Preview Screenshots for v2.18
Added 2020-02-04 13:03:04 +0000 UTCHere's some WIP preview screenshots for the upcoming v2.18, which will add 3d textured buildings to the game. The map being shown is Central Bath at different zoom levels in the morning. From v2.18 onwards, Central Bath will be included with all releases as the second default map alongside Central London - being a small and compact alternative to the London map, i.e. the 'performance' map.
Of course this new map system with textured buildings isn't limited to Central Bath or Central London, it will also work instantly with all existing maps - no need to redownload anything from the Mega's optional map folder.
If you have keen eyes, you may notice that the buildings' meshes get simplified (i.e. less polygons) the further they are to your current view and as the map is zoomed out. That's the LOD system in action - an essential way to optimize performance and limit the FPS loss in the new textured maps compared to our old 'grey building' maps.
Comments
The trees are actually already higher-poly than the buildings (organic objects always need more verticles to model) - I canβt use a realistic looking tree mesh cause that would tank Fps. Honesly though, they look fine from default zoom level or further - only if you zoom in, youβll notice them being so low-poly. Theyβre spawned according to the road coordinates in the map data - supposed to be either side of the road. The Openstreetmap data itself has some mistakes in the road coordinates though (itβs a community project after all) so once in a while, a tree gets spawned in the middle of the road due to some wrong road coordinates
2020-02-05 04:08:53 +0000 UTCAmenity types dictate which variant of low rise / skyscraper is used. The new system works by still loading the old map - but making the grey cubes transparent, estimating the size of those cube and putting textured buildings with appropriate size in their places
2020-02-05 04:01:07 +0000 UTCThose trees O_O
Matt Gorman
2020-02-05 00:35:21 +0000 UTCWow...look at all the pretty colours....
Icarus Media
2020-02-04 20:47:00 +0000 UTCI'm actually curious about how textures are assigned to buildings. What decides what textures are applied to specific meshes? Is it based on building type? Are all meshes from city maps automatically replaced with pre-built meshes in their place from the installed game files itself? Great improvements, overall, though. That tree on the road, though. Now we can have a scene where a NPC complains about being tree-blocked hahaha xD
Robert Monotoli
2020-02-04 17:30:16 +0000 UTCYeah that seems pretty reasonable to be honest. Them moving isn't worth the performance for the tiny benefit. Thanks for the quick reply π.
Whiskey Priest
2020-02-04 13:15:37 +0000 UTCI can make them move - not a hard thing to code, but it would add a performance cost that I'm not sure yet if it's worth it cause they're quite small so their movement may not be all that noticeable or enhance the experience much if the player plays the game with the map quite zoomed out. I'll think more about this.
2020-02-04 13:12:57 +0000 UTCLooks good. Do the cars move?
Whiskey Priest
2020-02-04 13:05:55 +0000 UTC
