Hi all, this is my first post in this forums. I’ve been playing with maya for a few months now, getting familiar with the interface and all and doing some small projects. Before I got into maya, I had basically used 3d software (microstation and rhino eventually) for product and interior design until now, that is small scale modelling.

I just needed to explain that to help you understand how I feel about the project I’m about to start: A harbour terminal for marine transportation.

I have already gathered general and detailed planes, and reduced the amount of information in them to import from maya and box out in real scale. And now I have lots of questions, so would appreciate any kind of advice or tips for texturing, interesting links for low poly modelling, relatively fast illumination techniques for “landscapes”… or recommendations for books and dvd’s.

The thing that worries me the most are rendertimes, since I would like to get a realistic look. And that is hard (working with a single workstation) when you talk about a 1km square area full of containers (+1000), surrounded by water… I mean, I know that I have to compromise level of detail at the modelling stage and make good use of bump and other shader properties when texturing. The question is: where do I start?

Thanks!

asta