Collaborative City Map - Open Source, Community Driven - Developers

i guess i never really thought it through, i guess every plot is technically surrounded by roads. the difference is, the corner plots have un-enterable buildings on 2 of their edges. the top and bottom blue plots have un-enterable buildings on 1 of their edges.

I could build something. What do you need? How about we build a subway station on two or three tiles and connect them when all the tiles are done?:v:

Why these community maps has always a boring layout?

Because they can't make awesome map like you do. And probably because the smaller it is, quicker the project will be finished.

[QUOTE=oskutin;36396008]Why these community maps has always a boring layout?[/QUOTE] I know, it's kinda shitty. But it's also the easiest to manage from my end. I'm completely okay with people merging lots or whatever, as long as they are easy to "plug in" to the other plots. The layout could also be changed if necessary. This project is very dependent on contributions, it changes based on what gets completed. I've been working on a warehouse-type building that is nearly half done now.

The street should be more wide, like 256 unit wide, because now if you want to put two part together, one part will be a little off from the grid, if you see what I mean... And we should find a decal for the white strip on the ground so we can put one big square under the sidewalk instead of many little brush... But it your project, so you are the boss(kinda).

Okay i updated the prefab lot. Now with 95% less nodes, and properly sized roads. Thank you for noticing that, soullink. I've also got a bit of a start on my industrial building thing. [url=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3310518/mapping/rd_townprefab.vmf]Here.[/url] Kinda need ideas for the interior and the rest of the lot.

I really need to stop messing with the prefab, that give me too many idea... Anyway, you should also set a road as the main road, where you will put the light indicator, and put stop sign in the minor street, it will be a little more realistic... I'm sorry for all the work I give to you... EDIT: Like that: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/s5Faz.png[/IMG]

How will you optimize such an open grid map? Can I recommend of setting 2 of the rows by half a building. It will make the roads more twisty but will help reduce the visibility massively. It would also make it more interesting. [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69582724/maplayout.jpg[/IMG] This is a little more complex (probably too large scale) Grey is road, light grey is pavement, orange is building, green is tree, purple is hint. The road to the left is a large tunnel, allowing players to get from 1 end to the other without getting involved in the winding city. This could also be a train if you wanted to make some cool looking stations. The windy main road makes the map seem much bigger and lets players find each other (if a player wants to be found stand on main road) windy nature also makes it easier to optimise using hints where the purple lines are (and probably many more) The small grey paths between buildings are smaller side streets, ideally not accessable to cars. They are almost always broken up with a turn in the middle to help optimization. Some also include little courtyards. These are good places for a player who wants to hide or for back entrances into residential buildings and shops. The orange buildings themselves are pretty lazy but you get the idea. It helps to make enterable buildings stand out, using brighter doors, lights over the doors, brighter colours etc. It also helps to give different areas a theme so when a player spawns they do not feel lost. Maybe an industrial northern area, residential middle area and developed/renovated southern area. While not as realistic as the block plan above, this is easier to optimize so you can add more detail without making it unplayable. It also allows for different styles of areas. Accessable main roads and more hidden side streets. Btw I like you petrol station stiffy, but you need to add a raised pavement where the pumps and pillars are.

You bring up some good points about optimization. A 4x4 grid of plots would be really poorly optimized. Here's some more layout ideas. I guess what it comes down to is what works best in terms of optimization. [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/VWppx.png[/img_thumb] Grey is tunnel, green is a park area, orange is plots. The blue building dividing the city could be enterable apartments or something.

If you don't mind, i'm gonna make some test in hammer to make the "base" of the city.

Go ahead, it's good to see people showing interest in this. If you can come up with a nice blueprint of a city that can be optimized nicely then maybe it'll get used. I sure as hell don't have much of a plan right now.

Progress! This is only 5% / 15%% done, there will be more road and stuff. [QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/EJPK0.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] Edit: I added more thing but I will upload the screen shot tomorrow...

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;36401204] [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69582724/maplayout.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE] That looks amazingly awesome and realistic. It also looks well-optimized. I'd suggest going with this.

The only problem is the placement of user made vmf in the map... It's really difficult in these map style... With my little thing that i'm making, each block(the brown and very light brown block for example) can easily be replaced by the vmf, but the prefab will be only the block itself for the part that i'm making now (the shop/apartment area) then higher in the map(the road that go form the corner to the big road is going 128 unit higher, and in the current version, there is another one in front of it) there will be the industrial/gas station and the the "old" part of the city with dark path and thing like that... Edit:Since I'm not good at natural environment, I put a hideous placeholder for the park...

It looks like a decent layout, but i think it would require a plot unlike the prefab i made. It also seems a bit ambitious. What about something slightly smaller like this? The red squares would be individual plots. [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/r9d8E.jpg[/img_thumb]

Make hilly landscape. Even mountainous. Lets make modern cliffcity!

[QUOTE][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/OtNrW.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Current state of the map, since I still have the time... The tunnels are place holder. EDIT: A city on a cliff? Too dangerous, just think if there is a accident... They could fall to their death with lot of blood... All that meat wasted... Wait, Forget what I said...

That looks nice, but are the sidewalks supposed to be rounded at all?

I can change that if you want.

Also the roads width looks too small.

You should be able to fit a jalopy and have some wiggle room for the roads.

[QUOTE=soullink;36404251]Current state of the map, since I still have the time... The tunnels are place holder. EDIT: A city on a cliff? Too dangerous, just think if there is a accident... They could fall to their death with lot of blood... All that meat wasted... Wait, Forget what I said...[/QUOTE] The roofs look too even to each other doesn't look natural.

[QUOTE=Oda;36419485]The roofs look too even to each other doesn't look natural.[/QUOTE] They're dev buildings, not the actual final product.

[QUOTE][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/VlnsM.png[/IMG] Ugly park with Very low poly tree... [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/RBzTO.jpg[/IMG] The road are perfect for cars.[/QUOTE] (Oh and, the thing in the middle will be changed...)

Looking good, we could almost just use that map instead of my prefabs.

Thanks, but there is a lot more to do... And we need some trees for replacing those cardboards trees.

If you wanna post your vmf here, i'm sure more people could contribute to it. It looks like a much more interesting map than mine, we could just divide the lots up and work on this one instead.

I'll take a shot at it. Not sure what building to make though.

So what layout are you going to use? And I'd be happy to contribute definitely. Is there anything specifically needed atm? I could do something simple like a parking garage, or more complex like a bank if nobody took that up yet. I'd definitely be up for anything though.