Building Asset Creators - What do you use for accuracy when modelling real life projects?

[MekkA 0]

Hello everyone!

I'm slowly digging through getting myself more acquainted with all of the material related to modelling as creating some buildings is on my bucket list. Given that there are some fantastic creators on here that have added so much enjoyment to this game for me, I wanted to learn how to do the same. Presently, what has me curious is what sources of information or material do you guys utilize when recreating buildings in the real world?

Some of these assets look like literal copies which makes me think that some modelers find actual drafting plans or some other form of official building specs. If that is not the case, what do you guys utilize to make sure your assets are "realistic?"

 

Thanks so much!

[Wilscot 0]

Google earth & google maps. Google earth has a feature for measuring lengths, you can use that to find the dimensions of a building and use google to find out how tall it is. Or if you're using Sketchup, you can use the 3D warehouse buildings as templates. They usually have low-resolution textures and aren't detailed but they're accurately sized. Or at least most of them are.

[MekkA 0]

On 2020-02-25 at 6:52 PM, Wilscot said:

Google earth & google maps. Google earth has a feature for measuring lengths, you can use that to find the dimensions of a building and use google to find out how tall it is. Or if you're using Sketchup, you can use the 3D warehouse buildings as templates. They usually have low-resolution textures and aren't detailed but they're accurately sized. Or at least most of them are.

Thanks for that! I still haven't decided on which software route to go when I start learning how to model. Blender seems the recommendation but far longer of a learning curve whereas Sketchup appears to be the bastard child although some of my favourite asset creators use it with no issue.

 

I'll give Google Earth a try. There was also a video I stumbled upon where a person managed Importing 3D models from Google Maps

[Darf 1,439]

On 21-2-2020 at 2:09 PM, MekkA said:

Some of these assets look like literal copies which makes me think that some modelers find actual drafting plans or some other form of official building specs. If that is not the case, what do you guys utilize to make sure your assets are "realistic?"

Sometimes I do find buildingplans, especially a lot of New York buildings have available building plans online, but it's mostly going of photo's and trial and error. Usually when measurements are off, you run into to problems as other components don't fit.

As far as the whole Blender/Sketchup/3ds Max debate.

• Sketchup - easier to create something, but for beginners it can create messy models. You really have to stick to best practices. Has a lot of tools for architecture which are usefull. Is the most accurate of all. Purely a tool for modelling and poly editing, not for texturing. Sculpting is very hard or requires addons.
• Blender - hard to create something basic and to figure out interface, but has a ton of tools for all kinds of modelling and sculpting and is updated most frequently. Texturing and uv edit tools are fine, poly edit is great.
• 3ds max  - Easy to create basic stuff, hard to create more difficult objects, poly edit sucks. Uses shortcuts for everything. Has the best uv/texture tools. Export/import is the best of them all - it can export and import a lot of formats without addons.

[Ploefke 53]

Personally, For things like heights and floor sizes, I use maps and AHN, which is a dutch elevation map.

[cbudd 0]

Generally I find many things useful for recreation. The most useful one is, of course, Google Maps. If there is a 3D view for the paritcular building that you are using - great. But also Street view can help you getting an idea of the scale of a building. Plus there is a measurement tool that can be overlayed over the structures to measure their exact size, sometimes down to centimeters. Another very useful function of Google Maps is the ability to add photos to certain buildings. This is mandatory for me to get pics from every angle possible, as usually, people make photos of every sh*t that's out there.

My workflow then goes on with Google to search more images of the building, or websites about it (which very often contain the most useful pictures). Another avantage of it is that you learn much more about a building, such as changes, history, purpose or other useful stuff to make the asset represent the original building's impression.

So if you found plans, or even pictures of a building, you can import them into your 3d modeling software. I also highly recommend making screenshots of Google Maps, they are often very useful for making your own floor plan. Photos can also be stretched to be used as plans in every advanced image editing software. In Blender (which I am using) the image can simply be dragged into the program's window and then be rescaled and such (the function is called Background Images).

If you cant find any plans, dont worry. The recreation of your building will be a little harder and you probably need to correct your shapes a few times, but it is possible to estimate lenghts from taking general heights for doors or floors.