For the last year, I've really wanted to start making a city in 3ds max. Something along the lines of the city in APB. Nothing too large, taking different city districts and squishing them together so you can have a small map that feels larger than it is. Here's the catch, my imagination sucks. I can 3d model really well, texture really well, but I can't envision something that I can't see. I can fill in the gaps here and there but overall I just can't do it. Believe me, I've tried. After about two weeks of looking over city images, city concepts etc, the best I could come up with was this: http://i.imgur.com/i41UjaX.png At this point I pretty much gave up. I don't want to model a real landscape, as usually everything is too far spread out to make my idea work well. I also don't want to copy anyone elses work without their permission. I even spliced up city areas and smashed them together via Google Maps. I was not impressed with that idea because it just looks strange. I had started the city, this was just a few hours of work: Basic-Road-and-Aqueduct-Textures-and-Models Though as I said before, I quit due to lack of imagination. So I'm curious, is there anyone out there that can draw a city concept decently well? That's all I really need to push forward and go nuts making a city. I found two examples online of something that would be detailed enough to work off of: http://th05.deviantart.net/fs47/PRE/i/2009/246/5/1/Blue_City_by_Adimono.jpg http://fighterfungus.deviantart.com/art/City-Drawing-3-335814799 I started a new job lately, so I can't promise much if you do provide me with work, but I will definitely work with you to figure things out. Perhaps people could even design partial city areas and we could connect them together in the end, who knows. That could be a way to start simple. Thanks for reading!
In my opinion, something like that ingame is just simply not possible, yet. I think it will lag a lot judging by all the buildings. I am no expert at this, but, judging by all the island maps right now, I think you'll have to wait a bit. Maybe in the future.
LOD meshes are easy to make. Bit time consuming, but easy. Also, going for an APB-styled city would mean relying on decent textures more-so than lots of polygons. It's entirely possible to construct a city block that has less polygons than a mountain in Drive.
Y'all's best bet would probably be looking at actual cities and basing your creations off of them. Google maps has an excellent 45 degree view now, which helped me immeasurably the last time I worked on a city project.
My attempts at creating a city have run far smoother on my machine than foliage-heavy maps, and this is with a few tens of thousands of triangles (and no LODs), so I don't think polygons are a problem, though I have yet to finish it. However, a very important thing to remember is that modern games don't rely so much on textures as they do on shaders. APB was, if I recall correctly, created with Unreal. I have a copy of the UDK and I can say beyond a doubt that its material editor is infinitely more versatile and modular than Torque's. Vertex painting, multiple detail maps, world position UV offset, gradient masks, etc. Of all the things I miss switching from Unreal to Torque, that's the biggest one. Good textures are still crucial, just don't expect to get as much mileage out of them as major developers do.
The biggest performance drain will always be foliage shadows. Unfortunately there's no good way to quickly lay down roads and curbs for a city in T3D, so everything will have to be modeled and UVed manually.
Mesh roads would need to have an absolutely massive overhaul before they could look anywhere near decent, the collision issue is only a small part in comparison.
Hey I know! I'm working on a city right now, so maybe you can help me make the city! btw, I use the free version of sketchup 2014 to make my buildings and objects. I am new to map making, since the city I'm working on is my first map, and with your help my city could be created much quicker. I am not making a big city, it's just like 2-5 square kilometers big. I am a quick learner, and I almost completely learned the editor and sketchup, and I think it would be great if someone could help me. I will put your name in my map's credits too if you help me. Here's the map I'm working on: http://www.beamng.com/threads/9568-Protea-Heights
Cities xl is probably a better source of inspiration. I could suggest that you look here, it may help you a lot with inspiration: http://community.simtropolis.com/forum/62-cxl-city-journals/
