We Built This City on Rock and Roll
by Steve Acaster · 11/19/2008 (3:56 pm) · 6 comments
My new hard drive appears to be working fine, no problems since reinstalling my entire life.....
Okay it's a town not a city.
Been down in London Where? Lon-don? Could you spell that please? L....?and paid 12 quid (18USD) for a Mojito, which appeared to be a long glass full of ice. Consumed a good Magnum PI worth of free champers at a wedding, so I guess it all evened itself out. Lon-don quite nice, but wouldn't want to live there.
But it is 1600m square.
Slowly but surely environment takes shape. Got street lights in, avenue style trees, and .... stuff. Still more .... stuff ... to do, mainly signs, benches and a few interior props before I'm happy. Had a further fiddle with the facade textures of buildings, and have finally decided on an art style.
Which is a pretty whopping play area.
Also been playing around with DRL and HDR lighting, and how the whole thing works with 200+ models (not batched or replicated) and visible range. And the answer appears to be ... fine. There really isn't much performance saving to be gained from cutting the visibility right down, or much to be lost from moving it right up.
For a first try.
So I've decided on just over a mile view at 1800 metres. Originally I was planning on half of that, but the performance change is fairly negligible. I'll see how the whole thing works when I have an extra 3-400 trees in the background (using ShapeReplicator). Anyhoo - still plenty to do.
Okay it's a town not a city.Been down in London Where? Lon-don? Could you spell that please? L....?and paid 12 quid (18USD) for a Mojito, which appeared to be a long glass full of ice. Consumed a good Magnum PI worth of free champers at a wedding, so I guess it all evened itself out. Lon-don quite nice, but wouldn't want to live there.
But it is 1600m square.Slowly but surely environment takes shape. Got street lights in, avenue style trees, and .... stuff. Still more .... stuff ... to do, mainly signs, benches and a few interior props before I'm happy. Had a further fiddle with the facade textures of buildings, and have finally decided on an art style.
Which is a pretty whopping play area.Also been playing around with DRL and HDR lighting, and how the whole thing works with 200+ models (not batched or replicated) and visible range. And the answer appears to be ... fine. There really isn't much performance saving to be gained from cutting the visibility right down, or much to be lost from moving it right up.
For a first try.So I've decided on just over a mile view at 1800 metres. Originally I was planning on half of that, but the performance change is fairly negligible. I'll see how the whole thing works when I have an extra 3-400 trees in the background (using ShapeReplicator). Anyhoo - still plenty to do.
About the author
One Bloke ... In His Bedroom ... Making Indie Games ...
#2
Not sure if it fits with what you're doing, but there are some nifty city props - benches, street signs, mailboxes, etc if I remember correctly - in the Gilman Street Project from Low Poly Cooperative. It's a Creative Commons license so I believe all it requires is attribution. There's a download link on the right at the top. [It's a US street though ;-)]
11/19/2008 (5:11 pm)
Looking cool!Not sure if it fits with what you're doing, but there are some nifty city props - benches, street signs, mailboxes, etc if I remember correctly - in the Gilman Street Project from Low Poly Cooperative. It's a Creative Commons license so I believe all it requires is attribution. There's a download link on the right at the top. [It's a US street though ;-)]
#3
I have set up a little route filled with enemies for testing, and at 200-300 meters you really have to watch for the muzzle flashes to spot an enemy in cover. Wandering about and noticing tracer going overhead and projectiles zipping by is quite cool. Kinda realistic, even though I don't intend to be realistic - it's just that every FPS always has gun battles at such close range.
I'm also planning on eventually making a linear route, combat demo version of it, just so I can get a bit of performance feedback from people with different spec PCs.
@Andy - is lowpolycoop back up? Their forums had some great tutorials on exporting to DTS with Blender.
*wanders off - comes back* Yeah they're back up, and the forums are working again. That's good news. lowpolycoop.com/forum/index.php
edit:
Oh, and if anyone was wondering, the skybox is from www.cgtextures.com. They now have pre-cubemapped skies for free - tonnes of them at great quality. I'm just using this as a placeholder for the moment and will eventually paint my own in Gimp (using their's as a template).
11/19/2008 (6:22 pm)
@Mike - about 3.5 to 4 minutes taking the most direct route. My actual plan for this opening level is to have it very open plan with lots of triggerable events (non-shooting, just little plot type cut-sequence comic strips pop up via a GUI - saves in voiceovers and animations!) and let them wander as they please and exit the level at will.I have set up a little route filled with enemies for testing, and at 200-300 meters you really have to watch for the muzzle flashes to spot an enemy in cover. Wandering about and noticing tracer going overhead and projectiles zipping by is quite cool. Kinda realistic, even though I don't intend to be realistic - it's just that every FPS always has gun battles at such close range.
I'm also planning on eventually making a linear route, combat demo version of it, just so I can get a bit of performance feedback from people with different spec PCs.
@Andy - is lowpolycoop back up? Their forums had some great tutorials on exporting to DTS with Blender.
*wanders off - comes back* Yeah they're back up, and the forums are working again. That's good news. lowpolycoop.com/forum/index.php
edit:
Oh, and if anyone was wondering, the skybox is from www.cgtextures.com. They now have pre-cubemapped skies for free - tonnes of them at great quality. I'm just using this as a placeholder for the moment and will eventually paint my own in Gimp (using their's as a template).
#4
The work is looking good man. Lodon is an expensive place, for sure. Lots of great stuff to see, and lots of cameras on you at all time. If you wanted to add a bit of London flare to your game, you can always have a bunch of teenagers trying to knife each other, for no valid reason at all, lol.
11/19/2008 (11:31 pm)
*cringes* Starship... hard to believe that garbage of a song came from the same band who gave us White Rabbit, heh.The work is looking good man. Lodon is an expensive place, for sure. Lots of great stuff to see, and lots of cameras on you at all time. If you wanted to add a bit of London flare to your game, you can always have a bunch of teenagers trying to knife each other, for no valid reason at all, lol.
#5
The triggerable pop-up GUI idea sounds like a nice way to add some life to those non-shooting moments. Good idea there.
11/20/2008 (12:04 am)
So there's plenty of room for running around then - I like this even more. I've often wanted a more realistic range in gun battles for a FPS, most of them (even the combat games) seem to have either the feel of a mugging in a back alley or a duel that eventually kills the immersion.The triggerable pop-up GUI idea sounds like a nice way to add some life to those non-shooting moments. Good idea there.
#6
Steve, your work is looking cool -- it's amazing what a difference it makes when you start adding in items that you never really notice are there in real life.
Scott
11/20/2008 (1:24 pm)
Hey, this is Scott from the Low Poly Coop. Thanks for the links guys. I'm working on getting a bunch of old stuff posted that we never put up before and I've been working on new stuff with normal maps as well. You all should be seeing more goddness by the end of the year. Steve, your work is looking cool -- it's amazing what a difference it makes when you start adding in items that you never really notice are there in real life.
Scott
Associate Michael Hall
Distracted...
Have you tested to see how long it takes to run around in something that big? Or for mission objectives how long it would take to go from point A to point B to point C?