WIP archi viz : Middle east towers: Wip + optimisation advices requests

[BooBi]

Hi,

I’m currently working on an architectural visualisation of two towers in the middle east.

Here is a video of the towers (not done by my company): Towers video

I will receive the models as a fbx, mid-poly (not really low, done for rendering aswell), baked with complete maps in the diffuse slot, we’ll use a few normal maps, and I’ll use a reflective shader for the towers. I’m doing all the 3DRT part of the project (programming and integration in unity).

The exterior will have 3 different type of views:

• Flythrought: an animated camera which shows nicely the development.

• Rotate cam (wow style): which allows you to rotate around the towers and zoom, then you can target differents zones of the development.

• FPS View: with different starting points to visit the different accessible places.

On top of the exterior scene, I have 4 apartments to show, I’ve done the first prototype and optimize it, that’s considered as “done”.

As you can see in the video and screenshots there are a lot of trees and plants (really a lot) the towers will be really big aswell (polygon-wise), plus we’ve got water, birds etc…

The instructions i received are : I can’t completely re optimize the 3d scene (not enough budget). It needs to look fantastic and to be runable on as many computers as possible… + a touchscreen version, webplayer version etc… (otherwise it isn’t fun)

I’ll post here my progress on that project.

I’ve done the first prototype which has the complete interface, one non textured apartment and a basic model to represent the first scene with the towers and prepare all the interactions.

I’m really concerned about performances it’s going to be really difficult to manage that part everything else will be “easy”.

Here are my questions about this project:

First problem: trees and plants

What would you do about the plants and trees ? Produce them in maya or use a terrain and plant all of that? In my prototype I’ve use a terrain which a raise zones of the terrain just below the actual ground to plant the trees and not being able to see the terrain itself.

Is there a way to not render the terrain itself and just the trees to not spend any performances on the terrain?

Second problem: Occlusion culling

I’ve tried the occlusion culling (pro), works fine for everything behind my camera but some object in the field of view are rendered even if they are hidden by other objects.
Is there a way of correcting that ?

In Fps view, I can easily display/hidde objects by using the character position (using sensors). But It is a lot more difficult to do that with the flythrough and rotate mode. I would also need to do that with the plants and trees which is a problem when i’m using a terrain.

As I imagine the occlusion culling is the best way to manage that. Any ideas ?

I’ll post more questions on monday. It’s time to go to the pub

Thanks a lot for any help, advices, feedback…

ps sorry if my english isn’t perfect it isn’t my first language

[BooBi]

Here is the webplayer version of the prototype:

Webplayer

Use the Unit Tour to visit the 1st apartment.

Obviously this is a prototype. The main scene will be completely changed from scratch. The apartment will be textured and lightmapped with a real lighting (maya)

To found out list:

• Seamless change between my flythrought camera and the interactive one.
  (cf: Forum post)
• Optimisation of the future main scene: models, terrain, trees and plants.

Any advices, feedback or help would be much appreciated!

[Pulov]

Hi there

I would add some distant fot (haze) so that the point the sky and the ground met is not so obvious

For the water I would add unity water with transparency and in the botton I would add a plane with the ortofoto of the sea, I beliebe this will improve the scene a lot.

just noticed that the camera can cross the ground ( I would add colider to ground) and the orto image of the sea is there. I could make this plane much closer to the water plane and add teh transparency and let see how it looks.

The building facade needs a nice shader.

Lighting:
I believe that the key for succes is in the lighting. At this moment, the lighting is too flat. You need to put shadows and make the stuff much more lightfull. I would recommend to bake and Vray lighting and make the scene lighting based on lightmaps.

For the final touch I would add a this image effect:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/13107-Glow-effect-with-adjustable-threshold-(enjoy)

instead of the haze, you might consider camera FOV, so distant stuff gets defocused.

---

cars, I would remove the actual cars, I would place more simbolic , untextured ones and animate them. The are too important at this moment on this scene. They need motion, I would bake their animation in 3dmax and have them in loop.
a good tool is this one:
http://75ive.com/ant-traffic-simulator/

in scripspot I believe there is a similar one for free.

---

you might get some ideas from this vid:

- YouTube

your project is looking good, but needs improvement.

lets see its evolution.

for interior, in this forum there are very good samples. There is one that is absolutely photoreal, the best I’ve seen EVER in realtime. It has backed Vray lighting. I cant find at this moment.

Regards.

[Pulov]

found it:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/89818-Loft-Architecture-visualization?highlight=architectural

crazy level.

When I’ve time I would like to make a compilation post with all this high en stuff.

[BooBi]

thanks a lot for the feedback !!

On this demo, the first level (towers) is just blocks to give an idea of how it’s going to be it’s going to be completely replaced by the actual models. We haven’t even started the modeling of that scene, I just used block with the cads to build the unity scenes and set up the scripts.

The car idea is great, it’s true that it will be better untextured. And yes it will be animated, we will add animated boats and planes aswell.

I tweaked a lot the camera settings on both scene yesterday, you can’t go trought the ground anymore, I tweak the distances too, it was too close. And in the apartment you can now focus each room with the camera. I also added my reflective shader on the ground of the apartement with realtime reflection. And chrome shader on all the chrome stuff, I’m waiting now for the backed textures (MentalRay in maya) and the other apartments…

Again thanks for the feedback much appreciated !

Good idea for the sea and the fog too. And I’ll try the fov.

Once we’ll have done the first scene, I’ll probably try to add post render effect (glow mainly).