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3 Dimensional Chat / How to create a real island/city ?????

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D4N005H
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Posted: 31st Jan 2014 13:36 Edited at: 27th Dec 2017 13:45
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Hello.

We are a small group that want to make a game, the island of the game is a real one. it's a city - I wanted to make the island with 3D Max which seems tooooooo slow motion (takes tons of time) and boring, so I have searched and have found out that there are some alternatives like CityEngine and Google Sketch, Now my question is which way is the fastest way to create the island in 3D?

Please note that I have DWG and OSM files of the city. the DWG file is an AutoCAD one that is just a 2D surface whereas the OSM file is Open Street Map. That's too puzzling for me, I spend hours to figure out which is better or even to figure out what City Engine does and what OSM is.... Please help me even if you know little about them. Our project is delaying just because I don't know how to make a 3D model of the city in the best way.

If you know any ways to model the island, please help and suggest.

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Ortu
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Posted: 4th Feb 2014 06:30
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if you just want the land mass of the island, it should not be too hard to turn satellite or topographical images into a greyscale height map which can be used to generate a terrain in most game engines.

if you want all the buildings and land marks and the like, there is really no way other than to model them out.

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Van B
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Posted: 5th Feb 2014 18:02
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One option would be to take the heightmap and make a terrain from it in Max (assuming that's possible), then add buildings etc onto that. Editing a terrain by vertex would take far too long, I think you need to start with a heightmap as Ortu says then you can concentrate on the details.

What engine are you planning on using? - usually it's best to use whatever the engine offers, as it'll probably have optimisations that are vital with any terrain system. Some engines can take a massive level model and optimise that, rather than using a 2D heightmap, just depends.

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D4N005H
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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 22:02 Edited at: 27th Dec 2017 13:46
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Thanks for the answers.

Well with all height maps I found, the city looks completely flat. Do you know any website that offers height maps? I used OSM and http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org . but both show the island completely flat. look at this picture:
(Image Is Attached To This Post)

Using height-map in 3DsMax is possible.
And we use Unity3D engine which doesn't have such thing you said. (as far as we know) [img]null[/img]

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D4N005H
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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 22:35 Edited at: 27th Dec 2017 13:46
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Sorry for duble posting, I zoomed the map and this appeared:
(Image is attached to this post)

So the city is not flat! but the map quality is so bad, any ideas how to get better height-map quality? or is it enough?

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D4N005H
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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 23:46
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edit: Found a better height-map here:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage%20map%20viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm
And here's a result of it in 3DEM app:

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Van B
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Posted: 8th Feb 2014 13:01
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Looks like it would do the job - if it isn't a big enough resolution, you could just re-scale it, smooth it a little.

The good thing about using an island is that you can just surround it with water, and use a skybox or skysphere to signify any nearby landmass. I hate having to confine things to a terrain, much more fun to have beaches all around, let players swim but drown them if they get too far from the terrain.

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D4N005H
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Posted: 8th Feb 2014 21:34 Edited at: 27th Dec 2017 13:45
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@Van B: Yeah, hopefully it does the job. And yes, I agree with being surrounded with water (that was one of reasons of choosing this island), yes I do let them swim and drown them if they go far.

That's an other problem, but I'll do something for that after I made the city (streets, buildings....).

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