...why only City?!. I think you can apply other things too. I mean.....may be some organic stuffs like forest or flower field.
Oh my! You are incredibly good in programming!
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I really like what you are doing with this and I wish you best of luck doing it in the future!
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If Detroit was a bigger city, it would look just like this.
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very nice...
good level of details
r u modeling from scratch? using scripts for placement or all manually?
how many different building total? 5-6 different models?
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did u do the script?
does it work for maya?
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It's only one type so far, I'm going to work on plenty more in near future ...
It's starting from a very simple base and curves ... about 5-10 mins of work.
Thanks for your comment!
Dan
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This is taking the whole landscape-generator concept to new heights. Brilliant work.
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Oh wow that's absolutely amazing! Would be nice if you could reduce the creation time from 5 hours, but with the number of structures it builds its a reasonable time frame.
A package that generates cityscapes so easily will be invaluable to companies. I look forward to your future progress.
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I'm going to work on the timing issue, it's mainly caused in the UV fixing process, ... which takes 97% of the time!
I'm currently working on alternative solutions.
Thanks for your comment!
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you clever cookie. thats just blows my mind, daniel..This could help many a movie producer 
Marley
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for a modern city I would add more variation and that will come with development time. For instance in the last picture the roads are all pretty straight, elevation does not appear to change, some smaller buildings would help, its rare to find even the most built up cities one big sea of business conglomerate skyscrapers. I'm sure all of this is already considered. As far as geometry-generators go I've never seen results look this good for a city, most are even more repetitive.
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Thanks a lot for this motivating comment!
I'm going to work hard on to break anything that will give the viewer the impression of repetetion.
I've implemented height elevations just recently, yet there are lots of other tasks to do that have
less to do with the look and the actual city generation.
I'm currently working on finding the best possible way to modularize my code to have an optimal flexibility of
reusing code parts in modules. So at a later point I simply need to attach modules together in a way like Houdini works with
surface and channel operators. I'm glad to hear you like what you're seeing!
Best Regards from Montreal,
Dan
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SO AWESOME!
Now go give yourself a pat on the back, and stretch out for a while! I can't helpy but wonder how many sleepless hours were spent tweaking the generator! O_____O
As far as I know, *I* can't do anything like that! Maaaan... The program looks great!
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Wow, incredible. I bet you could actually sell this and make money!\
I wish I had a full version of Maya so I could use it
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it's just fantastic. Such a great details. I imagine, how long would it take to draw every skyscrape without a plug-in
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I think adding streets that don't follow the grid could help break up the monotony. That way you can get triangular buildings, too.
Also, I think tall buildings tend to cluster near each other in real cities, since everyone wants to build near downtown. Then there are the smaller clusters of medium buildings that are kinda like satellite downtowns. Not sure how you'd get CyGen to do that, but then I have no idea how you made the generator either.
Anyway, cool beans.
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That's an amazing tool and these are amazing shots and I can't wait to see what else you'll come up with.
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1st one iss sooo nice. 2nd and 3d are a bit too much to me. City= too big
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wow, its getting better and better. what you got planned for it next?
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Its nice, and economical as you described. As we all know you want to have that cake and eat it as well. I like the textures on the closer shot it is very believable. The rendering is more or less what the top of a tall city looks like. But how does it handle rendering the lower parts where there is less conformity and more life. Im not talking people detail just the more commercial and vital parts of a city. such as bill boards older buildings with more unique architecture. Dont take this the wrong way but it looks like a great model for a city with no life. All of the colors are the same cool gray, and I know that has a lot to do with lighting but its very drab and plain. All the window cells are exactly the same which is a bit odd. I know its for saving time so I understand not to mention how F*&KING hard Miya can be without even attempting any programing on it. So I tip my hat to you for being able to this with Miya so quick. All I'm suggesting is if you plan on improving it, those are some areas I would address.
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... , and then there will be cake!
The lower parts and the base of general buildings is still in development, since I consider this feature to be part of the streetscape.
The streets are going to be created dynamically as well. Allowing the artist to have procedural roads, lamp posts, mailboxes, cars, trees, etc. distributed on ground level. As mentioned several times, I've proceeded developing one building type so far. The base of this type is still missing, therefore the high shots from the city. Totally agreed that it looks life less, due to it's endless repetition with only one single type of architecture.
The Shaders share same attributes, yet different textures wont change the overall look. I'm going to work on this ...
The windows are still a bit a problem, since I only have about 10 different variations of the same type of windows.
I'd need to spend some time to generate a whole bunch of window interiors. Until now I'm still evaluating different techniques of creating the interiors as actual geometry, especially in the closer areas. Maya is not that tough once you are used to it, it's simply work that needs to be done ...
Thanks a lot for your detailed input!
I'm glad to hear comments like this from other artists!
Best Regards from Montreal,
Dan
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All and all, its amazing! I wish you the best of luck working out such a dynamic city program. Now go eat some cake. Sorry if I came across as if it was a final critic of a finished project. I know its a WIP I just have a bad habit of over critiquing left over from college.
Thanks,
Chrsitopher
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Absolutely in the contrary, I really appreciate every comment and critique I receive, honestly!
That's the reason why I'm posting progress results here.
It helps me to see things from your point of view and to prioritize my task lists.
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Its nice, and economical as you described. As we all know you want to have that cake and eat it as well. I like the textures on the closer shot it is very believable. The rendering is more or less what the top of a tall city looks like. But how does it handle rendering the lower parts where there is less conformity and more life. Im not talking people detail just the more commercial and vital parts of a city. such as bill boards older buildings with more unique architecture. Dont take this the wrong way but it looks like a great model for a city with no life. All of the colors are the same cool gray, and I know that has a lot to do with lighting but its very drab and plain. All the window cells are exactly the same which is a bit odd. I know its for saving time so I understand not to mention how F*&KING hard Miya can be without even attempting any programing on it. So I tip my hat to you for being able to this with Miya so quick. All im suggesting is if you plan in improving it thoes are some areas I would address.
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5.5 Million Faces ?! Is this project ment ofr a movie or something, cause it's WAY too much for games
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It's meant for matte painting, most likely it will end up for movie productions ...
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