A commission

[Flaming Souls]

Recently, I was commissioned to create a DoGA item for a fellow ESUSer. Wanting to show it off, but not knowing how much the individual wants revealed at this time, I can offer but one wireframe shot of it.

[Central Facehuggeria]

Asteroid base.

[Arizona Nova]

The commission is mine - I need a render of one of those flying cities. I tried but went a little insane after doing the mountain.

I feel like opening the commission, though. Whoever does the one closest to my particular vision will receive a ship chart exclusively for their vessels. You can use DoGA or whatever other tools may be at your disposal.

[Arizona Nova]

To give people an idea of what I'm looking for, it's essentially a normal city, except on an inverted mountain. If you're familiar with Netheril at all, or have played Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide, essentially take their concept of a flying city and extrapolate to FT.

[Central Facehuggeria]

The commission is mine - I need a render of one of those flying cities. I tried but went a little insane after doing the mountain.

I feel like opening the commission, though. Whoever does the one closest to my particular vision will receive a ship chart exclusively for their vessels. You can use DoGA or whatever other tools may be at your disposal.

What sort of floating city do you want? A futuristic one? A medieval style one? Do you want a fairytale castle or a domed futuristic metropolis, replete with aircars and buildings that look more like modern art than edifices? I'll admit, that the idea of competing for an exclusive ship-chart is most appealing, but I need a few details before I start on my entry.

Also, do you want it looking like it was just yanked off the ground, or would you like it to be styled more after, say Atlantis from Stargate: Atlantis? That is to say, do you want there to be a huge chunk of dirt and rock hanging off the bottom, or do you want huge engine blocks instead?

Edit: Nevermind, you answered my questions.

[Arizona Nova]

It's a hybrid of everything you said there - it should just about have elements of all that - i.e., a mountain with engine blocks embedded in it. And by mountain I mean something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dama ... winter.jpg as opposed to something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tarnica.jpg
The city should not be a monolithic structure either - it can have monolithic structure within it but the dominating feature needs to be the mountain.
As far as color and texture for the mountain goes, it's a bit of a toss up. Having a dead grey mass of rock on a naturalistic background is of course going to be weird, but having it covered with snow will make less sense, as I doubt that or much else will stick to such a structure if not bolted down.

Now you're beginning to see why I went crazy, yes?

[Metallinauts]

WIP you like or should I stop?

[Flaming Souls]

We don't have to use DoGA right?

[Metallinauts]

WIP II
WIP III

[Arizona Nova]

You may use whatever artistic resources are at your disposal. In theory this could even be successfully photoshopped.

Good work Nauts - you are getting closer to what I had in mind. To give you all an idea of the scale, the largest mountains in the world are about eight kilometers high, the one in that picture I showed you was about five kilometers high. I couldn't find many pictures on their relative circumference, but it could probably be anything from ten to twenty kilometers. The entirety of Greater London, suburbs and all, is about thirty-six kilometers. So bear this in mind while adding buildings, and remember that the reason these cities are being built is to try and save money on structural resources; i.e., trying not to build a monolithic (i.e., >kilometer) structure. The fact that it's a flying mountain is what should be the most impressive. Also, the platform for the city should preferably not over-hang.

Also, I had an idea for showing shape for the lower mountain half. So far they've seemed to be sort of flat, and the affect of that with the overhang has made it seem like it's a cardboard cutout almost. Though this may slow render times, you could try turning on shadows and receiving shadows only for the mountain texture. That will make it so that it casts shadows on only itself and hopefully give it a sense of volume.