"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

Kenneth, this is coming along really well!

I think Bill Pragnell already mentioned adding a mechanism by which to cluster
groups of similar-sized buildings - if you use a color-coded map to do something
like that, you could detail things like high-rises, small residential houses,
shopping areas with large parking lots, etc - but you could also then add in
landscape features like trees, rivers, parks, etc.

And just to stretch the imagination - I wonder if you could use such a scheme to
vary the atmosphere.

I'm always interested in your approach to handling this - and I'me sure new
users would be interested in seeing some of the magic behind making something
like this work, and others would find it easier to solve problems / suggest
improvements if they had an idea of what your [pseudo]code is.


How large can you make this?
This almost begs one to take on the challenge of a "world-building" scene like a
video game such as minecraft, etc.
(I have no idea how so much gets generated and handled with just a tablet or
cell phone)
I could envision adding a maze-solving algorithm to guide the camera along the
streets, and doing a very long fly-through animation to just show that it can
keep going, and going, and going...

Along those lines, perhaps add in "under construction" as a building type.

User "Architype" has his wonderful historic-style architectures --- I could
envision an interesting scene where the farther along in the animation one goes,
the more modern the architecture gets   :O

Maybe think about doing an old / odd building or two to serve as theaters /
museums / concert halls, etc.

This is really coming along spectacularly :)  I'm very glad you've been able to
make so much excellent progress and work out so many things on your to-do list.

Thanks for sharing!

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On 2017-08-05 06:15 PM (-4), Kenneth wrote:
> "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Answer: Too much fog! ;-) I spent hours trying to get a combination of regular
> and groud fog that looked reasonably correct-- but it's still not right. (I may
> do away with it altogether; some New York City aerial photos I've seen are
> crystal clear, all the way to the horizon!)

Probably because they chose the photo shoot date very carefully.  I have 
never seen a clear horizon when I've visited in NYC; usually, I could 
not see more than 10 miles (15 km) or so.

>> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> You could also try to group buildings in blocks, alley-distance apart, with
>> blocks separated more widely. Maybe vary the height distribution using a
>> large-scale pigment to select the maxima - you tend to get clusters of tall
>> buildings in many cities.
>>
> I hadn't thought of that-- and you're absolutely right. For example, Manhattan
> definitely has various-size cluters, mainly because of the depth of bedrock in
> various parts of the city. Some areas just can't sustain the heavier loads, even
> with pilings. That's a detail for my own city that I completely neglected-- and
> it would add to the realism. Thanks!

IIRC, the NYC code requires its skyscrapers to have some kind of recess 
or step architecture to minimize the wind effects at ground level.  This 
limits how close the actual towers can be to each other.

Post a reply to this message

> "BayashiPascal" <Pas### [at] BayashiInJapannet> wrote:
>> That's really nice.
>> I think you should also make different photos for the 1st floor of the
>> buildings. At least to give them an entrance.
> 
> YES, I've been thinking the same; it's on my to-do list now. A ground
> floor/lobby would add a LOT to the look of the rather boring facades. I'm not
> yet sure how I'm going to go about it, though-- with (more) photos, or maybe
> with some kind of fancy procedural pigment instead, that has some randomness to
> it.

Maybe make the ground floor very slightly larger than the rest.


dimentions.

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"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
> Kenneth, this is coming along really well!

Thanks! Every new change that I make leads to another idea that I want to try.
>
> I think Bill Pragnell already mentioned adding a mechanism by which to cluster
> groups of similar-sized buildings - if you use a color-coded map to do
> something like that, you could detail things like high-rises, small
> residential houses, shopping areas with large parking lots, etc - but you
> could also then add in landscape features like trees, rivers, parks, etc.

Hmm, that could take awhile. I wonder how many years I have left to live! :-P I
do LIKE the ideas, though. Not sure about the residental houses and shopping
malls, though; older megalopolis cities (like Manhattan) have such expensive
real-estate that almost everything needs to be built vertically, with
multi-storeys, and crammed together. (I wonder if there is a *one*-storey
building to be found anywhere on that island!)
>
>
> I'm always interested in your approach to handling this - and I'me sure new
> users would be interested in seeing some of the magic behind making something
> like this work, and others would find it easier to solve problems / suggest
> improvements if they had an idea of what your [pseudo]code is.

I originally thought I could put the basic 'single building' SDL code into a
macro, to be duplicated (and easily explained!) Perhaps that's still possible,
but the scene has gotten more and more complex (along with what seems like a
limitation in how POV-Ray's image_pattern works-- a very important part of the
code that I can't seem to simplify.) So right now, it's more like an organic
living 'thing'-- that even *I* don't fully understand, ha. Later on, I *might*
be able to explain the approach I used in a simplified and abstract way; but I'm
still working it all out.

>
> How large can you make this?

Up to the limit of a computer's RAM and hard drive! ;-) I only need to change
one number-- from the current 450 (buildings) up to, say, 10,000, etc. Of
course, the *parse* time is going to increase mightily.

By the way, POV-Ray's 3.7xx 'clockless animation/real-time-raytracing'
experimental feature has come in REALLY handy, for doing quick camera-animation
flyovers of this city scene. It saves SO much extra parsing time. Highly
recommended ;-) (I hope the developers find some way to SAVE the animation
renders as actual image files; currently the fast animation just renders
on-screen.)

> This almost begs one to take on the challenge of a "world-building" scene
> like a video game such as minecraft, etc.
> (I have no idea how so much gets generated and handled with just a tablet or
> cell phone)...

Although I don't know much at all about graphics processing units (GPUs), I
think such seemingly 'infinite' worlds are generated in there, for the most
part. (I'm out of my league with this topic!)
>
> Along those lines, perhaps add in "under construction" as a building type.
>
I like it!!  Didn't think of that. Then it will give me a chance to build some
tall construction cranes too.
>
> Maybe think about doing an old / odd building or two to serve as theaters /
> museums / concert halls, etc.

Yes indeed, if time permits (well, if my patience holds out, ha); the city
definitely needs some 'variety'-- at least some building shapes that aren't just
glorified boxes.

And I'm *still* considering replacing the box shapes with heightfield slabs.

Post a reply to this message

Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:

>
> There *is* a problem with the web interface as the code that creates the
> downsampled preview always assumes an input image with 2.2 (or sRGB)
> gamma. It takes the original image data, resamples it and does tag the
> output as sRGB regardless of the original gamma information.

Aha! So I wasn't SO crazy after all ;-)  I much-appreciate your good detective
work. I need to digest all of this, to make some sense of it re: using my older
version of Photoshop. (*IF* I could find some newer standalone CS version of
PS-- for sale outright, and not 'rented' monthly from Adobe-- I would buy it,
and chuck my old version. It has served me well, but definitely needs an
update.)

> On the other hand, how the image itself appears solely depends on the
> way the browser handles it. And luckily we live in 2017, 10 years (or
> so) ago literally EVERY browser did handle it differently.
> And BTW the problem is not limited to PNG images, it would also happen
> when you use for instance a JPEG with an ICC profile stating a non 2.2
> gamma.

Interesting! (By the way, I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate, with the latest
edition of Firefox.)

>
> ...a user you can work around these issues. But as I've
> used version 5.0 quite a long time ago (20 years ?) I cannot tell
> anymore how the settings are called and where to find them.

I've included a screenshot of the only pertinent dialogs I can find in PS 5.0.
(Plus my computer's video-chip info.) And I think I discovered an erroneous
setting in the 2nd panel ("Profile To Profile"): RGB to LAB? That doesn't look
right. I'm guessing it should be SRGB to SRGB(?) This level of technical detail
is mysterious to me, honestly; I need to read up on those dialog boxes, in my
handy "Photoshop 5.0 Bible."

Thanks again for your help!

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On 08/06/2017 06:46 PM, Kenneth wrote:

> Hmm, that could take awhile. I wonder how many years I have left to live! :-P I
> do LIKE the ideas, though. Not sure about the residental houses and shopping
> malls, though; older megalopolis cities (like Manhattan) have such expensive
> real-estate that almost everything needs to be built vertically, with
> multi-storeys, and crammed together. (I wonder if there is a *one*-storey
> building to be found anywhere on that island!)

Actually, there are 2 groups of high rises on Manhattan, One at the 
South point, which is the one most photographed, and one up North. In 
between these two is "Uncanny Valley" which has mostly lower buildings

http://observer.com/2012/01/uncanny-valley-the-real-reason-there-are-no-skyscrapers-in-the-middle-of-manhattan/


-- 
ger

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> I've included a screenshot of the only pertinent dialogs I can find in PS 5.0.
> (Plus my computer's video-chip info.) And I think I discovered an erroneous
> setting in the 2nd panel ("Profile To Profile"): RGB to LAB? That doesn't look
> right. I'm guessing it should be SRGB to SRGB(?) This level of technical detail
> is mysterious to me, honestly; I need to read up on those dialog boxes, in my
> handy "Photoshop 5.0 Bible."
>
NOPE. RGB to LAB is fine as PS uses internal L*a*b for most of its 
filters and color manipulation. And possible settings are grayed out 
anyway so the the user cannot mess them up - but don't ask me why they 
appear at all.

But in the Profile Setup dialog you should set "Profile Mismatch 
Handling" also to "Ask When Opening". Now - when you open a POV-Ray PNG 
P'shop should pop up a dialog asking what to do - and you click at "shut 
up and do nothing as otherwise you mess things up anyway" or whatever 
checkbox text comes close to this.

*But* if you open any other file format lets say a JPEG from the web and 
Photoshop asks what to do you should allow Photoshop to do its color 
transformation as this usually mean P'shop has encountered a file with 
an embedded ICC profile and will correctly transform it into it's 
workspace RGB color space - whatever that might be - in your case 
obviously sRGB.

And while P'shop always had and has its flaws it did  handle ICC 
profiles already correctly in times when no other program did even know 
that such a thing even exists.

> Thanks again for your help!
>
No problem and BTW a nice city project.

-Ive

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Alain <kua### [at] videotronca> wrote:

> > "BayashiPascal" <Pas### [at] BayashiInJapannet> wrote:
> >> That's really nice.
> >> I think you should also make different photos for the 1st floor of the
> >> buildings. At least to give them an entrance.
> >
> > YES, I've been thinking the same; it's on my to-do list now. A ground
> > floor/lobby would add a LOT to the look of the rather boring facades.
>
> Maybe make the ground floor very slightly larger than the rest.


> dimentions.

The ground floor being slightly larger is a good idea, and would add some
interesting variety to each building...or at least some of them, anyway. I'm
starting to think that the ground floor needs to be a separate construct from
the rest of the building. It would be easier to make that way (in my code) and
would not depend on the rest of the building's already-figured-out code
construction.

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Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

>
> IIRC, the NYC code requires its skyscrapers to have some kind of recess
> or step architecture to minimize the wind effects at ground level.

Yes, you're right. And it's a change that I've been thinking about as well, for
my own buildings-- adding scaled-down versions of the building sizes, on top of
shorter/fatter sections below. (The Empire State Building is one such iconic
example.) That should add MUCH more realism to some of the buildings. I'm not
yet sure what to do about the partial rooftops of the fatter sections, though--
what 'junk' to place there, if anything.

By the way, I actually lived and worked in NYC for a year, in my earlier life
(as a writer for magazines.) Loved it!

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> Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> 
>>
>> IIRC, the NYC code requires its skyscrapers to have some kind of recess
>> or step architecture to minimize the wind effects at ground level.
> 
> Yes, you're right. And it's a change that I've been thinking about as well, for
> my own buildings-- adding scaled-down versions of the building sizes, on top of
> shorter/fatter sections below. (The Empire State Building is one such iconic
> example.) That should add MUCH more realism to some of the buildings. I'm not
> yet sure what to do about the partial rooftops of the fatter sections, though--
> what 'junk' to place there, if anything.
> 

Usually, there is nothing of note on those parts. It can be asphalt and 
gravel (dark grey), plain concrete (medium grey) or metal : galvanized 
iron sheet or copper (vert de gris). In the later cases, use appropriate 
metal with a dull finish.

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