London scene around 1960-1970

[ROUBAL]

Just a first preview of my current projects. Many details are still missing. I am mainly experimenting with instances in order to keep the whole scene (both sides of the street) fitting in memory with a reasonable render time.

[gabrielefx]

fantastic!

[ROUBAL]

Thank you ! I have made several other Victorian buildings, but as I modelled them with Blender 2.49b, there are bugs when appended in a 2.63a file. So I have to spend time to repair the files before being able to use them in Octane.

I think I will enlarge the street in order to allow parked cars and more traffic.

I have to put buildings on both sides of the street as well, and add some trees in background too. I have also created a collection of 25 walking characters dressed in 1960-70 style (no women so far), and I will put some in the scene.

So, still much work on the way !

[lixai]

yes, it's very nice,
maybe try to use a more wider lens.

[ROUBAL]

As I said, it is just a first test, as the set will be much larger.

I will also take later some shots from the inside of the Routemaster bus :

http://3d-synthesis.com/52-AEC-Routemaster.html

I also plan to model Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), a part of the parliament building, and a part of Westminster Bridge, in order to create some views from actual points of view known by tourists all around the world.

I never went in England and I work from photos only...

[sdwhitton]

Hi there - it's a nice idea

As I live in London, I do have some observations:

the sash windows in the middle storeys - these would be divided into 6 panes vertically, not 5 and the sash windows would have 3 panes each if that makes sense?

the flat stone to the buildings would be made of stone joints, and also with the diesel fumes coming from the buses, wold be very dirty, particularly in the 70's..

all the drainpipes etc would be black cast iron

would be good to have some brick upper storeys too maybe? the ground storey would be in Portland Stone, as would be your completely stone buildings

might be worth googling things like 'Nash Terrace London' and or 'Georgian Terrace London', although the Nash Terrace buildings would be painted in what's known as 'Crown Paint', a kinda yellowy creamy colour...

Sorry to go on a bit, and hope the above helps!

[ROUBAL]

Thank you for the advices !

'Georgian Terrace London'

I have created some Georgian buildings, but my choice goes for Victorian style in this street scene. If I am not wrong, bricks are less often used in Victorian style. I have modelled a big collection of various Georgian entrance and doors. I plan to use them later on brick buildings, maybe in a transversal street.

On this photo of Georgian houses, middle height windows have 5 panes. I am not sure that there are strict rules about the number of panes. Making the windows with 6 panes on my buildings would require taller storeys to keep nice proportions of the panes. I will try to see if the visual result is pleasant and believable or not.

http://www.google.fr/imgres?q=terraced+ ... 0,s:0,i:68

For the pipes, according to the photos that I have seen, they are more often black on Georgian houses, and more often white on Victorian houses... but I have seen the opposite too in some cases in both styles.

As they can have been re-painted, It is difficult to get a neat idea of how they were actually in 1970.

As my buildings are inspired by the styles, but made from imagination, I have made choices according the the most frequent aspect that I have encountered in my reseaches.

I have to add the iron fences.

I am still hesitating about the style of street lights. The ancient one that I made for this previous scene :

http://3d-synthesis.com/47-BlendertonHotel.html

Or a more recent one (and also taller), but I don't know if they existed already in 1970 :

http://www.google.fr/imgres?q=london+st ... ,s:90,i:75

I also like much the models below :

http://www.google.fr/imgres?q=London+st ... ,s:0,i:152

I am still studying the best system to allow easy customizing of buildings while using less ressources as possible.

I hope that I will have more to show in a not too far future. I count on your critic when it will be done.

[sdwhitton]

interesting re the 5 pane sash windows, didn't think they'd do that!

Victorian or Georgian, there is a lot of brick here, and it's called 'London Stock' - kinda yellowy...

Only the very poshest streets would be done in stone (Portland), or 'ashlar' as it's called, dressed stone basically and expensive!

there is another material called 'faience' which the Victorians used a lot, kinda like a marbley granite, for the lower storeys

that Jane Austen photo is showing Bath Stone or sand stone at a guess.. Portland is more pale

[sdwhitton]

streets to google would be Belgravia, Cheyne Walk, Knightsbridge and Kensington I would think

O and Notting Hill Gate

[ROUBAL]

Thank you very much ! Your last post gave me Keywords (Belgravia and else) pointing to very interesting and inspiring reference images !