3D World

TuTorials

Master large-scale environments

scatter

using PFlow

Had this scene been

animated you could

use Forest Pack’s

PFlow support to

animate the lanterns

in the foreground

using particles. Just

add the PFlow object

as a distribution

source to create

instances that

match the particles’

position, rotation

and scale.

02

use PlaceholDer geometry

Once you have the terrain roughed out, add

placeholder geometry for the major elements to help

work out which camera angles you plan to use. In

this scene, the landscape was modelled with a lake

in the foreground and a flat section to showcase the

architecture in the midground, which gives way to rolling

tree-lined hills in the distance.

01

moDel the ForegrounD terrain

The landscape is probably the biggest contributor to the overall balance

of the image, so it’s always a good place to start. There are many excellent

dedicated landscape modelling applications on the market, but for speed

nothing can beat poly modelling in 3ds Max. At this early stage, try to create

the landscape in a way that encourages experimentation by maintaining good

edge flow, using as few edges as possible to define the basic shapes and only

then adding a TurboSmooth or OpenSubDiv modifier to add refinements.

04

aDD the builDings

With the composition worked out, you can create

the buildings. Poly modelling is used throughout for the

building structure which is then populated with a mixture

of high-quality stock and bespoke models. For believable

renders it’s important to add subtle variation. For

example, you can use the RandomByElement modifier

with multi-sub object materials to randomise the textures.

03

sPlit uP the terrain

It’s tempting to model a landscape as one large

surface, but when your scene is measured in kilometres

that’s not always a sensible approach. If you only model

the sides of the hills facing the camera you significantly

reduce the number of trees and objects scattered later

on, speeding up render times. You can use the same

approach to add scan data that fills in the background.

05

KeeP everything Parametric

For this project we want to retain the ability to experiment, so it’s

important to make sure that anything we add is easy to update. One way to

achieve this is to make models parametric. For example, tucked away in the

trees in the final render is a power line that we’ll create using the RailClone

plugin. RailClone also instances geometry automatically, so even though the

object ended up barely visible in the final render, you’ll have a reusable high-

quality asset that’s easy to edit and suitable for close-ups in future projects.

06

create the Power lines

Draw a spline across the background of the terrain

to define the path. Create a new RailClone object, open

the graph editor and create a one-dimensional array by

adding an L1S Generator. Wire the pylon geometry to the

Generator’s Start, End and Evenly inputs. Wire the cable

geometry to the Default input and change the Default

Mode so the cables are scaled to fit between the pylons.