Urban Environment With Ease?

#1 Have you thought about purchasing a pre-made city? Something like: http://www.3drt.com/3dm/levels/urban_set/urban_set.htm should fit your model needs... however you will need a 3d modelling package to export them to Torque. Perhaps you could contact the developer and see if they will export them for you.

Otherwise, 3ds Max is standard for game development. It's very pricey, but maybe you could find a friend or school to export the models for you. I personally use Blender and Milkshape for lightweight models (like characters and objects). For the larger, interior or building-like contructions...you could use Contructor.

#2 If you want the player to enter the buildings, I would recommend using Constructor or Quark. Both are free.

#3 Thanks for the tips.

#4 We ran into a program that started with a lot of pictures of a building, and could meld them together and then turn those into a 3D model and textures. It was intended for quick and low cost art for cityscapes (or perhaps that was just one example). I remember thinking at the time that if it worked well, it might help making "programmer art", at least ;)

I don't have a reference. I'll ask around tomorrow. No one who was involved here in the evaluation is around right now to ask.

edit:
imagemodeler.realviz.com/products/IM/index.php?language=EN
RealViz (French) is the company and the product is Image Modeler.

This is one of those annoying "call for pricing" sites. Happily, there is a demo available.
I don't think it was one of those "if you have to ask you can't afford it" licenses. A colleague recalls it as around $500. I believe we tried it out and did some autotexturing of a couple faces of our building here, but didn't do a complete 3D model.

#5 There is DeleD. You can make most objects with it, but if you are making interiors, you have to watch how you model them. It has a torque dif exporter that works quite well. If you need dts, you can export in obj or collada to another app.
It's really low cost.

#6 Look,if you want to make citys and buildings like gta,you need to buy 3d worldstudio.this software can do what you need.

#7 Their is a software called,metro modeler that builds the whole city for you.i would look into this becouse i tryed the software and it seemed ok.

#8 @Matthew Jessick

First of all, thanks for the link.
unfortunately, I've just looked at their site, and
their REALVIZ ImageModeler 4.0 software seemes
to sell for $880; Not quite a low-cost, huh :-(

Unless you meant for the other one, namely
REALVIZ VTour v1.1 ? That one is $580, which is
not all too low either, but maybe, slightly better :-)

As v1.2 HDR sells for only a small amount of $1900...



@Mike Rowley

Yes, I recall you've mentioned that brand before; do you own it ?
Can you actually construct a whole city block with it ?
Also, would you care to explain the difference between

DIF and DTS file/formats, as I'm not familiar with all of the
3D terminology -- I mean, are there going to be:

1. In-game player's limits, regarding entering DeleD-made 3D objects ?
2. DeleD-workflow limits, regarding city size ?
3. Conversion promples and/or inaccuracies ?
4. TGE performance problems, regarding DIF/DTS ?

You see, just for the sake of experimentation, I have downloaded
both DeleD's free edition along with Blender 3D, and tried to convert
some 3D object from/to either of them -- it could have been my lack
of proficiency -- but I must say that not all results looked very good,
you know ?

I mean, I'm willing to buy -- unless you say DeleD (or Blender / others)
may have difficulties with conversions, workflow, or other limits. :-(



@James Hawn

You're talking about http://www.leadwerks.com/, yes ?
I've looked at them before and even downloaded their
demoware, but I wasn't quite sure how to work with it :-(

They do mention an export option that Supports Torque (.dif),
and for $80 it looks pretty good.

Do you own it ?
Can you create a city block with ease ?

The other software you've mentioned (http://www.metromodeler.com)
looks pretty good, but for $500, it'd better deliver, you know ?
Same question again : do you own it ? Can you create a city block with ease ?


OK gentlemen,
I appreciate all inputs so far,
Have a good one,
Ronnie
:-)

#9

Quote:@Mike Rowley

Yes, I recall you've mentioned that brand before; do you own it ?
Can you actually construct a whole city block with it ?
Also, would you care to explain the difference between

DIF and DTS file/formats, as I'm not familiar with all of the
3D terminology -- I mean, are there going to be:

1. In-game player's limits, regarding entering DeleD-made 3D objects ?
2. DeleD-workflow limits, regarding city size ?
3. Conversion promples and/or inaccuracies ?
4. TGE performance problems, regarding DIF/DTS ?

You see, just for the sake of experimentation, I have downloaded
both DeleD's free edition along with Blender 3D, and tried to convert
some 3D object from/to either of them -- it could have been my lack
of proficiency -- but I must say that not all results looked very good,
you know ?

I mean, I'm willing to buy -- unless you say DeleD (or Blender / others)
may have difficulties with conversions, workflow, or other limits. :-(

Yes. I own the pro version and the torque exporter. I've made a whole lot of objects with it including buildings.
Dif format is for interiors. (buildings you can enter) It has collision applied automatically by torque.
Dts format is for avatars, vehicles, health/powerups, and other things that you don't need collision with. If you do need collision, you add another mesh named Collision-1 and torque reads that as the collision mesh.

For dts shapes, I use DeleD combined with milkshape. (as I've never been able to make anything in milkshape itself) I export from deled in obj format, and it's as simple as exporting from milkshape to dts.

They just finished a compo on the Deled forum for people using only the free lite version.
I'll show a couple of screens from the winners:
img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=91087633tt0.jpg&s=1
img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=83176463tr5.jpg&s=1
and
i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/santutatu/compoe2.jpg
i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/santutatu/compoe3.jpg

Those images should give you some idea of what DeleD can do. There's also a photo album linked from the main page of the site with some really complex models made with the pro version.
The main thing to remember about modeling packages is, use the one that you are most comfortable with.
Some people absolutely love blender. Personally, I hate it. It's just a matter of what you can use.
Try them all, and decide for yourself. Those of us who use these modelors can tell you our experience, but that's really all we can do.

#10 @James Hawn

Another one for you, regarding MetroModeler:

They say they only output to "Wavefront's OBJ",
but that software costs ... how much ?

Unless TGE has a utility to convert an output file
of that format into a game ?

#11 @Mike Rowley

Thanks for the insight :-)

#12 If a modeling program only exports in wavefront obj, you are ok. You would still have to take the model into blender or milkshape to export to dts.

#13 Mike, using the DTS format for an entire city block is a terrible idea. That's what the DIF format is for.

#14 @ Maddermadcat Yes, that is true, that's why I mentioned the dif exporter in my first post. :)
You can do it if you use the polysoup resource tho, and it works great.

#15 I can make a whole city block in about a hour with 3d world studio and export the model as map and then open the model in constructer and save the file as dif for torque.this works very well for me and looks very good.