3
3d-noob
Short version (TLDR): decent model which requires work and/or optimization in some areas, overall rating 6 out of 10
Long version: As a user of Cinema 4D with Redshift, I chose the C4D version for the C4D default renderer (and not the Octane version) to work with, so everything I say here is in reference to that particular version of the model. Obviously I had to convert/adapt the materials for Redshift and this what I expected, so my rating is not affected by this with one exception (see below).
The good: Good and realistic looking model with pretty good amount of detail and nice textures. The file is a native C4D file that has not been collapsed, therefore changes are easy to make.
The not-so-good: basically the model consists of a square area with a park (with trees) and buildings on two sides of the square (there is a single, relatively small buidling on a third side). That means, either you need to choose your camera angles carefully or you need to fill in the gaps with additional models yourself. The description neither mentions this nor includes a bird's-eye render that shows this.
The file uses several cloners which is fine, except that the cloners for the trees (there are only two different larger tree models) are set up as instances (not render instances or multi instances) and there is no variation in rotation or scale of the trees which leads to visually obvious model repetition (if you look closely, you can see it in the first preview render). I fixed this myself after resolving some object scaling issues.
Something similar applies to textures that cover large areas (such as the grass texture) which also show visual repetition/tiling. I fixed that as well for Redshift.
When working with the project file you notice that (a) the object names are in French (I would have preferred English, but OK, fine) (b) that there are many materials with the same (non-descript) name (e.g. there are approx. 150 versions of “Mat.99”) which makes converting/working with them more difficult than necessary, (c) that (on my machine) 11 fonts used in the model were missing (I would have liked the texts using these fonts to be converted to splines and included with the project file so that the fonts do not need to be available on the machine) (d) that the file still contains Octance references, tags, materials, etc. (although it is supposed to be for the C4D default renderer) which suggests to me that the file was not properly tested on a C4D machine that does not have Octane.
Final thoughts: while the model looks good, there are a number of issues (as mentioned above), which, at least for me, prevent a higher rating than 6 out of 10 meaning “positive” but just barely. If you use the model with other programs/render engines, your mileage may vary.
Also, I'm not too happy with the licensing model used by the vendor. As a hobbyist, I chose the “individual license” which, IMO, is a reasonable price considering what you get for it. However, unless I was a company with money to burn, I would not pay 2,000 USD for this (it used to be considerable more expensive before the recent price drop), because while the developer claims to “create high-end realistic 3d assets & environments for movies, games, virtual productions & high-res metaverses“ this model, in my estimation, does not quite live up to that lofty goal just yet.
