City Block

[Bunglo]

I'm working on a small scene in CE3, I want to get that early-mid 1900s feel to it. Currently white boxing it out but I've always gone at a snails pace when it comes to getting proportions correct.

My goal's not 100% accuracy, so there are differences in height and what not from the reference, but the building on the left is really tripping me up, I can't seem to get it right. It has these larger, double-wide windows and I don't know if it's the angle in the reference or what, but they always seem off from everything else. I could use some tips for speeding up my work flow along with retaining accuracy from references like this.

Credits to shorpy.com for the reference.

[e-freak]

I think this looks mighty fine! The windows below the "Duplicating Office" look a bit too big in your 3D Model but apart from that I can't spot any proportion mistakes. Keep it coming

[Jenn0_Bing]

They may be double windows, that's correct, but if you look at them they are not actually double the width of the other windows in your reference as they have thinner panels of glass in them. They might be slightly wider but no more than a third I'd say. I think your other windows may be a bit too thin as well if you compare them to the reference, but that's being really nit-picky.

That being said, I think it's only looking wrong to you because you know the reference so well, the actual 3D stuff doesn't look that bad when viewed on it's own.

[-HP-]

Go for it!

Finish your blockout before starting adding details!

[Mazy]

Cool stuff, can't wait to see more~

[Warby]

looking very promising !

cryengines ssao is clearly best of breed but what the hell is wrong with that dof ? can you turn that off ?

[e-freak]

what DOF?

[dux]

I guess he means the hazy blurry ugly stuff?

[e-freak]

if i see this correct the haze is just an AO rendering error due to no materials/uvs applied yet.

[Bunglo]

Thanks for the comments every one.

Regarding the DoF, this is the default ToD for the editor, so there shouldn't be any. As e-freak said, it's most likely because of the simple material (just a white box material I found in the material editor) with no UVs on the solids. Plus I used print screen for the shots, might be impacting the appearance as well.

They may be double windows, that's correct, but if you look at them they are not actually double the width of the other windows in your reference as they have thinner panels of glass in them. They might be slightly wider but no more than a third I'd say. I think your other windows may be a bit too thin as well if you compare them to the reference, but that's being really nit-picky.

That being said, I think it's only looking wrong to you because you know the reference so well, the actual 3D stuff doesn't look that bad when viewed on it's own.

Yeah, I've noticed they're way smaller than double the width of the windows on the building next to it. I think what's throwing me off is that I'm getting this impression they're fairly large but when compared to the other windows, they're obviously not. I'm trying not to get too lost in the minutiae here as it always slows me down and it rarely makes a noticeable difference.

[Warby]

yeah i was specifically looking at the edges of the dark windows on the first shot that looked like ms configured dof to me

[Ouren]

That is one damn crisp photograph!

[twiz]

I don't think the fact that they're sticking out instead of inset helps the weird perspective. Makes them look wider since you can see the inside near corner and they block more of the building on the far edge. Inset them

[AtsEst]

you have a very good ref, if you are concerned about proportions you can do the blockout in sketchup with its photo match feature then export the collada and go on from there.

[2d-chris]

Good start indeed, when it comes to the accuracy of scale Its worth trying to downscale really big buildings to 3/4 of the orinal size, it can often feel more proportionally correct from the gamers view than 1:1, no game sticks to exact scale, aim for what feels right with the set FOV and player camera height. More importantly you should add scale reference assets that will help you get a feel, such as a car, door frame, lamp post and human character.