CityEngine - 3D modeling software for urban environments

[ravells]

I've downloaded the trial version of city engine and have been having a play. The trial version does not export, but the nice folk at City Engine have given me a 10 day licence which allows exports. I took their pre-made medieval city into Bryce and retextured the the ground UVs and came up with this. This was rendered at very basic settings (no soft lighting etc), but I think it's pretty cool.

I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with it. It's a stunning program and as my birthday is coming up I might bite the bullet and buy the indie version for $400. There is a much cheaper option of getting a version which only does VUE exports for $200.

The HARD part about city engine is that because it's procedural, you have to code your building shapes and characteristics using a programming language (rather than drawing them in a 3d app) and that looks like a steep learning curve for me, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

[Katto]

Looks sweet! I'll have to correct you: the Vue version costs $300.
Please tell us more about the workflow, scripting etc. Where do you start with this program and what are the main steps until you have a finished city?

[ravells]

Apologies, the indie version is $500...(gulp).

There is so much to it that to explain it all would take ages. Much easier if you download the trial version and have a play there are some good tutorial videos that come with it.

[Crayons]

Very nice!!! I love the ground texturing/features although the height_field looks a tad facetted? I shall have to have a look at this and see if I can't better it! I'd have to say that the buildings are all a bit "single block with roof" in this example and some of the scaling looks a bit off to me (the wall crenellations look a bit large compared to house size for example?).

[Djekspek]

wow! that's stunning! whether the 500 is worth it depends -i think- big time on the available models/'code-snippets' for props and their price. Programming each 3d prop would take a lot of time i think, but If there are many props available this could turn citymap making to a new level. cheers, DJ

[danjr]

Downloaded to try it and it tells me I need openGL 2.0 Spent half an hour looking everywhere for anything and found only one download for 1.1 that was labeled 2.1.

Would have been neat to try.

[Redrobes]

You dont download OpenGL - its part of your graphics card driver. So if you have a gaming style graphics card like an nVidia or similar then go get an updated driver and it will come with OpenGL built into it.

[danjr]

Yea I guess I haven't updated my graphics card forever. Probably won't support it. Maybe I'll have to try it on the macbook.

Thanks for the info.

[danjr]

Thanks a bazillion for the update driver idea. That even helped me out with my dual monitors I just started running.

Now I can't wait to start playing with this and see what happens.
Thanks again, I wish you a great day or more, cause you sure made mine!

[jtougas]

Very Awesome. I guess you'd need to have to make a LOT of cities for this to be worth the huge coin, but it is super cool. Oh and Ravs, what are those shadows on the main road into the city? They almost look like streetlights???