alekzab

can anyone share a technique on making horizon full of buildings and trees thats looks realistic enough to make an aerial flythrough one in which it shows 4 miles in the horizon.

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drawing is the physical manifestation of imagination.

Claudio Branch

"Realistic enough" is somewhat subjective, but ultimately your approach needs to be in accordance with your project budget, your technical abilities and the expectations of your client.

Down & Dirty

Grab a digital camera, go out and take a lot of pictures and tighten them up in Photoshop. Create large montage textures with alpha masks and map them onto several cylindrical planes. Use a sky dome.

Middle of the Road

Build a few low-poly buildings and use commands like Scatter, Particle Systems or Advanced Painter (search CGA threads) to populate the scene with a mix of 3d and 2d elements. Use a skydome and/or HDR.

Top Shelf

Go full 3D on the trees and buildings. Use an alpha mask on the outskirts of your terrain to blend into a hi-res HDR.



The first approach is definately the "cheapest" in terms of rendering time, but still a whole lot of Photoshop work to pull off nicely. If you have been doing large exterior scenes for awhile, the other two should suffice.

Good Luck....