Zoning

[townscape]

What about zoning? Any ideas on that topic?
I have an idea in which zoning starts like CXL with points you place to form a polygon and the game procedurraly creates lots by your settings.
The building would situate itself in the center of the lot and face the street.



And also some ideas I collected from the now non existent CXL Beta Forums:

Sorry but I don't know how to post this without making it a wall of text

[nerdly_dood]

what I dont like about CXL is that every lot is the same size, and they're all squares, with empty, useless space in between. Zoning is done by a caste system, not by a category/density system like in SC4 and RL.

I think lots should be any shape, tending towards exact rectangles on straight streets, and rough rectangles on irregular streets. I really like your animation in the first image, that pretty much sums up how lots should be shaped. Zoning should be by type - Residential, commercial, industrial, with provisions for mixed-use development - as well as by density - rural; low, medium and high-density suburban; and low, medium, high, and extra-high-density urban development.

Rural residential development would be ranch houses on large grassy yards, perhaps part of a farm (which would be zoned for rural industrial development.) Residents in these areas are typically either very wealthy or very poor, with a little bit of middle-class, but significantly less so than in suburban or urban areas.

Suburban residential development would be typical Suburbia - cookie-cutter houses, perhaps incomprehensible, maze-like street layouts like modern suburban developments, and the like. The density options would be low-density - small or midsize houses on large yards, or trailer parks; medium density - larger houses on smaller yards - and high density - apartment complexes (typically three or four stories, with 4 to 6 apartments per story) - which take up large amounts of land and have parking lots and whatnot.

Urban residential development - Low density would be small single-family homes, close together on smaller yards. Houses here typically are brick with a porch, and streets are in grid layouts. Medium density would be row houses or small apartment buildings close together.  High density would be larger apartment buildings, and extra-high density would be ginormous condo towers.

[tomkeus]

I am making a quick and dirty prototype of construction layer. It will be used as a testbed for various construction techniques. I hope I will have demo during the next week. I have piled enough code today to have basic road and zoning construction.

When I'm done we will test your ideas.

[joelyboy911]

I want to say something about farms. In SimCity4 a farm is like a large spread out factory, to which people commute for their day at work, and freight leaves as its products. In comparison to real life this is an absolute nonsense, as in almost every case, almost all of the farm's workers live on the farm. I think the farm should grow like so:



Its almost like the method shown by townscape in relation to residential development. It is quite complex, I'll admit, but I think this would make for very realistic farms. The key points are that it needs to grow more than one type of building, and that there are more subdivisions within the one "farm" unit. Hope this gives you some ideas.

[Atomius]

nice to see some work being done on this project. i like the idea of buildings facing the street even with non grid dependent zoning systems... very realistic.

also yeah farms were very unrealistic in sc. i would also allow for small holdings, market gardens and more variety of agriculture to better reflect reality.

[townscape]

About Farm zoning:




Mostly it's a rework of the idea above, only a little more simple to procedurally generate:

1.Set points to create a zone

2.The computer randomly places a point but far enough inside the zone not to be on the edge. A guiding line is created which is directed to the road.

3.Place buildings around the randomly generated point facing the path. The path is created by the guideline in (2).

4.Separate the buildings from the zone into a lot. Divide the rest of the zone into lots by settings defined by the type of production grown on the farm (market gardens wold create more smaller lots, mass production would create bigger ones).

5.Populate lots with crops, fences and other props.


Question:Are these Gif Images annoying?

[just_a_guy]

I like the idea, but not all farms are like that.

In California for example, farms usually just consist of large parcels of crops and... that's it. Sometimes a shed or two, but that's it. SC4 farms simulate this a little, becuase people go to and from the fields to work just like a factory. The only unrealistic thing with SC4 simulation is all the freight trucks.

[townscape]

Well you can always make a second button for crop fields without buildings.

[Nique]

I like your theories  . You can (if you have knowledge about javascript/ flash-script / php (or any other light language)) try to create a little method to check out if it works. (i mean if you use flash, you can post it here) If it works, and when we decide to integrate it, its just a matter of rewrite it in the engine by the main language.

[tomkeus]

No need. I'm working on that. I have prototype app running (although it still doesn't have one or two features I want) and very soon I'll start writing zone subdivision algorithm.


BTW, here are some screens from prototype:





It is done with FLTK (to facilitate fast and sloppy development). As you can see, I still didn't make some precision tools but I'll have that in 100 or 200 lines of code so I hope I will be able to post a version here in a day or two.

[townscape]

tomkeus: Looks Great. Something you could drool about when thinking of a simcity 5 .Is road layout complex to use? How did you place zones and was it as simple to the end user as I pictured on the first gif? Does it follow the KISS and (the road laying tool) not oblige you to learn a new complex mode of use?


Also on the topic I have a diagram I want to show which could represent Zoning Types (RCI):



I think these types are enough unless you plan on something different.
Open for change and discussion.

[tomkeus]

tomkeus: Looks Great. Something you could drool about when thinking of a simcity 5 .Is road layout complex to use? How did you place zones and was it as simple to the end user as I pictured on the first gif? Does it follow the KISS and (the road laying tool) not oblige you to learn a new complex mode of use?

What the hell, here you go, try it for yourself. It is still pretty crippled, but I think you can get the gist of laying down roads and zones.

NOTE: Selection still doesn't work quite right so I've turned it off.

w, s, a, d - move camera
mouse wheel - zoom
r - toggle segment type (straight, circular)
t - set tangent (dictates direction in which circular segment will go)
f - finish road (zone)
c - cancel road (zone)
Delete - delete higlighted road(zone)
1 - toggle snap to grid
2 - toggle snap to vertex
3 - toggle snap to road

[tomkeus]

Just to add one more thing:

Don't try making circle from one segment, because when starting and ending tangent coincide, radius diverges. It is a consequence of two-point and a tangent method of arc construction.

Instead, do two semi-circle segments.

[JoeST]

fantastic tool there Tom , thats just simply awesome

Joe

[tomkeus]

OK, here's quick fix. I have turned on selection for roads.

[Nique]

OK, here's quick fix. I have turned on selection for roads.

Cool! this looks promising. You said something about cad view and iso view.

Why do you think this can't be implemented in the 3d view (3d engine with in-game customizable billboards (for static objects, buildings)) ? I think that with the use of very 'cheap' preview textures (or just sand pits with little construction poles at the side of the to be constructed road) this can be integrated in the game without the use of a 'cad like' architect mode. (we can also enable architect mode in-game to let the player design a neighborhood, including this road,.. and a full (non functional) preview. meanwhile, the game will be paused. when the player is satisfied he/she presses ok and everything disappears and the project will start from ground up, but this time, functional?

Oh and about the farm zoning idea, i think we can apply this in-zone path direction placement on every type of zoning. 

[tomkeus]

Cool! this looks promising. You said something about cad view and iso view.

Why do you think this can't be implemented in the 3d view (3d engine with in-game customizable billboards (for static objects, buildings)) ? I think that with the use of very 'cheap' preview textures (or just sand pits with little construction poles at the side of the to be constructed road) this can be integrated in the game without the use of a 'cad like' architect mode. (we can also enable architect mode in-game to let the player design a neighborhood, including this road,.. and a full (non functional) preview. meanwhile, the game will be paused. when the player is satisfied he/she presses ok and everything disappears and the project will start from ground up, but this time, functional?

Oh and about the farm zoning idea, i think we can apply this in-zone path direction placement on every type of zoning. 

There are some difficulties. We are going for a isometric view, but I think top-down view is much better suited for laying down of roads and zones. Second thing is clutter. Construction layer should display more simplified rendition of the city so player can orient himself more easily, and also have much better overview of city's infrastructure layout. There is a very good reason why all city plans are top-down, and not isometric.

[tamorr]

I like the idea, but not all farms are like that.

In California for example, farms usually just consist of large parcels of crops and... that's it. Sometimes a shed or two, but that's it. SC4 farms simulate this a little, becuase people go to and from the fields to work just like a factory. The only unrealistic thing with SC4 simulation is all the freight trucks.

   Freight trucks not on clifornian farms? Well that is simply not true, as how do they transport the goods harvested? I've seen quite a bit of the farmland and well every so often during harvest and sometimes pre-havest, there are freight trucks per say... The workers load these trucks up for distribution to Manufactorer if not to a local market to some degree.
  Sure I have to agree that SC4 does simulate too many trucks coming from farms, as like stated above it is only during harvest, or some time just before those trucks would come..
   
Oh and the development on this is definately interesting, I've been following mainly, but it does sound interesting enough.

[townscape]

Also on the topic I have a diagram I want to show which could represent Zoning Types (RCI):

After some thinking I though that Industry should be divided by the following criteria:

Agriculture
Primary Producers
Secondary Producers
Storage(though my first thought was to include them into Secondary Producers)

[Atomius]

After some thinking I though that Industry should be divided by the following criteria:

Agriculture
Primary Producers
Secondary Producers
Storage(though my first thought was to include them into Secondary Producers)

I like that idea, because it uses the jargon properly and makes sense in a simulation context.

However within agriculture of course the development type would reflect surrounding conditions and the external market... In a default city I suppose you would get dairy, beef, crops, market gardens etc... but I suppose if there were climatic controls like in Simutrans the development would be more suitable to that/ose climate(s) you'd picked?

Also in Simcity 2000 I liked the graph representing various industries they had that was lost after. Perhaps an implementation of that would be possible with a more realistic industry representation?