3D Cities for Falcon…
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:bdance:…… :bdance:
:bdance:…:bdance:
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@Nuno Santos
Could you please share some draft info?
Like which rule did you use?
any special thing or trick you did in 3ds max afterwords.
I’m curious kinda how did you pack the textures.
I was searching how it can be done in 3dsmax like using the materials as they come from Cityengine but not repeat them like 100 times in different places cause it makes the texturing either very low in resolution as each wall will be tiny in the uvmapping resulting in view able pixels, But have them overlap in the uvmap and at the same time not get stretched in the final outcome… Polyunwrapper must have something but didn’t had time to investigate it.
WayveDave said something that this can be done but never figured out how. Only think I had was to create dds (square textures) library and tell cityengine to use this library instead of the ones it has or whatever.About windows and night model with the switch (Or not, like same day/night but glowing at night) is doable as cityengine exports them as a different material and polygon. So it’s kinda easy to select them, isolate them and apply the texture and ptype you want to glow at night, and create beautiful variations.
Way harder than just a simple texture… but way cooler…
Hey mate!
Well, actually I’ve only used the very basics, from what I could retrieve and study so far from your research.
The rule was “International rule”, since I have no idea how to use or set up other rules yet
Then I exported the objects from CityEngiane and imported them in 3DSmax.
After, it was a matter of arranging the building positions by hand, uvunwrapping them and baking the textures into a single 4096x4096 one.
The result is, as you well stated above, repetitive:
So, for a city the size of Gibraltar, I’ve broken it into 3 quadrants and baked 3 textures in total for it.
I am sure the procedure can be much optimized, but this is where I went so far…
Some testing videos:Initial testing, untextured (huge building density):
Partially textured and LOD1 only:
Fully textured and 3LODs (reduced building density):
Still, for bigger cities the triangle count can be huge, so we need some more testing and research to find that sweet spot
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Now think about damaged/destroyed models, and lower LODs. Another thought, this is as one feature? So what happens if you drop bomb anywhere?
Regards
EGHI -
Now think about damaged/destroyed models, and lower LODs. Another thought, this is as one feature? So what happens if you drop bomb anywhere?
Regards
EGHISo far, 3 LODs and 3 separate features. So, if you drop a bomb, you’ll end up blowing up one entire city block :D.
For now, this is usefull mainly for eye candy (I mean, flight immersion ) -
(Ground crew officers discussing): Oh crap, did we loaded a mark 82, a Hades or a b61 on that mau??!!
lol
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About buildings density it can be controlled by both ways.
1. Best is zoning. This is a superb cityengine feature. U set zones by colors. A simple png with basic colors covering the build area. On those zones u can set variables like density or buildings style. Like blue color flat roof high buildings. Red low height v shaped roofs and brown for high v shaped roofs.
2. By rules by just declaring open space or sidewalks to be larger or if u use the whole lot (lot = building area).About one feature xxx buildings. First u can set only smoke from falcon editor or burn and leave it or nothing like the bomb drops, explodes but buildinds are uneffectef just as the city tiles that falcon has now. Doesnt happen anything when a bomb drops on a city tile. So i really dont understand the question if they explode, and are better than just flat tiles. U can create gaps between cityengine buildings and from falcon editor place falcon features which are one building with damaged and destroyed models.
Second you can get the cityengine model and export each building as a unique feature. Create damaged & destroyed models. Very easy with rayfire plugin for 3ds max.
Then import one by one in Falcon.
Third u can create new generic city tiles or current ones and buildings from city engine. Those buildings blocks can be generic as the city tiles are. So create xxx city blocks for those xxx city tiles.What we actually need help from 3ds max gurus is the texturing. As clearly shown by Nuno Santos pictures the texture has reapetiness of same facade (walls) in different sizes. So if same wall is used in 20 buildings it takes 20times more texture area instead of just once.
Does anyone know how to solve this?
This will result in higher resution textures and the final outcome will be breathtaking.
@Nuno all those years i gatheted many rules. I’ll pass them to you along with some tutotials and guides i have found.
I’m jealus of your result, super happy that you found the way and sad i dont have the free time to work together and blow it up.
Count me in on your side and i’ll share anything i have with you and cant be done via this forum.
For now its just unbeleavable what is achieved here.
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(Ground crew officers discussing): Oh crap, did we loaded a mark 82, a Hades or a b61 on that mau??!!
lol
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/37/86/e2/3786e2806afa8c5a6fc20f41f9cb6a17.jpg
So… What you want to do:
1- VFR flight simulator? (you already have FSX, P3D)
2- Or combat simulator? -
More dificult ways to accomplish your mission when you fly falcon flight combat sim.
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Hi guys,
it’s a great project but i think about that- analyse power of nvram
- optimize vertex with directX
- chose power cpu ou power gnu
best regards
sf
Well one building at a time ??? that ain’t gonna work… why one city will take more than one year to finish… One real city block (about 15 buildings) Some math here: one small city will have >1.000 buildings… so LOL u get it… non doable.
Another thought is this…at least one block = one building or one object… and lot’s of parks with grass, roads thicker than usual to reduce number of buildings. Also not all cities with such detail…
I get u Amraam but u see this goes to a project like the never ending story… than photoreal buildings and than project dead… lol
Now about the hitbox I can’t do anything on this… what we can do is predefine some low alt buildings as military targets inside (maybe not inside but at the city boundaries and hit only those…) also TV-Radio buildings should be City targets… that way it will be ok. Also the correct should be that bombs will not be able to pass through the buildings as they will do now…
Also troops and vehicles also shouldn’t pass through buildings as they are not there… but this is also code - path manipulation. For now that is why we should import and respect falcon paths… that way we will see troops pass through a town… but we will be able to lock them? the buildings will not block the radar? also for moving targets if I release and they stop behind a building the bomb will pass through the building?the problem will be if we deploy units inside the city than they will be vehicles inside the building making tgp undoable… In the future maybe some more detailed paths inside the city and a way to have the units movement could result in a realistic solution…
Are they issues that can be fixed in the future?
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Hi guys,
it’s a great project but i think about that- analyse power of nvram
- optimize vertex with directX
- chose power cpu ou power gnu
best regards
sf
1. We dont have a pro testbed. So we try eachother and try to keep it as low poly as posible. Its boxes afterall. And if ur hw can cope with it ok. If not sorry.
2. Can u provide more info?
3. Sorry but i cant understand what u mean. Could u rephrase or be detailed please?In general about performance the issue is to be at a poly level so that it works in LE and FE. Lodeditor Falconeditor.
Also creating tailormade rules in Cityengine is the way. Hard but will leave a legacy and super minimize garbage and polygons.
Example now with some rules when i cleared not viewed polys i ended up with 1/3 or 1/5 of polygons from the initial model. Example floors, cityengine creates them and exports them. We dont want them as the falcon gfx engine drops to its knees.
Another is windows. If u export them and set LOD1 param in detail… [emoji38] even 3dsmax has issues.Edit: to add for night tiles u can create a generic tileset and use the same for all cities. Only roads will be shown lighted.
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@Nuno all those years i gatheted many rules. I’ll pass them to you along with some tutotials and guides i have found.
I’m jealus of your result, super happy that you found the way and sad i dont have the free time to work together and blow it up.
Count me in on your side and i’ll share anything i have with you and cant be done via this forum.
For now its just unbeleavable what is achieved here.
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Thank you Arty!
I really appreciate your vote of confidence and your will to take this road as further as possible, mate!
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Only practical way to do such things in Falcon will be Autogen in the future. That will be faster (as it’ll be batched/instanced by the engine, like e.g the trees are now).
Eye candy or no eye candy, people may want full damage like real objects, but I seriously think that isn’t so practical and TBH not that important actually (What will be the benefit of having city buildings to count?). Even if you will tell me that we should have some indication about civilian bombing as a kind of court martial, then even for that I believe we can find some solution without using real objects.
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Autogen was mentioned years ago.
Till now it’s done only for trees, and it looks awesome!!!
For the future since we don’t have something in hand, we do whatever we want - like - believe.
Unless u mean that buildings autogen in Falcon is near by so don’t bother and waste our time and focus on something else. This would be valuable info for us.The process Nuno Santos followed and I mention in this thread is based on autogen. You don’t build those one by one.
you set the base layers.
you get the data, most probably OSM
you select one or a few rules. You set the params on those rules and you select generate.
And Voila you have a city infront of you in a few seconds depending on your pc horse power.
Then u fine tune and u export to 3dsmax.The basic concept is this.
I’m sure Falcon autogen will be easier if it will be following the doctrine from trees. But maybe less variant or limited.
With Cityengine and large city blocks you have more control… you can end the variation where you want, you can plant real buildings that you can find for free in the internet as landmarks.
Civil bombing well yeap. Plant some high assets scattered inside the city blocks and have the guys go surgical bombing… It’s a trend nowadays and the bombing is done there…
With OSM yes the building will be where it is now in real life. Like television, comms, Army unit, etc and it will be and the surrounding as they are in real or very close. -
As much as i want to see more 3D buildings in BMS … what will happen with ground forces standing or moving thru them?
Trees are a very small object so movers in forrests aren’t the big problem. But in cities they will be.
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Sure Arty, I’m not saying that you should do something different from what you are doing (Which I very much like BTW, it’s looking good and much better than trying to create object for every strcuture :)). Also The fact that you guys found a way to pull data from OSM, that very nice.
I already had some very short checking of OSM and on how X-PLANE is pulling data from there, and while I don’t expect to get to X-PLANE level, I do expect to be somewhere in the ball park.
(But that said, I can’t even start looking at Autogen anything because I have some other related PITA that must be done first and which I struggle with for long time now :()
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As far as movers. The city builder can take in to account the paths that Falcon uses. So movers will pass through the roads and not inside the buildings.
Still once they are ordered to defend or attack they will pass through buildings. This is also done in current situation, we might not notice it but that is the case.
So spotting movers between buildings will be harder than it is now.
On the other hand respecting the falcon paths kills the realistic city layout. Small kill but a kill.
City builder can export as an image from Terrain Editor the paths and import them as reference in cityengine so not to build on them. easy does it…
If he uses zoning he can paint those path a specific color and declare that color as green area… or create roads network on top of them so no building will be created on those paths and will blend more naturally with the rest city layout… easy does it… again. -
City looks great and I hate to go off topic but what sound file are you using I like that wine in the run up.
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@Nuno Santos since CE (CityEngine) provides uvmaped polygons our solution for better texturing should be the select by material provided by 3dsmax. That way each wall will end up being only once at the texture.
But maybe we should not use facades.
Another thing that troubles me is building wall dimensions like 3-10 windows wide and 3-5 stores heihgt.
Hmmm polyuwrap plugin will be helpful as u can easily pack and align specific maping like one material. But we should attach all objects to one and then select by material on selecting faces… would that work?
Needs some more research.
So in one 8192x8192 texture could have many walls and higher detail.
With same select material we can easier select windows if we make them as separated polygons - material. That way we can have variation with windows like same wall diferent windows and lighted night windows.
Hmmm any free time anyone to share? [emoji38]sent from my mi5 using Tapatalk
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@Nuno Santos since CE (CityEngine) provides uvmaped polygons our solution for better texturing should be the select by material provided by 3dsmax. That way each wall will end up being only once at the texture.
So this means in the uvmap we would only have to render one type of wall and then every building that shares the same texture portion would point to those texture coordinates? That would allow to most efficiently increase the resolution for the textures, since much less space would be consumed, right?
But maybe we should not use facades.
How come? I’m not following you, sorry…
Another thing that troubles me is building wall dimensions like 3-10 windows wide and 3-5 stores heihgt.
Not following you again
Hmmm polyuwrap plugin will be helpful as u can easily pack and align specific maping like one material. But we should attach all objects to one and then select by material on selecting faces… would that work?
It does make sense…
I’ll try to run some more tests on the next few days and see what news we can come up with.