Since ZBrush uses an orthographic camera, some tricks need to be used to make a picture appear to have perspective. The technique I’m using here is known as “Forced Perspective”, basically meaning that objects that are farther away from the viewer are actually physically smaller rather than just appearing smaller due to distance.
The first step is to make a 2-dimensional perspective drawing.
The next steps I took was to make a the material I’m using semi-transparent, as well as turning flatten layers off. This way I can see the perspective drawing through the layer I’m currently using since I’ll need the 2-d perspective drawing as a guide.
For the next step, I selected the plane tool. I used the info menu under the transformation toolbar to make sure the plane had 0 rotations.
I then also used the info menu to expand the size of the plane tool to the full size of my image (in this case 900x900 pixels). I made it this large because, as you’ll see later I wanted as much depth to the image as I could get.
Again using the info menu I rotated the plane so the plane tool fit within the near and far lines of the right-hand side of the city.
I then moved to another layer and used the same technique for making the ground.
I moved back to the previous layer and did the same thing for the opposite side of the city, except I rotated the tool in the opposite direction.
I then used the eraser tool to erase the areas of the planes that extended beyond the front facades of the buildings.
For the next step I used the plane tool to make the sides of the buildings facing toward the viewer. This was a little easier since I just had to move the different planes away from the the viewer without rotating them. I sized each plane accordingly to fit within the lines of the base picture.
Next, I used similar techniques to place planes at the other missing facades of the buildings. I then used the eraser tool to erase what extended beyond the lines.
For the last step, that I got to so far was to paint in the street. I just used the simple brush with zadd turned off, clicked on the rgb button and used a darker color.
I then placed a couple of point lights toward the front of the image and placed a couple of point lights in the two alleyways. I used a blue point light toward the back of the image to fill in a shadow I didn’t like.
The final result so far:
