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Geek Culture / Help me with city feature idea please!

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Fallout
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 11:54 Edited at: 24th Aug 2011 11:54
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What components make up a city?!

I'm making a random map generator in my zombie survival game. I'm going for a UFO: Enemy Unknown style tiled map system, where levels are generated randomly and are fully destructible. I'm at the stage where I've generated a road network and played with lighting, and I have placeholder zones for different city features, which will also be internally randomized. See pics ...



So zone sizes are 15x15 (red), 12x12 (pink), 9x9 (blue), 6x6 (green) and 4x4 (yellow). 15x15 will be big urban structures like, a small shopping center, factory, a carpark, a grass filled park etc. Smaller ones are shops or residential. What I need is suggestions for what makes up a city, so I can come up with a short list for all the components I want to generate. So what do you reckon would fit into those squares?

Cheers for your suggestions!

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Oolite
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 14:44
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I'm actually doing something similar at the moment in regards to a survival game I'm making, I need randomly generated cities that are actually feel like diverse well planned out systems rather than a...randomly generated cities. It's not really as developed as yours at the moment but I decided that I needed to be careful about placement. I stole the sim city zones and decided to work with them.
You have;
Industry - Dirty, Clean, Science
Residential - Slums,middle,upper class
Commercial - Single Shops, High Street Shops, Shopping Centres

There are a few rules though,
Dirty industry is preferred to be placed away from a residential zone, and if it is inside the zone then the surrounding residential area is slums.
Clean industry is preferred to be placed away from a residential zone, and if it is inside the zone then the surrounding residential area is Middle Class, it also must be placed near a water source (don't ask me why it just seemed better).
Science industry is always to be placed away from a residential zone, this was due to a game mechanic where the science facilities contain key plot driven devices.

Commercial zones are never placed inside Industry zones, only residential and the residential zone that it inhabits dictates what type it is.

Residential slums are always next to Dirty Industry or Middle Class, no exceptions and can contain single shops.
Residential Middle Class can be surrounded by slums, Clean Industry or Upper Class and can contain single shops, high Street Shops and a low chance of Shopping Centres.
Residential Upper Class can only be placed next to Middle Class and can contain any commercial class with a higher chance of shopping centres.

So the logic is there(I'm yet to see how well it works) and what I've currently got contained inside each is;

Dirty Industry:
Black smoke producing factories of various sizes,
Nuclear plants,
Scrapyards

Clean Industry:
White smoke producing factories of various sizes,
Wind Farms
Water Mills

Science Industry:
Big, no entry facilities (these are specific to me really)

Small Commercial (these are important to my players because these are the places that they will get their resources)
Corner Shops (resource: Consumables)
Off license (resource: Consumables)
Hardware stores (resource: Metal, Tools)
Small Parks (resource: wood, Scrap Metal)
Gun Store ((rare) resource: Guns)


Medium Commercial:
Rows of shops made up of the small commercial(except parks)
Car Parking centres
Medium Sized Parks

Upper class Commercial
Shopping centres
Golf Courses
Driving range
Large Parks

Slums:
Old beat down first floor shacks
High-rise flats

Middle Class:
2/ bed semi
4-5 floor blocks of flats

Upper class:
4-5 floor blocks of flats
Mansion houses
5 bed detached (make up the brunt of the Upper class)

The class system is in play in my game but it only dictates the model that I'll be using and some small variables(for instance, how many resources you receive from a shop or from looting a house). I planned to have at least 2-3 different models for each instance to keep variety up.
I wrote this from memory so there are probably more things that I can put into those zones but you see where It was heading.

Hope it helps.
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DevilLiger
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 14:57 Edited at: 24th Aug 2011 14:58
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hope this helps. Neuro Fuzzy's Grid Based Map Generator.

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=176286&b=6

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Fallout
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 17:05
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@Oolite - Thanks mate. That's really helpful. That definitely gives me some food for thought. I was probably going to stick residential zones right next to my massive steel smelting plant, but now I think about it, that doesn't make any sense at all. I also hadn't given much thought to the class divide, but that makes a lot of sense too. I was going to go down the route of Urban,Rural and Countryside maps, but now I may split those down further with consideration for class.

Nice one.

@DevilLiger - Cool. I'll take a look.

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 18:23
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Another idea, the higher class the area, the better loot you get.

Also, when you enter a store, you could have a random probability that it's empty, otherwise it spawns a random amount of zombies, an encounter with survivors, or a booby-trapped loot pile. As the infection spreads the probability of finding a clean store lessens.

And if you make it so that once a shop is looted, it's done, then the player would have to venture further and further afield, possibly making temporary loot camps and the like for safety.

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French gui
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 20:01
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...Lots of details that make a city: adverts, craps, electric lines, static cars , signals etc...
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Agent Dink
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 04:18
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Construction zones!

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
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Quik
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 07:29
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dont forget the most important thing: DIRT. SHOES FLYING AROUND (shoes here being a synonym both for shoes and the bad word for lots of worthless stuff)
etc etc: MAKE IT DIRTY.
that will probably help selling the look.

just dont overdo it, maybe even make it more intense in the middle and les and less intense as you leave the city...

well, just an idea

and for the record, I am a man.

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Fallout
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 09:32
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The only problem with a dirty feel is the requirement for varied filthy textures and/or lots of meshes for stray objects. An entire Android game for earlier versions of the OS has to run in 16MB of RAM. All code, all textures, all meshes, all sound, all music, in 16MB of RAM.

Adding filth requires variety. A clean paving slab can be tiled 100 times and look right. If the same dog poo and blood stain is tiled 100 times, it looks wrong (no kidding!) So filth is hard to create in this environment. I'll do my best though! The levels will start out nice though, before the virus takes hold!

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bitJericho
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 14:23
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trees.


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MrValentine
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 14:37 Edited at: 25th Aug 2011 14:39
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Traffic Signals? haha might be fun to actually see them change colour.. save memory by just hacing the one indicator/light and have 3 changing colours and then replicate it... doesnt need to be an accurate system... even if one light is green and the other side is green at the same time... just adds to the level of immersion I suppose... this is for Android? I AM SOOOO BUYING!!!

EDIT

Oh and if it is....... PLEASE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE DELL STREAK 5mini!!! {Yeah its waht I got lol and umm I plan to buy the 7/10 inch versions too... its a solid device really... I dislike Dell on consumer level... but the Streak for me was really their winning streak for me hahahahaha... but if someone has other suggestions for a better Android tablet... please do suggest

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Fallout
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 15:13 Edited at: 25th Aug 2011 15:13
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Traffic signals are a good idea. Hmmmm. All add them next now I've done the street lights. Not sure if I'll have them animate, but I'll see once they're in. I guess a few benches and bins too would make sense for the random single tile items.

Here's the vertex ray cast lighting I've finally cracked. It's hard to get it perfect with such a low poly environment, but I think it's good enough. Looks really moody now!



And yeah, this is for Android. I'm still getting 60FPS (which is the OpenGL on Android maximum) with this scene on my Desire Z, which is only 600mhz. So I'm hoping for good performance on all OpenGL ES 2.0 supporting phones. If you're running Android 2.2, you should be able to play it.

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MrValentine
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 15:25 Edited at: 25th Aug 2011 15:28
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Android 2.2 yeah... reason I need an alternative to the future streaks is because Dell making its lovely descisions to not bother with honeycomb... do not know if they reversed this...

Anyhow... if I can be of any help like testing this out on a Streak 5... tell me how to do it lol otherwise I look forward to it I support you buddy...

That pic looks amazing! Yeah bins... those silver metal ones!!! and benches... save on polycount and go for a 3 piece wooden bench... but make it white in colour... ask me if you need more of a visual... but heres a coarse attempt to show a side view...

______________________
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hope this helped

EDIT

LOL fail at the bench... ill fill it in this time...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX--------------------XXXXX
XXXXX--------------------XXXXX
XXXXX--------------------XXXXX
XXXXX--------------------XXXXX

ignore the ------ bits just didnt want it to miss-align lol

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Fallout
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 16:39 Edited at: 25th Aug 2011 16:40
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Thanks for the ASCII diagram mate! I'd never seen a bench before so I really needed that!

Poly count isn't actually too much of a problem. Amazingly, my little phone can render 12,000 polys at 40FPS. That's the benefit of being able to get under the covers and code it efficiently. The scene above is probably less than 2000 polys, and is also zoomed out a little more than the final game will be. The real killer is stuff like making vertex buffers and rotating objects. So I'll be able to give the bench a decent dose of polyage!

Cheers for the support too. I really will need to test this app on as many phones as possible when it gets to a playable stage, because you cannot run OpenGL apps in the Android emulator, and therefore I can only test it on my own phone.

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MrValentine
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 20:14
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I would greatly feel honoured to support you

Just let me know how to test it you will have to instruct me so just let me know when its ready for testing .

Haha yeah about the bench well... there are a billion variations lol just wanted to make sure you knew what i was going on about lol it really took some time and effort lol...

Regarding the vertex Buffers... I am still ne to the principle... what do they represent? Shaders?

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Fallout
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 20:30
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A vertex buffer is basically a chunk of memory which holds the information about your polygons. You change that stuff, then send it over to OpenGL to do it's magic. I got the traffic lights in and also have them animating. It definitely adds a bit more life to the map. I think adding more animating/moving objects is the way forward to make it seem alive. Perhaps I can make paper blow down the street or something!

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MrValentine
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Posted: 25th Aug 2011 20:36
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Quote: "Perhaps I can make paper blow down the street or something!"


Precisely

Glad to hear the traffic is being catered for ^^ speaking of which... how about some kind of random powerup that sends a car speeding down the road helping {or hampering} your kill streak...?

I see... Thanks for the brief explanation

Did you go for all three colours or just red and green?

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Fallout
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Posted: 26th Aug 2011 13:19 Edited at: 26th Aug 2011 13:19
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I just went for green and red in the end, to keep it simple. Keeping on the 'movement' trend to try and keep the environment dynamic, I thought I would have a bash at rain. I've never made rain before, but it turned out really well and runs really fast. I'm amazed at the performance you can get when you do all this stuff manually ... and this is in java too. I've used DBP for so many years and I love it, but now I'm seeing the benefits of delving under the covers. In this screenie, there are 100 rain drops and 100 splashes being rendered, and the game is still hitting the 60FPS frame rate maximum on my Desire Z.



As for the car power up, I don't know what I'm going to do with cars yet. I'm tempted to actually let the player drive one, but then I enter a whole world of hurt with physics. It might be worth it though, because I want this to be the ultimate zombie survival sim, and you so would steal people's car keys and drive their cars.


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DevilLiger
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 14:50
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it's looking good so far.

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Oolite
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 17:37
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Just a quick question Fallout, are you using any external libraries in your android development? I'm just about to get into it and wondered if there's any libraries that would help me on my way.
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Fallout
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 19:33
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@Oolite - Only the ones provided by Google, so really only LVL at the moment (the license server check library). I've not looked into it actually, but I've always preferred doing stuff myself anyway so I understand what's actually going on .... sort of.

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Oolite
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 19:46
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Alright mate, I've been slowly learning the standard way to do things but my concentration always slips away when learning a new programming language. I started off in as3 using Flixel and that got my enthusiasm up enough to warrant learning pure as3 development. I was hoping to do the same here. I really need to pump out a game in the next 4 weeks before my dissertation starts else i'll never get one done and It all depends on how much I like android development whether I use that or XNA in my final year project...

If you get a chance it might be worth checking out AndEngine. It's fully open source and i'm just about to fiddle with it. Heard good things so far.

PS: I will find that writeup I did about city dynamics if you want, its not on my harddrive so it'll be on a backup disc somewhere.
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