London Part 2: London City

We moved on from the Tate and began walking round the city itself. We aimed to collect a catalogue of images of the city of basically everything: building layouts, window types, brick/stone work, textures, street lamps, bins you name it! More importantly, the group wanted to find a location where we could base our environment. 

Of course, we could make our own street layout, but the group agreed it would be better to use a pre-existing space and chop and change the look and style to suit our own environment. That way we could focus on more important aspects such as design, texturing and lighting.

Initially, suggestions had been like Trafalgar Sqaure, Oxford Street, Covent Garden and Piccadilly Circus. However, when walking round these areas, it was agreed that they were simply too large and open. There was too much empty space for what we needed. We required something on a smaller scale with plenty of buildings as we aimed to destroy most of them. The recreation of these places such as Piccadilly would be too iconic as well where as we want to give elements of London yet not brand it as London. 

However, after we had wandered round for a few hours, we happened across a much smaller scale, quieter part of London located between Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus. This street gave an interesting layout which from a birds-eye view is almost triangular, therefore meaning we could do a pan round the area and continuously see buildings. The buildings themselves didn't seem to have the most inspiring architectural style, but since lots of photos were taken during the day, we can pick and chose the look we desire, making the environment our own. I think the group are happy to base our environment in this space and its good we have some visual reference to base our environment on instead of starting from scratch.

Below are some of the photographs I managed to capture throughout the day. There are quiet a few, but there a good catalogue for the essence of London. Lets start off with some textures:

a few examples of plain backgrounds, different examples of brick work

we found this building down some random alley and the walls had this deliberate burnt look on them

streets are not just a flat plane, there full of detail as well.




this is a great example of rusting, perhaps we can use this to emphasize the decaying/damaged street?


Scratches and distressed wood work would also empahsize our theme

lets move onto some building structures:

windows dont have to be plain ay? perhaps introduce some sculpture/structures into our modelling for variation?
This was a street by Charing Cross. I feel its an excellent example of the random layout of buildings, nothing seems to match, heights and styles are different.




further examples of architectural detail in buildings, items like this will make our boxes look more believable as buildings.

is this window private or prison like? 

The Palace Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue was a must see on our list. Its a wonderfully designed building that we could incorporate elements in our own project, much more simplified though!

I like this particular image as the building is simple, yet there is a hint of elegance/class from the balcony. The colour of the building also makes it stand out from those surrounding it




but what makes it a street a street? well all those forgettable but necessary accessories:

example street lighting



columns or railings? 


bins....all these elements collate to create a street/environment thats lived in and used. These elements will therefore create further believability to our environment.





a variation from street lighting, that which is part of the building.



we need to consider if were going to have any vehicles in our environment, it would give the sense of being lived in but obviously would need time allocated for modeling




will we have any vegetation in our environment? would it survive a bomb/nuclear explosion or war?
moving to some much loved damaged goods a must for any apocalyptic city:

rubble (not barney though)







Im not sure if this building was in the process of being made or demolished but it looked perfect for our reference


Here's the location Lunchbox have chosen to base our post apocalyptic environment. It crosses over Glasshouse Street, Warwick Street and Brewers Street between Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus:
















Overall i found today extremely beneficial in terms of the trip to the Tate and wandering round London. Our group have now pin pointed a location where we'd like to base our environment and i was very happy I took lots of photographs that will be useful for reference when designing our city. I feel progress is being made and were on the way to meeting our targets set by Jared. The buildings in London have a variety of intricacy and I believe we could achieve a number of these designs if there are kept relatively simple and not creating models with thousands of polys! A very long, tiring but good day :)