2003MINI on 14/3/2005 at 14:37
I'm going through the Unreal tutorials right now. I'm up to making 2 rooms and connecting them. Woohoo. Got a long way to go. From what I've seen, given the subtractive space of the editor, I'm not sure how one would go about making a "city". If I have hundreds of buildings, do I place them inside one HUGE box (assuming a square city) and then subtract the space? Not sure how to give the feeling of "outsite".
Any help for this noob would be appreciated. I did a search on "city" and found lots of links, but I didnt' seem what I was looking for, unless the concept is way more complex that I'm thinking.
Thanks.
-2003Mini
scumble on 14/3/2005 at 15:51
I think the general approach is to subtract a number of smaller spaces because it is better for the purposes of zoning. I've been trying to "sculpt" buildings out myself, which seems the best way to go to partition a level - so you don't end up with gigantic zones that slow everything down.
OrbWeaver on 14/3/2005 at 19:55
What scumble said.
Create one huge room full of static meshes only if you want a single-figure frame rate (or worse).
Gingerbread Man on 14/3/2005 at 20:06
room+hallway+room is pretty much courtyard+street+courtyard or something...
The way to approach building a city would be to layout the streets and spaces between buildings with rough subtractive brushes, then do detailing etc with meshwork and the odd bit of bsp (street elevation, other rough architectural stuff, etc)... and portal where necessary.
Then, if you want to be able to go INTO various buildings, you can carve out and detail their interiors as appropriate. Making a huge empty space and then populating / building in it is vastly suboptimal. Really what you want to do is carve the streets and spaces out so that whet the player is actually wandering through is more of a facade.
SubJeff on 14/3/2005 at 20:18
So what about building a large open space that is very sparsly filled? I'm thinking of a forest, a farm or hamlet, a cottage on a hill with a few small buildings surrounding it, or a large graveyard overlooked by a small and totally ruined church (with no intact rooms to go into). That kind of thing.
Gingerbread Man on 14/3/2005 at 20:28
Then you have to bite the bullet and chuck a huge solid in a huger subtractive brush and detail from there.
Something like (
http://www.ttlg.com/gbm/content/spooks.jpg) this requires a fair amount of attention to on-screen polycount in some ways... although that's in UT2k3, so I had the luxury of antiportals.
One way to minimise the inherent problems would be to make areas that block player movement, like a side wall or something... But that's not going to block player vision. Look at the Cradle exterior: You can't get around the sides or back from the front. Same with the Castle. You could also look at how something like the Bank was built in T2, and portal off the various sections of the exterior courtyard. You'd need walls that extended to the sky, though (or portals that do, but that would look ridiculous)
I'm not sure exactly what the best approach to a stand-alone building would be in T3Ed, but I suspect that the engine isn't designed with that in mind. The game is about tight spaces and built-up areas, caves and hallways and alleys.
SubJeff on 14/3/2005 at 20:42
So it will be hard to simulate a large thieves highway then? Imagine low hanging fog that is only in the streets. Then have a deathbox that is just below the fog. I was thinking of creating the illusion of height that way but only actually building the rooftops. But the intention was to have a long views across the city with some buildings higher than others but none below the fog threshold, if you see what I mean.
This would require a large subtraction brush (in length and width at least). It's analagous to the hamlet or graveyard really.
PS - Good to see that nice symbol you did put to use GBM :)
Krypt on 14/3/2005 at 20:53
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
So it will be hard to simulate a large thieves highway then? Imagine low hanging fog that is only
in the streets. Then have a deathbox that is just below the fog. I was thinking of creating the illusion of height that way but only actually building the rooftops. But the intention was to have a long views across the city with some buildings higher than others but none below the fog threshold, if you see what I mean.
You could still create something like this, but you just need to be more clever with how you lay it out since you can't actually do the long views. Instead of walking on the roofs of every building so you can see everything at the same time, make parts of the play area on a lower level of roof bordering a higher, inaccessible section that can be used for occlusion. If you arrange the scenery in a creative way you could get the same city rooftop effect without sacrificing performance. It would be challenging, but I think it could be done.
OrbWeaver on 14/3/2005 at 20:59
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
You'd need walls that extended to the sky, though (or portals that do, but that would look ridiculous)
What exactly would it look like? Does the engine not render stuff the other side of a portal if you can see through it?
