Wanting to re-create the world's most densely populated area in 3D

#1

The Kowloon Walled City was the world’s most densely populated area, reaching over 2 million people per square km, 50’000 people lived in 6.4 acres.
It existed until 1993, year in wich it was finally demolished. I want to re-create the city in 3D to use it in a short-film I’m currently working on, but I have no clue at all, not even where to start from.
I’ve been a 3D modeler for about 2 years, but I focused in creating small props and animation, and I’ve never done architectural work, and beause it’ll have to be in a movie, I’d like it to be really high-detail.
I still don’t know if we should 3D-print the whole thing and then shoot in (Like a old style movie, like they did in the first Blade Runner for the opening sequence) or just create a 3D space, or composite the 3D object in a drone-shot.

Any ideas? Does anyone know where to direct me to learn and study about this?

#2

Kitbash 3D have a FUTURE SLUMS kit that would work pretty well as a basis for Kowloon.

There is also this model which, with some high res textures and a bit of detail work would work really well for any closer shots you needed:

https://www.daz3d.com/the-walled-city

I think that the trick to doing this sort of work on a lower budget is to plan the shots you need, and then custom design a solution for each shot.

Avoid doing things that require multiple levels of detail in a single camera move.

I would imagine that the majority of this work could be done using Camera Tracking and matte painting work.

#3

This is really great. I also heard about Houdini’s capabilities for procedural city building, perhaps I could use these assets with it.
Probabilly looking forward to purchase the KitBash3D kit, even if it’ll be difficoult manage the budget of the whole CG thing of this film.

#4

They have a free kit here:

It has 2 buildings from the SLUMS kit inside. If you plan your shots around what assets you have Im sure you could make this stretch!

What sort of shots are you wanting to create? Are you sure you cant get away with using Matte paintings and camera projection?