Source image: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/37016/

City blocks in a box

Thought we’d look at the Daz3D gallery and see what people are doing for buildings and city backgrounds.

Urban environments

Urban sprawl can mean a lot of different things, from the poetic background shown in the image Cairo by nefertiabet all the way through to the wildest imagined futuristic city. The image, Cairo, was made with Vue 11 Frontier.

Point of View

Here’s an interesting view by Enchanted April. Image made with DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro; Millennium;SubDragon LE; Streets Of The Mediterranean; Victoria 6 HD Add-On and Photoshop Cc 2014.

Source image: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/36755

Foggy Street

This image is by by Joepingleton who writes, “This is another experiment with Carrara 8.5 Pro and LUXUS for Carrara. This time I was experimenting with the LUX volumetric shaders settings. It appears that Absorption determines how deep the light appears. Scatter Coefficient and Scatter Asymmetry affect the blurriness.”

The image was made using Carrara 8.5 Pro; Urban Sprawl 2 The Big City; Luxus for Carrara and the Luxus for Carrara Resource Pack. You can find Carrara 8.5 Pro here http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Carrara+8.5+Pro.

City at Dawn

This image is by cgartiste who writes, “Multiple layers of cityscape elements went into this”. Created using Urban Future 3 and Ron’s Fog.

city at dawn image

Source image: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/9197

Urban environments in a box

For help with your own urban environments you can go to DAZ3D, where you will find Urban Environment Shaders for US$12.95; or the bundles Urban Decay, Urban Sprawl and Urban Future.

There are also the Dystopia City Blocks in a Box from free to around US$20.00.

You can find them here: http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=urban+environments&x=0&y=0.

Then, there are the Stonemason Village Courtyard, Utopia Cityscape Blocks, and different urban sprawls, which you can find here http://www.daz3d.com/stonemason.

For example the Utopia Cityscape Blocks for US$23.07 “features sleek designed buildings for any modern or futuristic scene. Each of the 20 blocks included feature different building sets so you can customize the look and feel of your utopian city.”

Source image: http://www.daz3d.com/stonemason/utopia-cityscape-blocks.

You can also add details to Stonemason’s ‘Streets of the Mediterranean’ (here http://www.daz3d.com/streets-of-the-mediterranean) with Touch of the Mediterranean, which will, “Instantly add more romance, detail and flavor to Stonemason’s Streets of the Mediterranean scene. With gorgeous details such as benches, street lamps, wall lamps, potted plants, bicycles, complete lighting and a 360 degree panoramic background – your scene will literally come to life”.

Tips and Tricks

If you are new to creating backgrounds then take a look at the Tutorial ‘Scene Building’ here https://basic3dtraining.com/shop/daz-studio-4-5-great-art-now-scene-making/ or Scene making, which “is where the fun begins, where you become the director of your own virtual set and craft the base of your 3D art.” This is currently Free!

Melanie Phillibert

Dreamlight Content Management and Support

Val Cameron

Happily sharing how to create great 3D & 2D art in DAZ Studio, Lightwave and Photoshop, Val Cameron, CEO and founder of Dreamlight, has been coaching and mentoring hundreds of thousands of artists since 2005. Bestselling DAZ 3D vendor with over 230+ video tutorials, plug ins and light sets.