CityMania

[Nique]

I know I threw some cold water in my first post, Nique- but, my gosh!  You are one programming maniac.  Those are incredible things you've done, and on your own, too.  It's easy to get disheartened that folks aren't rushing to jump in, here, but my guess is that the awe factor keeps a lot of folks just looking.

Great work!  Your skills are certainly as great as your ambition.


David

o lol , i think there is a misunderstanding here i've not done those things 'yet' but those are things i actually can do as (most of them) are not really 'directly' graphical related. I don't need to draw things on screen to create a zone level function. I can write the function.

[dariovillar]

   
If you really excited to make your own SimCity, do not hesitate to pursue those dreams should be tracked down and try to make them reality.

I'm trying to do but nothing is as simple as it sounds, because for everything to work, you need patience.

With regard to programming your own graphics engine, do not recommend it, you can take years if you do it yourself and then program it, you'll need to start with the programcion game.

There are many graphics engines for the net, some free, others pay, starting with a free and see what you think of the idea to the community.

To make a game that the community can then go to your contributions, you must be a great team of people, because I needed a first program of its own design, another for action on those creations and giving properties and integrating it into a database for the game to recognize the creative, too complicated to get started.

Provided that the community wants to participate, you have to make things simple and do this from the beginning, a serious attempt to draft a duration of several years and I think it is best that the community will have updates and new graphics every bit time.

Not if you understand my English because I am Spanish and I help to translate from google every time I write in the forum. I hope you understand.

Greetings to all.

[darraghf]

I'm just wondering, Is this project still going on?

[Nique]

No,

a team of developers is needed. I started to trigger other ones to motivate and join, but i think it failed..

Sorry, i can not do this alone.

[Nique]

Well guys,

I've created a little test map (3x3 tiles) to write a function that flips the diagonal on a 'hill corner'.


I'm writing this to let you know this topic is not dead..
I have a hard time to do this job.

(this is mainly meant to understand how the triangles are being written to the graphics card. Later on, i can try to implant this feature on a free chosen open source XNA graphics engine. There are NO 3d engines that have this (diagonal flip) feature yet.. (really a shame!!)..)

Edit: I'm allmost done!!


Edit2:

[JoeST]

hey nique, is the top center one not "supposed to" be the other diagonal? or is that just a perspective issue?

btw, its looking awesome, thanks for continuing

[Nique]

hey nique, is the top center one not "supposed to" be the other diagonal? or is that just a perspective issue?

btw, its looking awesome, thanks for continuing

I think i have finally succeeded.
i have modified the that image u talked about.



(edit, better image without diagonals on 'normal squares')



Orange Arrow = default diagonal line
Green Arrow = new diagonal line
Blue dots = mapheight = 0.0 units
red dots = mapheight = 1.0 units

[Nique]

From now on, the game calculates where to put the diagonal, and it also calculates the points where to put the points..


This is a 128x128 map in Wire-frame mode.. (the random height generator is not finished yet so it is a flat terrain)



This is a 512x512 map in Wire-frame mode..

Damn, i draw the camera position text behind the 3d scene.. lol!

[metarvo]

Wow, this is a giant undertaking, Nique!   

From now on, the game calculates where to put the diagonal, and it also calculates the points where to put the points..

Will the new style of grid allow buildings to align to diagonal roads when they grow?  That is something that was requested for SC4 even before it was released.

[Nique]

Theoretically:  Yes, should be possible.. but that's for later on . 

The diagonals i was talking about are to smoothen the look of the terrain.




I'm busy with a random map generator:


And Height maps also supported (this is Tokyo)


It's all still wireframe because i didn't wrote a method to draw textures, but it will be on soon


Textured (wireframe, there are shadow is a normal mapping problem)

[wouanagaine]

good work 

Regarding your shadow problem ( Is it shadow ? or just the Normal Vector dot product Light Vector ? ),
In case of the later, how do you compute your normal ? From the look of your pic, it looks like your only taking the normal up component ( Y in you case ? ) into account

[Nique]

good work 

Regarding your shadow problem ( Is it shadow ? or just the Normal Vector dot product Light Vector ? ),
In case of the later, how do you compute your normal ? From the look of your pic, it looks like your only taking the normal up component ( Y in you case ? ) into account

I'll give a look to the method that takes care of it. I think you're right!

Thnx

Should this game use the same 'region' idea as SC4? Because, when a single region has more then 512x512 squares performance is dropping very fast. They seem to look transparent

Well .. it 'is' kinda weird:


Blue background:

[Nique]

Last night i spent some time organizing and cleaning up the project..



Everything is ordered and separated from the main file now.



Features that i am working out

• When you create a new map (from heightmap images OR just a new flat terrain) you can customize the snow level and you can choose from different ground textures. This will 'only' apply on the current (in this case: new) region.

In case you didn't noticed yet: It's written in C# and i'm using the XNA Framework from Microsoft.

If anyone out here has knowledge of C# and wants join me please let me know. XNA is very very great to work with!

[Nique]

Hi there!

I just finished one of the most important things of the game..
Your pointer gets the terrain position (and returns the terrain height on the next image).

If this method wasn't there, you wouldn't be able to draw a road (or anything) on the terrain



I'm still suffering with that normals problem..

[j-dub]

Will the new style of grid allow buildings to align to diagonal roads when they grow?  That is something that was requested for SC4 even before it was released.

The way it worked in SC4 was that a 2x2 diagonal building would use a corner road connection requirement so it could grow on a diagonal street. Somehow knowing that, may help to program this remake. Personally maybe we should not use road connection requirement. If I had the capable computer, and the brains to do this I so would. I know modeling with certain programs, but not programing yet. I actually had a dream about this game, and the first person, free-cam ground level perspective.

[Nique]

Hello dudes,

I smoothen out the camera movement, Zoom in / Out done with mouse scroller (or plus/minus symbol)

http://www.youtube.com/v/-GgecLKm0G4&hl=nl&fs=1

The way it worked in SC4 was that a 2x2 diagonal building would use a corner road connection requirement so it could grow on a diagonal street. Somehow knowing that, may help to program this remake. Personally maybe we should not use road connection requirement. If I had the capable computer, and the brains to do this I so would. I know modeling with certain programs, but not programing yet. I actually had a dream about this game, and the first person, free-cam ground level perspective.

Maybe it's a good idea to check for a road in a certain radius? and automatically and randomly create gardens/driveways between  a entrance point from the buildings and the road?

Just a throw..

[Nique]

I have fixed the Lightning problem! 


http://www.youtube.com/v/kKPzK-udQ9Y&hl=nl&ap=%2526fmt%3D22

- Note: The water is not ready yet!, I'm gonna add much realistic effects (shoreline waves) ..

[Pat]

   Intresting progress here Nique!!!

[Jonathan]

Wow, that's looking really good well done!!!!

(Don't know if this is relevant atm, but will water be at a certain height, or can the water be at different Elevations in one city?)

Jonathan

[Nique]

Wow, that's looking really good well done!!!!

(Don't know if this is relevant atm, but will water be at a certain height, or can the water be at different Elevations in one city?)

Jonathan

Yes it should be possible to make 'rivers' from the top of the mountain (elevation lifted) but i think this will 'eat' a lot of resources from your computer.

I saw some interesting tree models
http://reinerstileset.4players.de/3DplantsE.html