Creating
a CGI city can be a nightmare, even modeling just a few blocks
of buildings. This is especially true if you're under a deadline.
Many artists spend literally months modeling and texturing city
scenes.
The 181 City Building models are highly detailed and suitable
for close-ups. The models are especially effective for animated
flythroughs, with no limitations on the virtual camera's position.
Windows and entryways are created by meticulous Boolean subtraction,
with some models containing hundreds of windows.
The City Building models are presented in multiple file formats:
3DS, LWO6, and OBJ formats. According to research,
these three formats cover 90% of the 3D graphics software market.
If your program does not support these formats, included on the
CD-Rom is a trial version of Deep Exploration, by Right
Hemisphere. For the first 30 days after you install Deep Exploration,
you can take advantage of the conversion capabilities of the program
to transform these models to virtually any 3D model format. You
can also use the program to view and rotate the models in real
time, plus many other extremely useful model manipulation capabilities.
These
models are priced so everyone can afford them (in this case
about $1.00 per model), and are fully licensable and royalty
free. Some companies offer 3D models on the Internet as individual
downloads, ranging in price from $10 to hundreds of dollars
per model. The drawbacks to this type of distribution are higher
pricing, questionable licensing authenticity, and hours wasted
searching the web for just the right model. Marlin Studios models
are presented in one easily downloaded, searchable media (CD-Rom),
priced to be affordable by anyone . And you know the models
and textures are legitimate if you obtain them from Marlin Studios.
A companion library,
"Seamless Textures 5 - Downtown
Surfaces & Signs," provides all the building-front
textures and other details for a downtown scene. Using the two
collections together can save you hundreds of hours of work
and produce an incredibly realistic CGI city.
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