SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

QuoteIt says take something from the 80's and reimagine it

I know mate, I was just wondering what 80's game was the inspiration?

Yup - the inspiration was 'Dungeon Master'. So it's a very traditional crawler. wasd / arrow / keypad movement or mouse. open doors, kill things, etc.
Here's the first peek at the working game gui along with a 'friend':

Looks great. I feel the movement icons should be more low res too though to match the main screen. Maybe placeholders? 

@iWasAdam >> you manage to create 3d models and textures quite fast, and they are convincing enough to convey the ambiance, congrats.

not sure how you manage to do that as fast.

i am working on modeling / uvmaping / texturing some 3d buildings for my game, right now, and i manage to do it, but it takes a lot of time for me.

http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/3d-helicopter-game-20231114-appartments.png
http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/3d-helicopter-game-20231115-hospital.png
http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/3d-helicopter-game-20231116-supermarket.png
http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/3d-helicopter-game-20231117-fuelstation.png
http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/3d-helicopter-game-20231118-garage.png

(i try to use 1 texel per 0.1unit for my current game, but what is difficult is to determine what size a building / vehicle should be, related to the game world, so sometimes i quickly model what should be at the interior and then model the exterior accordingly. not the fastest approach )

( 1 more building to make )

ok, first thing I use my own 3d editor. But this holds true for all 3d packages.

lets look at how I would approach modelling 3d housing blocks:

1. work out your scale so you know the imported model will be the right size (for you)
2. find some reference pics

this sort of thing is a good place to start

3. take a simple cube block and resize - you can see the texture has all the info windows, roof etc


4. pick the top of the cube and texture the roof bit, select the front and back and texture with windws and door, last the 3 sides and use a smaller bit for the side windows and you have instant soviet style housing. you can retract the pic for a hand drawn look or make your own texture yourself etc. simples



you can make it look more realistic by adding a few stickyout bits - balconies, main door, maybe make the first floor slightly larger, etc...

yes i work in a similar way, to begin, i create the overall shapes with the appropriate size, with cubes, and then i add more details.
and i draw the texture with 1 texel for 0.1unit.

your example looks good, but i think it is important to keep the same graphics style in a game, and so i draw all my textures with simple colors for my current game.

a good suggestion is to look at 3d low poly conversions of buildings - you can use these as a guide and source of ideas

yes i do that also.
on turbosquid
on unity store

but often the low polys models have a lot of unecessary details as you may have noticed (it depends on the game someone is attempting to create...)

in the end, i used the street view of google maps ! and i simplified the structure of the buildings.

Do as IWasAdam wrote: add little details to make things look more convincing.

Everybody will detect your "it is a cube only"-basic blocks for buildings if they are allowed to walk around the building or look at it with changing perspectives (so ex. a non-orthogonal view on a fly-by etc)

Add some balcony or make the doors "stand out" (or stand in) and it will create more "plasticity" when looking at it.

For buildings this is very easy as you often just care for windows, doors, roofs (eg a roof "railing"), added antennas on top - or these doors to enter the roof top area.


At the end we talk about a hundred tris more for a smaller building ... this is neglectable on the hardware of the last ... 10-15 yrs.


Regarding textures: similar to "kitbashing" which reuses elements/components you would create base textures and reuse them on the buildings. So prepare a set of "roof shingles" and reuse them (in different "order" or slightly different scales/rotation/...) on other buildings.
You just need to avoid to create a new texture for each building - reuse and you will get a "more consistent style" for free.
If you paint textures on your own then of course you could use multiple textures but have to pay attention when painting them -- there you often will have to use the same "color palette" on which you base your "variants/shades" on.

Think this is old school knowledge - but still valid. So things being known for 40 yrs now - but surely valid for the next decade(s) too.


bye
Ron 

Here's a post from 6 years ago showing very simple building shapes with minimal texturing. one thing to also note is massing. building tend to mass together, along with roads, etc. You will need to find the best trade off with all of this...

well i want to keep a specific graphic style for my current game. but it is interesting to discuss several methods to model / uvmap / texture 3d shapes.


but i may add some noise on the walls textures...

QuoteAt the end we talk about a hundred tris more for a smaller building ... this is neglectable on the hardware of the last ... 10-15 yrs.

since there will be a lot of debris (parts of destroyed buildings, trees, vehicles, furnitures) in my game, i have to be carreful to not use too many tris for each building.

not everybody has a high performance computer...

i already see some slowdowns if i use too many separate entities (hence the usefulness of one mesh with one surface for all debris of an island), or if i use too many separate entities / surfaces with alpha... (for the clouds of the tornado and for the dust around the tornado)

So I thought it needed to be a bit more dungeon master, so I needed a starting base to pick your character. And then I thought maybe the base is where you get to other parts...

Finally some kind of portal (with some added particles) - I wonder what it does and how you activate it... 

Hi guys, I see some nice stuff here. Keep going! So Playniax is definitely entering with a game inspired by Fort Apocalypse and we call it Fort 64. Here is a first look:

Yes, a fort apocalypse tribute, as you promised. I look forward to seeing this one. Great work!