City Improvements Needed

[Aval Penworth]

I like it, but....there is an issue with using the same pattern of buildings as geomorphs over and over.

As can be seen in the attached image, when you join your prebuilt collection of building together, you get into a situation where one of the buildings has no entrance available to it. No one cam get inside, and thus it detracts from the map as a whole.

The obvious repitition is more of a concern to me that the building entrance thing. As I go through each section, I will now look at varying the roof styles to break that up. So thanks for pointing it out.

When I first made the layout, a long time ago, I didn't put a huge amount of thought into it. Which is why I wanted to revist it and improve it.

As for the 'no entrance' thing...is that really such an issue. The rooms inside the middle section can be accessed via internal corridors. There is no reason why that section can't be an extension of a building with street access.

Edit: After looking at older cities on Google Earth I have noticed that although there are some instances of buildings as I have them, it is actually much more common to have a courtyard or open air walkway. So I guess I will replace some of those locked in buildings with courtyards.

[Aval Penworth]

I have made a little more progress...

Is it working? I am trying to keep the colours, shadows and saturation levels consistent... but as I zoom in and out I think I might have made some buildings too dark.

I want to add trees, fields, paving and such later on, but as I have not made the buildings photorealistic, photo textures won't blend.
I tried adding some trees (top left) but I am not sure if they suit. Ideas?

[Aval Penworth]

I have changed the Background again, and I quite like it this time. I will eventually put a subtle penstroke or crosshatch on the b/g so that it better matches the buildings, but I imagine that I will add and remove some paths before the end.

Started on some hand shading and highlights of the buildings.

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

[Aval Penworth]

Some more progress. I will never finish this if I try to do it all by hand. I wrote and applied some selective photoshop actions to give the roof tops more depth. I think that they worked fairly well although I notice that some of the buildings I thought were selected, have been missed and I accidently created a bunch of 'transparent buttons' in odd places, but I think I managed to get rid of them.

Anyway, here is the latest installment.

[Katto]

The trees have a higher level of detail, but I think that is no problem. Try to change the color of them a bit.
Looks like a lot of work. Are those artifacts around the arena and city walls because of the high compression to post it here or do you have to fight with that also?
Well done so far Aval!

[Aval Penworth]

@ Katto The artifacts you notice are not in my original file (the PS file is 380meg). I imagine that I will replace the entire backgroud befor this is done so I won't worry about it just yet.

@ Ravs Thanks. I will give your samples a go for my next WIP and see how they fly.

[ravells]

The trees look a little small compared to the size of the buildings and to my eye are a little too cartoony compared to the buildings. I've attached some sample trees I made in Bryce which are not quite photo-realistic and might work with your map. You can download Bryce 5.5 for free and make your own trees. Drop me a line if you need me to walk you through it.

[Steel General]

I think the roof coloring looks good, nice mix of colors without going overboard.

You might try lowering the opacity of the drop-shadows on the buildings. The really stark shadows tend to give them a case of the "floaties" (at least to my eye).

[Aval Penworth]

I've done a little more. Surprisingly little for 4 hours work, but I was having fun. It's 2am, and I am adhering to the adage "If it is no longer fun, walk away."

It's amazing how quickly it can go from fun and exciting to annoying and tedious. Y'all know what I'm talk'n 'bout.

So I put in a few of Ravs trees. But they didn't seem quite right. I added a stroke, bevel, drop-shadow and inner glow. So let me know what you think of my FUBAR trees. (Filtered Up Beyond All Recognition).

I replaced some of the background too. Here it is.

[jtougas]

I think the grass is just about right although I liked the paving color of the previous post (the dirt) the trees fit well with your style. Also I love the coliseum it looks just perfect !!. I know how how you feel about "walk away when it's not fun" hence why there hasn't been a Riverhewn update for a while. the monster is wearing me out..