DeleD Community Edition

[efandango]

I am looking to create a drivable map of a cityscape where the user can navigate down roads and side streets. Ideally I would like to able to add streets as I go along (over a long timeframe), and eventually build up a large navigable city, for example the size of London or New York. This project is not planned as a game, just something that a child can drive around with a bus. The only programming aspect would be the need for the Bus to register when it has arrived at a stop. Because this project will be based on real roads, I need something that can deal with inclines, hills and gradients, and not blocky steps (ala Doom).

I am a complete and utter novice at this, but do have 2D graphics experience. I would appreciate it if anyone can spare the time to give some broad step guidance on how to go about this type of project, and if at all it can be done. What are the general process steps to producing roads and buildings? What software would someone like me be best using, for buildings facades, roads, and what would I use to make it all run?

Feel free to be as verbose as you wish in answering.

Thanks in advance

Eric

[moderator]removed cross posts in other topics, put all your answers in here folks! [/moderator]

[elementrix]

first of all: you don't need to make 4 topic's about the same thing-.- if you make 1 topic we would also replie.

second: i think building a city could be done with DeleD, but if you want a city as big as new york completely modeled you will have a lot! of poly's but you can reduce that by making pictures of real buildings and then add them to buildings that are just 6 poly's (a cube) and it would also look nice.

you say you want to make your city bit by bit so adding a part every week for example.
I think you can do this really easy by just making your city like a very big grid where you add every week a new grid part so it's like a puzzle where you every week get a new piece.

edit:
and if you want that your 3d city/roads are based on the real i recommend to add a map of that area as a background and then just build from that real map. when you do this you will also have that everything is the same lenght etc.

[Paul-Jan]

I think my advice to you would be: just get started. Use DeleD, or whatever modeler you like, and start creating those buildings/streets/landscape/etc. When you have something to play with, try out some of the free and cheap engines and see how far they can get you.

This topic is way too broad (AND deep) to be picked up from a single forum discussion, it's something you'll have to learn by experience. There is no set-out path for these things: pick up the tools, bang your head a couple of times, try a different tool if limitations become too annoying. Don't plan too far ahead, there is no need to worry about frustum culling, triangle limits, and other engine capabilities before you even start modeling... safe that for when you really run into things. Don't have too much fear of running into dead ends: there is always a way to take what you have made thus far, and bring it into the next tool.

Oh, and for a quick start, DeleD isn't half bad of course...

[trucker2000]

Wow, sounds like a great project.
The advice already given is so good, that I can't really add to it. What I can do, is to give a little advice.

1. Write it down. The whole thing from start to finish as if it were done.
2. Draw it on paper. A simple sketch will go a long way to seeing your final version, and help you decide what needs to be done when.
3. Once you've written it out, and drawn the whole thing, Split it up. Break it down to smaller chuncks. An example would be: The first area, the second addon area, etc....
4. Sketch out the individule parts.
5. Build.
6. Find a game engine to run it on.

Now, as for getting started, you will need to decide if this is going to be a realistic city, or cartoony.
_________________
Some day I will grow up and be a real modeler.
"Never give up! Never surrender!!"
Sys specs:
asus
8 gigs ram
Invidia gtx560 video card
Windows 8 (worst op sys Ever)

[granada]

[Nocturn]

I should create a top down of the city map, but something like New York or London (with that Victorian fassades) is a very big project to start with. I would create much single Houses and Skyscrapers and would put them into the engine because there are too many pologons and you'll would need portal systems or an octree system.

[afecelis]

have you guys given citygen a look?
http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tommer/citygen/

you can export to vrml, import into blender and then export to whichever format you may need

[Daaark]

I built a large city once. It was a large city at night map for VTM:R... Do it in small chunks. Make 1 block chunks, and connect them by a grid map of some sort, and load the chunks in as you need them.

Making 1 huge map is asking for trouble, especially if you corrupt it!

Start off making street prefabs, then build around those, 1 block at a time, save them to seperate files, and make a program to load the 'tiles' on the fly as you need them.
_________________