[Award Winner] Clustered houses for a city in Photoshop

[Nomadic]

Very awesome tut, enjoy your rep.

[Ascension]

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Just hope that someone can use it to build upon for something even better.

[Asharad]

Bookmarked.

[Vandy]

Hi, Ascension.

You've created another nicely done tutorial. I am sure it is going to be quite useful to a number of people.

I have a couple of questions for you. I'm not sure if it just my eye's perception or not but your rivers seem to be floating above the ground. Perhaps because of the shadowing and, what looks like, a glow on the left banks?

Also, You are using an inner chisel which (again, to my eyes) seems to "drop" the roofs down rather than lift them up. Would a outer bevel for the rooflines be better?

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I have attached a PDF copy of Ascension's tutorial for anyone who would like a hard copy.

Regards,

Gary

Using Photoshop to Create Clustered Houses.pdf

[Redrobes]

Very good Ascension, its the best way I have seen so far - will look at this a bit more. It looks like it could be adapted to 3D and then we can texture, shade and shadow it all in one go. RepU if I am able.

[Ascension]

Vandy -- outer bevel would not work at all...run thru it and try it yourself and you'll see why...the shapes would not look like roofs at all, they'd look like berms or mounds. You're also probably used to having the light source in the upper left and therefore everything seems to be opposite of what you're used to...remember my sun for this is in the lower right. The river...well I wasn't too concerned about making terrain for this tut, the emphasis was on making buildings.

Red -- Yeah I had it in the back of my head to try and keep this as simple and generic as possible to see what can be done by you guys who really know your stuff. Taken one step further you could generate paths with the selection based on the streets. Putting down the streets and the 1-pixel eraser cuts are hand done but the rest should be able to be automated. Oh and thanks

[Hoel]

Hey, that was cool and seems easy enough. Have some rep.

[RobA]

That is really helpful, Ascension!

You seem to get a nicer bevel with PS than I can with the Gimp

Here is my attempt, starting with your black block buildings:

asc_city.jpg

I'm trying to work up something new for the roofs. What do you think?

-Rob A>

[Vandy]

Hi, Ascension.

I worked through your tutorial over lunch and I see what you mean about using a bevel. While the buildings did rise up, the roofs are still flat and not very believeable.

I can also see I need to start using Photoshop instead of Elements in order to have more control over what I'm trying to do.

I really like what you've done here and do believe it is going to be quite useful.

Regards,

Gary

[Hoel]

I would recommend trying with two layers for the buildings, one with low or one story buildings and one for higher multi story buildings. With two layers you can make buildings with multiple roofs and more complex buildings, eliminating those boring house rows...