Urban Landscapes

[Hack]

I'm looking at creating a new pack of N. American building objects for Railworks, and needed some input as to what folks here feel are most needed (besides bridges). So far, my list includes houses, lightposts, mailboxes, gas stations, and restaurants, plus a few modules consisting of entire scenes.

The basics:
- What are the must haves?
- What time periods should the pack cover?
- How many of each object should be present?
- Small town and/or big city?
- Focus on buildings or clutter?
- More trees?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

[longbow]

The US is a big space to fill, so that's a tough call.

I'd suggest broadly themed packs containing a selection of all scenery types, which would minimise the number of payware assets required on a particular route - I think most freeware developers are constrained by this issue. I'd have models as kits where appropriate, to maximise the variety. And I'd try to complement Rich Garbers' scenery as his stuff is being quite widely used already by freeware developers.

We could do with more vintage scenery, say from the 1960s. Much of the default stuff is modern image.

If you can offer low spec freeware versions as you did for roads and foliage that would be helpful.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

[boleyd]

Packs are a great idea. Assume you create a hundred new attractive objects. Putting them all under the same name is no good. Putting them under individual names is no good. However, packs/groupings will definitely allow you to have a reasonable number of entries, with proper names, in the objects list flyout. I have over 2gb of stuff and have no idea what some of it is based upon the name given by the author.

[Hack]

Great idea, Dick. I can see that this will make things smoother for the user.

[selkirk fan]

Hi Marc
Some 60 to 90 ft trees compatible with the US north west or southern British Columbia would be nice.Some western red cedar and douglas fir and some interior fir even hemlock

[boleyd]

One other note - some objects we see are colored in solid bright colors. Objects should blend into the scene and not be a focus. A color balanced scene is when forum members say a screen-shot looks almost real. A bright red truck is just not natural. Same for vegetation. Bright reflective foliage may be ok for a few plants but most are more of a medium tone that, in some cases, tends slightly toward yellow. A bright green tree looks like someone sprayed oil on it.

Regards and thanks for all you produce,

[rgarber]

Very astute observation Dick. And nobody is more on top of that than Marc. "Th' boy" has taught me everything I know when it comes to lighting. That's one thing I don't understand about Kuju and its successor. They sure got it when it came to Railworks though. They must be using some kind of 'global' lessening of color saturation as colors don't seem to be vibrant in Railworks. That's a good thing of course - I wonder how the RailSimilarity guy compensates for that.

Rich

[jpetersjr]

Hi Marc
Some 60 to 90 ft trees compatible with the US north west or southern British Columbia would be nice.Some western red cedar and douglas fir and some interior fir even hemlock

Can you also do some freeware cactuses like these. Need some for my new route, they would certainly help for a western route.

cacti.jpg (57.87 KiB) Viewed 1010 times

cactus_big.jpg (69.27 KiB) Viewed 1010 times

saguaro-cactus.jpg (98.23 KiB) Viewed 1010 times

[shicoe30]

This type of pack is long awaited and will come in handy. Hope you include a lot in this pack! There's a ton of things I can think of that would be good to include but in my mind, structure wise, these are the essentials:

-Small, Medium, and Large generic buildings that could be used as office space, shops, restaurants, whatever.
-A nice variation of houses, anything from small single story old style houses (60's and 70's pattern housing), to multiple story modern houses, some apartment buildings, duplex's and such.
-A bunch of generic stores and businesses, easily recognizable to what they are, e.g. big box stores (walmart, k-mart, etc), fast food restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, and strip mall type storefronts
-CLUTTER! Streetlights (perhaps a lofted variation as well), benches, mailboxes, small decorative trees, parking meters, garbage bins, etc, all that common stuff you see on the side of a road or in people's lawns.
- Cars, if possible, new auto models, cause unless you want to use ones from specific routes, there ain't a whole lot of US specific automotive power, and furthermore, as static objects, the only ones you can "park" without lights turning on at night are the 4 north american models (Tractor-Trailer, family car, pickup, and truck01 or whatever it os), and this may be a stretch, but if you could incorporate it with a vehicle path script, it would be great to see variety without having to see the default-non-North American cars
-I know you mentioned we all need bridges, but seeing as how true the statement is, a few girder bridges would be great! we have a few great models already, but it just looks un-natural when all the bridges are identical!


to your list of questions i'd personally say:
-basics: mostly what i covered above
-time periods: seeing as in our modern day in age we still see structures from the early 20th century here and there, cover the modern era, which conveniently includes buldings from all throughout the past 80-90 decades (with a few really old things here and there )
-I'd say each model itself should have perhaps one to two variations, but mostly just have a good, large number of different structures, like for a gas station, don't just use the same model with different colors, mess with the arrangement, move the pumps around or make the convenience store different or heck, throw in a car wash along the back, things like that near the track are what make scenery stand out, and hopefully, using simple shapes can keep the poly count down but still look good.
-small town or big city: both, include buildings that can fit in within the confines of either. We need a few skyscrapers, but we need a few small town staples just as much, so i'd say focus on buildings that can fit in a mid sized city or town and have a smaller number of location determined buildings.
-I know this is impossible and cliche, but both! both are needed, I'd say focus on buildings that incorporate clutter if that makes sense.
-Easy on the foliage, but don't leave it out, smaller plants are necessary, but due to the current variety of buildings, or lack thereof, i'd say buildings should take priority.

That's just my ! I know whatever you end up doing will be fantastic! this is just my little wishlist. Best of luck with the project!

[Hawk]

You guys (shicoe30 & jpetersjr) do realize that this thread is well over a year old, right?

Not that I'm dogging anyone for posting in an old thread. It's just that Marc may have moved on passed this idea.

[shicoe30]

i really need to learn to be observant

I sure hope he hasn't! I just saw this was the last posted on thread and my mind went "OHMYGODNEWBUILDINGS!!!!!1!" and i didn't even think about checking the original start date.

Thanks for letting me know. Kinda feel stupid now, but oh well, maybe the sudden pop-up of new interest will catch his attention and we'll get some urban landscapes

[Hawk]

Not a problem shicoe.

Like I said, I wasn't dogging anyone, just pointing out the thread start date. I don't have a problem with old threads being replied to.

You're right though. Maybe Marc will see the interest in this topic and reply.

[Hack]

No worries here - it's all good info.