The Blender City

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
41

My idea with discombobulator isn’t just to get something random out, but to put some meat on otherwise bare bones.

To explain my interest and where I’m coming from (take a seat, I’m going to type up a blue streak):

I’m working on a comic, and at the same time a remake of my first Blender cartoon. Both take place in largish cities with varied districts and what not, the usual. Now, I like working on people, and small props, but I’m not a backgrounds kind of a guy.

I’ve tried making a few cities on my own, using Beast, and then I could take renders and drop them in whatever I’m working on for the big city feel, and some consistency in the geography. As the need for a specialized building arose, I’d put it together and drop it in.

But all the buildings looked similar, all the streets looked similar, the many and varied tendrils of my imagining were not sufficiently divergent and unique for my purposes. So discombobulating something at the start would provide enough depth for casual use, where as more detailed work would inevitably be provided by those who needed it.

For example, what I want is a business district built around a single, kilometer tall building. I’ll lay out the streets and what not for that district, discombob buildings for it, and then place the tower model where it goes. So then I will have provided one building, and a district, and that’s about all I need.

So somebody comes around and they want a penthouse apartment in a swanky district. They can either make their own, or co-op one of the buildings in the district that’s already been provided.

That’s just my thought, I don’t wish to derail the economy or anything, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, I still plan on setting up shop in Blendopolis at some point.

Question: One standard Blender unit, is that a default cube, or zoomed into the smallest grid layout?

42

Another thought, to save time and effort in city planning, this thread:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138476

mentions a city layout creator for RPGs. I’ve downloaded and played with it, it’s pretty fun. The program can make a .bmp of various sized towns and cities, which could be used to determine Blenderopolis’s layout.

43

Well I deserve some blendits too even I am giving something that already belongs to the general public . . . and as of yet I haven’t given it.

44

This would be a really interesting project. I was thinking though that once it really got going, you might need some kind of map for blendopolis to expand into. You might also map off certain areas as “residential”, “industrial”, “retail”, “business”, ect., just so that you don’t end up with skyscrapers in the suburbs.:eyebrowlift:

Also, I was wondering if you intended to have any kind of city limits. I don’t mean confining the city to a certain size, but adding geographical borders (rivers, lakes, islands, peninsulas, hills, and so on). They might break up the city’s composition a little.

This whole virtual city thing has really sparked my interest. I think I’ll stick around:D.

-C. Wynn-

45

No candidates for the first houses yet?? I thought they’d go like hot cookies! :no:

46

I know someone who will take one. His name is DevinArndt, he posted here earlier. He helped me think of this idea.

I think that we should make this city have a government that’s run by players. Of course you will be the mayor, but there should be a city council that is elected by the players. I think we should make a list of regulations for buildings in certain zones, and I think there should be empty lots that residents can build their own model in.

I think that we should (Cognis and I) pay some people with blendits to help run the city. They would do things like sell land to new residents, and make sure they are within the regulations when building things. We should also give people bonus blenits for joining earlier on and getting the city going.

This is going to be really cool, and im sure people with show interest in those houses (lots of people are either at school or at work right now)

47

I think that I should also get one of the first houses seeing as I came up with rewind81’s idea with him, it was a group effort. We usually just post everything together on rewind81’s account so I let him do the posting.

48

I guess me giving away something I got for free to give for free won’t get me any blendits. I want a house - but can afford it as in a true welfare bludger kind of way. Kind of like the economic parity creeping up already. Well then make the homes y’all, and the value of 'em will decline as the supply outstrips demand. Not to mention the drug homies and shorties who will patroll the corners. Society will have to pay extra taxes to keep me sheltered.

49

I made a fire hydrant, don’t know if it’s what you wanted… but here it is.

50

He gets the one next to mine.

51

And here’s a mailbox, altough it is kinda crappy.

the file size is actually a bit smaller because i accidently packed some textures i didn’t need…

52

wow we have over 1000 views in 2 days

53

heres a mailbox

54

This could turn into quite the sociological/economic/governmental experiment. I find that aspect particularly fascinating.

If we wanted to go further in that vein, it wouldn’t be too out of the way to create a constitution, city charter, all that kind of jazz.

Depending on the number of interested parties of course, it might be more prudent to parcel out city blocks as opposed to singular lots. A set of guidelines on property improvement could yield a rough population and capital amount for your property, and that could determine the amount of revenue a contributor would get, and the number of votes in congress.

I’m just talking out my a** right now, but really the sky is the limit. If there was any interest in this kind of a thing, I would be happy to right up a more detailed proposal. I know crap about programming or python or any of that, so I haven’t a clue on how any of this might be implemented, but it’s a concept near and dear to my heart.

In the much larger picture, it could prove to be an invaluable learning tool that could gain traction in many venues outside of BlenderArtists.

55

Wow, i’m really glad that you feel the same as me bobmiq

56

This is the best bit - everyone pledges somethings, gives their few cents worth . . . and then time will tell if we will make the 3d magazine headlines.

57

Heres a mailbox i made

I think this idea could go so many different ways so I think its important we come up with a plan of what we want to do. I think that there should be a city council of all the people who were working on it from the start and then anyone who joins can make furniture or anything else for houses and then submit them, the city council looks at them and decides whether it’s good, and if it is good the council pays the person however many blendits and then the object goes up for sale and when your decorating your house you can buy things to decorate that other people had made. Having the council evaluate objects would make sure there isn’t millions of crappy objects that no one would want to use.

58

We are going to be mentioned in the next BlenderCast episode!

59

Going from the earlier post on “scale” I got started on a door - figured something simple to get started would be best. I have created a blend with a single object as a base.

I’m not sure what standard construction sizes are around the world, but here in sunny California a standard entry door in inches is 80H x 36W x 2D. Using standard conversion of 2.54 cm per inch that translates to 203cmH x 91cmW x 5cmD. Using your reference of 500cm per blender unit the internal measurements are 0.406H x 0.182W x 0.01D.

Once I have a “pretty door” ready for consideration I’ll post the file, this post is more to get confirmation on the sizing.

60

I think this is why it would be advisable to have a blend floating around with standard stuff, that people can gussy up on their own.

It would just be easier to start on the same page than have to do any resizing later.