SA_Urban_Jungle

[ThunderHawk819]

Is there anyone out there working on a City Map?


I don't mean just Crytek, either.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/forum/index.php/topic,7121.15.html and keep browsing.

BTW: City maps are overrated.

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

I <3 them.  I would play in urban environments exclusively if it were possible. 

[Salvatoris]

The issue is a lack of existing city assets, let alone city assets from the 31st century.  

Most of the buildings available for use in the editor are designed for normal FPS play, focused on interiors.  What is needed to make a good city map happen is for someone to sit down and make a big set of building models and textures, focused on the exterior.  If I had about 20 different building shapes I could stack, scale and arrange differently for variety, with maybe 20 different textures... I think I could put together something passable.  The problem is that all those assets don't exist, so someone has to create them... and even then we only get a city map of mech 4 quality.  The amount of unique assets you would need to make a city map in quality equal to the existing maps is daunting.  I think they believe, accurately so, that they could get several maps done in the time that one would consume.

They have posted this before, but it's worth saying again.  If the community really wants city maps, we need to find the available modelers and texture artists among us and start creating city assets.  I'll build a city map myself if someone wants to make me a bunch of buildings.

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

my post on the old forums was lost since the switch- i am going to remake cityscape out of solids as a custom map when ported to wars and a proper autodownloader is working

[ThunderHawk819]

Well. . . I guess got my answer.   

[Crashagn]

Ok.. instead of a bigcity map.. a couple of ruined burnt out cities spread apart from each other with a lake in between them or something.... Palisades big map style.. Muha..Muhahaha..Muhahahahahahahahah!!!!

[wonderboy2402]

Sounds cool! Some things I want to see in a city map.

• A good variety of buildings, showing damage to structures.
• Plenty of rooftops, accessible to elementals and light medium jump mechs.
• A few fleshed out interiors for elementals to run around in.
• A few larger structures that would allow mechs to back into and hide out in for ambush.
• Long alleys with large buildings creating restrictive corridors with long Line of sight.
• Maybe some destructible props like cars or street lights?
• A greenspace, such as a park with a lake, perhaps in the near center.
• Burning and bombed out structures like skyscrapers?
• If aerospace, maybe one side has a airport on the outside and other side has a field runway outside of a dropship.
• Defenders would have a base within a large underground hangar in city center.

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

The issue is a lack of existing city assets, let alone city assets from the 31st century.  

Steal them from MW4?

[KingLeerUK]

The issue is a lack of existing city assets, let alone city assets from the 31st century.  

Steal them from MW4?

Get sued?

Besides the obvious legalities, the assets in MW4 are not sufficiently detailed for use in CryEngine2.

• A good variety of buildings, showing damage to structures.
• Plenty of rooftops, accessible to elementals and light medium jump mechs.
• A few fleshed out interiors for elementals to run around in.
• A few larger structures that would allow mechs to back into and hide out in for ambush.
• Long alleys with large buildings creating restrictive corridors with long Line of sight.
• Maybe some destructible props like cars or street lights?
• A greenspace, such as a park with a lake, perhaps in the near center.
• Burning and bombed out structures like skyscrapers?
• If aerospace, maybe one side has a airport on the outside and other side has a field runway outside of a dropship.
• Defenders would have a base within a large underground hangar in city center.

Building assets are expensive to build and optimise for multiplayer.  Making them destructible with interiors would be all the more difficult to achieve and still retain decent performance.  Building a city map is a ton of work in terms of uniquely modeled assets.  Every "prop" in the map requires hours of development time.  The time it would take to build a good city map would allow for the development of 3 or more "regular" maps.

[Raz.Creamslop]

The issue is a lack of existing city assets, let alone city assets from the 31st century.  

I'll build a city map myself if someone wants to make me a bunch of buildings.

I'd be happy to do that, I think I'm an adequate modeller and texture artist, working in 3DS. I'd love to throw a building together and see if we can get a workflow agreed on, I'll pm you about specifics later, as I'm off for a bit now.

I would like to find reference for authentic BT architecture, though. Can a local fanatic/hardcore/purist fluff expert help me out? I'm looking for pictures of buildings, city scapes and streets; info on building styles, sizes (much high rise? not much pressure to build up rather than out), age (are cities planned out as "new towns" and built all in one go when the planet is settled, or do they build up over time? Are any streets designed with mechs in mind, at all, or are we stomping all over pavements and central reservations? Anything relevant you can think of from novels you've read  or particularly any tabletop rules regarding city combat - Let's have them

Any help much appreciated, and i'll make a start later on tonight or tomorrow. Cheers

[Ghiest]

ill scan a few of the books I have that have some form of building in it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-3.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-5.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-7.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-9.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-10.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-12.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-14.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-15.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-16.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1552039/meh/Untitled-17.jpg

Not all great quality, but really I think mostly their architecture was as it is today, quite varied depending on which successor state you were in.

[Temphage]

How many of the stock Crysis buildings can you use?

A city with massive skyscrapers would be worthless, it'd just be a maze you run through. Being able to jump on top of buildings and the like is the preferred implementation I assume.

[KingLeerUK]

How many of the stock Crysis buildings can you use?

A city with massive skyscrapers would be worthless, it'd just be a maze you run through. Being able to jump on top of buildings and the like is the preferred implementation I assume.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the stock Crysis "buildings" are shacks or base emplacements.  There are not any real buildings of consequence, and certainly nothing that you would consider placing down to represent a city.  Although we still have some road to travel, the eventual goal is Total Conversion, meaning no use of stock Crysis assets whatsoever.

And before you ask, we can't just go "borrowing" from other mods without permission.   What we really need are volunteer modelers and artists who can produce assets worthy of CryEngine2's capabilities.

[Raz.Creamslop]

Well, hopefully I can take up a little of the modelling shortfall, I'm comfortable with max but have very little experience with exporting assets to a game engine/editor. No doubt google, salvatoris and these forums will smooth over anything that crops up, though.

Temphage, as I see it there are 3 heights of buildings that really matter, ones you can see and shoot over, ones you can't but can jump onto, like the concrete hangers on the marshes airfield and ones too high to jump onto. An interesting mix of those 3 seeems like it would be the key, along with varying widths and lengths of streets and some open spaces, throw in some landmarks and we're set, right?

Ghiest, thanks for the quick research! There really is a bit of everything, isn't there, even the world trade centre There's star wars to 18th century masonry to 1980s futurism, to 40k-esque gothic/military/industrial and more, so basically, anything goes. Hey, I'm back to where I started - ace.

Anyway, I'll crack on with what I have tomorrow, as it's gone 2am here. If anyone can think of a particular city, culture, planet etc. that has a distinct and consistent theme in the canon, and would perhaps be visually recognisable to other fans please let me know, anything to get a handle on would help. Cheers