MAXON Computer Cinema 4D Tutorials: Creating Detailed Buildings for City Scene

Project Based Tutorials - City Scene

City Scene:
Creating Detailed Buildings for City Scene
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Description: At this point, we will focus on making the city more realistic looking by creating a few more detailed buildings. These detailed buildings will stand out against the plain buildings in our animation. They will be placed closer to the camera to give the effect that, as you get closer to any building in the city, you will see greater detail. It is unnecessary to create each building in detail since the camera will not be zooming close to every building in the city. At the end of this animation, the camera will zoom in close to a door on building. Since the camera moves in extremely close to this final building, it should be more detailed than any other building in the scene. The following tutorials will focus on the creation of a much more detailed building with landscaping and the animation procedure.

Create a New scene to create detailed buildings in. After we finish creating these buildings, copy them into your built city scene. It's easier to go about creating them in this way because you can easily create or go back and make changes without having to rumage around in your larger city scene.

The next step is to plan out what you want these buildings to look like. They should be differently shaped and have unique details. Use different properties such as color, shape, and size in creating a variety of structures. Six unique buildings were created for this particular scene. Once you have a basic idea of what you'd like your buildings to look like, you can start constructing them. Below are some sample buildings we created for our city scene.

Note: Empire State Building scaled down to fit in frame

First Building - L-Builidng

Step 1: The first of these buildings has a very simple L-shape. It is made up of a cube (with separated sides for texturing) that is scaled into a larger rectangular shape for the base (Size X=960 Z=470 Y=590), and another cube placed on top and to one side (Size X=470 Z=470 Y=750). The roof is a short cuboid (X=100 Y=490 Z=486) with a pyramid object(X=472 Y=105 Z=472), placed on the top cube.

Step 2: Even with the unique shape, this building is still fairly plain. Greater detail can be added to the model by using cuboids (X=15 Y=1360, 756, 595 Z=17) to create support structures which surround the building. Smaller cuboids (X=30 Y=15 Z=45) can also be used on top of the exposed base roofing for air conditioning units, etc.

(supports displayed in yellow)

Step 3: A small touch which adds a great deal to the scene is to place titles and/or logos on buildings. To create text in Cinema, go to Objects=>Splines=>Text... . A text dialog will appear for typing in text and choosing your font type, size, etc. Type in a name for your building and click OK.

Step 4: Since splines don't show up when you render, you'll need to make your text spline into an extrude object. Select your new text object in the Object Manager, then select Objects=>Spline 'Object=>Extrude Object...' from the File Menu.

Step 5: As a result, you should get a pop up window with settings for the extrusion. Extrude Object scales a spline form along an axis for a specified distance. Choose anywhere from 5 to 20 m in the Z field. Then, go to the 'Caps' page and check the 'Close' boxes under Start and Finish to cap off your extrusion. Leaving this unchecked will cause your text to have no faces, only sides. Click OK.

Step 6: Rename your new Extrude Object to something easliy recognizable. Then, scale your new text extrusion so that if fits nicely on one of the faces of your building. You can make copies and place the name on all sides of the building if you like.

Step 7: The next step is to create materials for the building. This procedure is almost exactly the same as texturing the original buildings in the first tutorial. You'll want to connect the opposite faces of the building. It may also be helpful to connect the supports too. For materials, you can use something as simple as the materials used on the original buildings.

Second Building - Purple Glass Building

Step 1: This next building has a more modern look. Yet, it is very basic and easy to texture. It is made up of a cuboid (Size: X=320 Y=1080 Z=160) with three cylinders.

Step 2: Two of the cylinders are scaled vertically to almost match the cuboid's height (X=108 Y=950 Z=86) and then placed along the thinner sides of the cuboid. The third cylinder (X=160 Y=320 Z=180) is rotated 90 degrees so that it lays flat and then placed on the top of the cuboid.

Step 3: The material for this building has color settings R=45 G=0 : B=60 S=100 with a highlight (Width = 8% Height = 100%) and a reflectivity set at 40%. This gives the entire building a modern, glassy look. The entire building can be connected into one object since it is textured exactly the same all over. The building is very simple, yet very effective in adding some variety in contrast to the traditional looking buildings in the scene.

Third Building(s) - Old Building Complex

Step 1: This building was made to look like an old apartment complex. It was modeled using three cubes. One of the cubes serves as the center portion of the building (Size: X=140 Y=470 Z=395) and the other two serve as "bookends" for the center(Size: X=206 Y=470 Z=113). The roof is a set of pyramid objects. A larger one over most of the building(X=140 Y=87 Z=397)and four smaller ones over the building edges which protrude out from the main building body(X=30 Y=22 Z=08).

Step 2: The same genlocking techniques were applied to this building to create windows. The glass texture is a black reflective material. When you create the window framing texture to go over the glass texture, you may want to add some more detail by bringing in an image in the color settings and turning the color strength down so the image shows up on the material. A brick image was used for this building.(Cubic Map Tiled X-10 Y-8 for center cube, X-3 Y-8 for end cubes). The roof uses a bumpy, grey texture (Roughcast01.tif file in bump channel @ 20%).

Step 3: After creating this building, it was copied once and then rotated 90 degrees around the Y axis. It can then be placed somewhere close to the original building so that the pair appears to be a hotel or something else with two towers.

Fourth Building - New York Skyscraper

Step 1: The inspiration for this building is from a famous skyscraper in New York City. It consists of only two cuboids, scaled along the Y-axis. One of the cuboids (X=390 Y=1327 Z=530) intersects the other (X= 358 Y=1514 Z=358) so that the shorter one slightly protrudes from the taller one.

Step 2: Texturing this building is very simple. For the taller cuboid, a simple white colored material will do. For the shorter, thicker cuboid, use a black colored, reflective (40%) material with a highlight of Width = 9%, Height = 100%. In addition, I chose to add a genlocking channel to give the black windows some vertical lines.

Step 3: Finally a logo was added at the top of the taller white tower. You can use anything you want for this. I used the letter 'F' (X: 30 Y: 40 Z: 15 Extrusion) with a small torus around it(Ring Radius: 45 Pipe Radius: 4). A reflective gold material was applied to the logo (R=95% G=60% B=25% S=100%, Reflection = 30%, Hightlight Width = 30% Height = 100%).

Fifth Building - Cylindrical Building

Step 1: This building is made up of five cylinders. The center cylinder (Radius = 180 Height = 650) is just a bit taller and thicker than the four cylinders placed around it (Radius = 109 Height = 455). Some cuboids and very thin, tall cylinders were added on the roof of the building for greater detail like antennaes, air conditioners, etc.

Step 2: Cylinders are brought into the scene with their caps as child objects. You'll want to go into the object manager and delete the bottom cap (it'll never be seen), as well as add a rooflike texture to the top cap. A child object's texture overrides the parent object's texture, so now when you apply a material to the cylinder, the roof's texture will not change.

Step 3: A bluish, reflective(50%) material with highlight (Width = 5% Height = 100%) was used for the cylinder bodies. Select a bluish color in the color settings (R=0% G=60% B=70% S=100%) and browse for the Tile05.tif in the basics folder in your Cinema 4D directory. Turn the image strength down to about 50% so it will blend with the color you've selected. This will give your building a tiled window appearance.

Sixth Building - Empire State Building

Step 1: This famous skyscraper is not ever close to the camera for the fly-by, but it serves as a nice background object. Modeling this building required some research, but it is fairly simple to create since it is only made up of differently scaled cubes. Start with a large rectangular cube for the base (X=560 Y=285 Z=470)

Step 2: Whenever you need to create another cube, you can simply copy the previous one in this building and move and scale it as you'd like. The next step is to place a smaller cube on top of the base cube. Scale it so that is is around 1/3 the height of the base cube (X=447 Y=96 Z=372).

Step 3: Place a new cube on top of the previous cube. The new cube should be a little less than twice the height of the previous cube, or around a little over half the height of the base cube (X=378 Y=158 Z=315). These three cubes will serve as the base for the entire building.

Step 4: Now, create the main body of the building. The cube should be scaled into a tall, rectangular shape. It should be approximately three times as tall as the entire base of the building (X: 280 Y: 1414 Z: 185).

Step 5: The Empire State Building's main tower becomes thicker as it approaches its edges, as if it is "bookcased" between two other towers. One way of modeling this is to copy the main tower and scale it down to about 3/4 of the main tower's height. Then, scale the horizontal axis so that this tower will protrude from the main tower as shown (X=125 Y=1095 Z=263). Afterwards, you can make a duplicate and then place the towers at opposite ends of the main tower.

Step 6: These "bookcase" towers should have miniature versions of themselves placed above them. Simply scale down a copy of one of your original "bookcase" towers and place it on top of its original. This mini-bookcase tower (Size: X=100 Y=264 Z=211) should almost reach the top of the main tower body. Make a copy of this mini-tower and place it at the opposite end so everything matches up.

Step 7: You've now got a basic shape of the building. The next steps involve creating the spire and antennae. This part of the actual Empire State Building is very detailed and complex, but since the camera will never be very close to this building, we'll keep the modeling simple. Stack up three more short cubes on top of the main tower of the building, Sizes (X:238 Y:21 Z:157), (X:202 Y:21 Z:134), and (X:154 Y:18 Z:88) respectively.

Step 8: A cylinder (Radius = 32 Height = 270) was used for the actual spire. Four smaller pyramids (Width: 15 Height: 160) were placed around the larger cylinder for a more detail.

Step 9: Add another very thin cylinder (Radius=27 Height=7) and an egg-shaped sphere (Radius = 45 Height = 81) at the top of the larger cylinder. On top of the sphere, place 3 or 4 consecutively smaller cylinders for the antennae.

Step 10: For the materials, give everything on top of the main tower (Spire and Antennae) a greyish texture. For the rest of the building, use the windows and genlocking techniques. You'll need to apply the techniques to each cube of the building and play around with the settings so that the windows look fairly uniform. Don't forget to place the genlocking texture over a solid glasslike texture so you don't end up with a hollow object full of holes.