[Ask] Level Creating

[romi1996]

Hi , i just join UDK 3 days ago and i planning to create a whole level at city scale. The problem is i don't know how to do it. The building and road organize is too complex and chaos . So i need some advice when creating such huge map , thanks. ( sorry for my bad english )
This is the map i planning to create ( Red Area )



This is the map i planning to set object and actor in.

[Snipe34]

I'm doing something similar and it's not too difficult, but it takes time depending on how precise you want to be. 'How precise' depends on whether this project is for a game or maybe something architectural. Do you want the 'player' or 'map viewer person' to be allowed inside the buildings? That would add to complexity, but again not too much of a problem either.

First, obviously, you need to make static mesh models of the buildings. You can use high resolution textures and normal maps because you can shift them out quickly depending on player view. LOD and Massive LOD will be very helpful to you: https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MassiveLOD.html You make the building models as complex as you want for the 'viewer person' or 'player' then simple models for LOD and Massive LOD.

[romi1996]

Making building is only a small problem , but in the map i posted building distribution is chaos and not in order like barcelona city for example. And i still don't know how to organize those building . Do i have to create many kind of building too ?
P/s : Really i don't want player or people inside building too much , it's too complex.
Note that this map has very high building density, distorted grid street network and mixed up building style.

[Snipe34]

ah finally I can log in and answer I could not login because someone was trying to 'hack' my password - my login failed due to failed login attempts, and I had no 'failed login attempts.'

I understand you have a chaotic street environment (Barcelona may looks good on postcards, all cities do, until you live there, hehe).

But you say chaotic and I get what you mean but there will be common elements. GTA is an excellent example of Barcelona but squeeze down into a smaller environment and it has variety.(I realize Barcelona is not in GTA!).
1/ Shopfronts. Dirt (All cities are dirty but in many models, so clean - untrue, they are dirty!). What shape are shopfronts? Mostly rectangles. Colour? For many you could use a single colour (maybe off-white, maybe red or whatever) and then Vertex Paint smudges on top of the red/white, for example.
2/ I would make several 'generic' shop fronts, or houses. To disguise them I would have add-on pieces, ie: boards, baskets - banners, mixture.
GTA variety is achieved by people looking at their scenes and adding or subtracting too obvious sameness. Maybe they have a single white wall that is re-used 1000s of times, for example, and many, many pieces like that. Gamers are notoriously unobservant, I am one...XD

Mixing and matching items is how it's done. Take a look at new games you've played and you'll notice how meshes are reused, again and again.

[romi1996]

Wow , you're luck , can't figure why they want your account . But safe is the best.

Yep , but my game enviroment has to be in this city , with chaotic street , chaotic traffic , chaotic building ( i mean look at those map , how should i can spread those building in nearly right place ? ) . Not mention those mini street (1/4 Normal street or smaller) . lol Street in Vietnam like human blood network . House big small , with many styles in disorder area. I don't know how to place those building in the nearing correct place in the map.

Example in the aera need 400 houses and i make 20 house then duplicate 20 times for each of them and spread all the aera . Is it possible ? When you playing the chance you can see the duplicate house again is nearing 2 % ( for house only not mention people ) .

If i use the trick you told me then mostly noone can realize it's unreal , but still can't pass the eye of local people, ha ha

[Snipe34]

Wow , you're luck , can't figure why they want your account . But safe is the best.

Yep , but my game enviroment has to be in this city , with chaotic street , chaotic traffic , chaotic building ( i mean look at those map , how should i can spread those building in nearly right place ? ) . Not mention those mini street (1/4 Normal street or smaller) . lol Street in Vietnam like human blood network . House big small , with many styles in disorder area. I don't know how to place those building in the nearing correct place in the map.

Example in the aera need 400 houses and i make 20 house then duplicate 20 times for each of them and spread all the aera . Is it possible ? When you playing the chance you can see the duplicate house again is nearing 2 % ( for house only not mention people ) .

If i use the trick you told me then mostly noone can realize it's unreal , but still can't pass the eye of local people, ha ha

Sure, if you're making an architectural scene then it would have to be more accurate. Even then not 100% either. A game, no. Many people have no clues on game making. One game I was playing a guy thought all the monsters were totally different, but of course they're 1 mesh, 1 set of animations with minor variations. The non-game-maker has it in their mind that every building is different, so game-makers have an immediate advantage.

The same building placed in random locations, people don't realize. Try it, place two buildings together in UDK that are the same mesh. But add a sign or banner or something to one building. Then ask your friends in a sneaky way to take a look - I doubt they will notice.

Then there's scaling - scale a building up or down - immediately it looks different - banners, signs, boxes, grafitti etc - scale them too. You will notice, sure, but if you do it well, other people will not notice. As I say, take a new look at games you played and you'll see what I mean

[romi1996]

Yep , i played Assassin's Creed II before and realized Ubisoft using duplicated building all over again and again , so heh heh , i know what you mean . This is a big game project with full of story lines , 3rd person , main mission and side mission , a nearing completely sanbox game.

Also is it possible to create entire level in UDK ? I think i can just build entire level in 3Ds Max and then import it to UDK ( because I can't get familiar of editing/creating level in UDK

If it possible so I already got some trick in 3ds max ( created by my self ) and import the whole level to UDK .

[Snipe34]

An entire level in 3ds Max? Probably I would have one mesh for one street, in that way you could use Massive LOD. I've made some huge mesh scenes and UDK has np with them. But the scenes are areas(like for example, one street) - when the player leaves the area - the mesh is swapped to Low LOD with single textures. For that reason I would not use one huge mesh for a whole map.

You can 'join' many maps together using Level Streaming https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Leve...ngVolumes.html so that many maps would seem like one huge map.

[romi1996]

Cool , it really help, maybe can reduce system requirement .

I remember i've seen some tutorial video that they can import and place texture into many element ..... hmmmm is it Level Streaming you mention ?

By the way when I import some building into UDK and running test , i can walk through that object , what's happen ?

[Snipe34]

Walk through your models because they have no collision set.

Several ways to approach collision: https://udn.epicgames.com/Two/CollisionTutorial.html (if you search, try both UDN and UDK ie: UDN collision or UDK collision). There are several types of collision. We are talking about collision with static meshes here https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXS...hPipeline.html

UT2004 was vertex collision but this can slow the game down if you have very complex static meshes with many vertexes. In UDK you can still have vertex collision, it depends on what you're doing and what you want.
Turn on vertex collision: (in your static mesh in the UDK browser) find: Use Simple Box Collision/Line/RigidBox - untick those 3 options. Your mesh will have Vertex collision.

You can make collision in 3ds Max. You make simple collision around complex objects. Your primary scene mesh has no collision (eg: PSM) as you already know, so in 3dsMax you add other objects, simple boxes, spheres around your primary scene mesh, eg: name of: PSM. When you finished making that collision, combine the collision to one object, and name it UCX_PSM. You should then have 2 objects: PSM and UCX_PSM. Import to UDK, and UDK will make the UCX_PSM object to collision so you can't walk through the collision area. The boxes, spheres, whatever, of the collision will be invisible.

Or! Collision volumes (but these increase your map size very quickly). You use the red square box (builder brush) in UDK, and surround the static mesh with the box (or cone or whatever shape) and then right click on Volume, select BlockingVolume . Depending on your mesh you may end up with many blocking volumes, and sure enough your mesh will be 20meg+ in no time.

And then lightmaps... I don't use 3ds Max so I dunno how, but Maya is simple enough, 3dsMax should be too.

Edit, I didn't mention... Level Streaming. I dunno much about that. I tried it briefly and it kinda worked. Not that difficult but fine tuning, I'm not sure. They used it in Gears of War.

[romi1996]

Level Streaming and Collision , I will figure it out somehow but by the way thanks you so much , it make my progress faster 10%.

[gaz661]

you can use the street map pic you posted above in max as a template and position simplie boxes in the place of buildings to give structure.then import the whole thing into udk.

use this temporary mesh to place your building meshes.give it a semi translucient material and no collision so you can navigate the map ok.

there is an awfull lot of work in there but if its your dream then its all possible.

for the collision on your final meshes I would use per poly collision,it saves so much time.in the static mesh editor -

use full precision uv's - true
use simple box collision - false
use simple line collision - false
use simple rigid body collision - false

[gaz661]

if your scene is already laid out in max you can set each individual mesh's origin to 0,0,0 and import to udk and make sure all are the set to 0,0,0 in your map and it will all fit.

[romi1996]

Another great advice , thanks you so much , i planning to place structure in that map as template too . This is my dream so it must success . I have this dream for 2 years for developing massive storylines , character speak line with enviroment , sub storylines . It must not fail