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[indiadamjones]

Anyone attempted to Greeble some buildings into Outerra?



Seriously, total Outerra noob here, so just looking for some opinions from more seasoned players.

This is a free plugin available for all versions of 3ds, and from what I can tell, I need Collada .dae files to go into Outerra.

[HiFlyer]

Its been done a few times, but not with any special effects. Google "City" and "Outerra."

[indiadamjones]

Looks plausible!  Follow along with me on my journey to learn new things! 

First I needed to make my own Greeble, so we need the Greeble plugin from http://max.klanky.com/plugins.htm

Just place plugin file from that download into your Autodesk/3ds Max 2014/plugins/ folder and restart 3ds. 

Now, you should be able to make a box and then add the Greeble modifier from the modifier drop down.  Here's what I came up with in a few minutes...



My neighbor stopped by to try and get a hand-me-down computer, and I got interrupted, by the time I got back to it, I discovered the Dystopia model for FREE, but you have to sign up on this site, and buy the product.  Here's a link to the sales page, where you can see the product...http://www.daz3d.com/dystopia-city-blocks-011-020-lwo

[indiadamjones]

Trying to open the Dystopia File contents I got a nice little surprise!  All the files exist as .lwo extension which stands for light wave object.  That's not a native or importable format in 3ds.  I found an online converter, but I'm still not happy with the import.  What a mess!  Seems like I'll be making my own city blocks.  Faces seem missing, and these shapes aren't even welded together.  Once I applied a default material, at least I could see my model clearly, but I think I'd prefer to make my own blocks!  The Greeble modifier seems fun, and I prefer something with more model integrity from the start.



Dystopia blocks appear to have a rectilinear base.  What if the base were more like Tetris shapes?  Could a believable city be constructed with modular blocks, instead of one structure at a time?  If the base of each unit were more like Tetris or Anagrams, then isolated units, wouldn't stand out against the background as much.  I've seen at least a few posts already showing a bunch of the same shape plastering the surface.  Maybe good for a test, but what if you don't want Mexico City slums as your primary inspiration?

[KW71]

indiadamjones, I used ghostown years ago (not for OT). Seems the lite free version is still here:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/ghosttown-lite

Works with 2011 and 2012... not sure about other versions.






The only problem I see is that been the whole city just one mesh, you can't have LODs. I mean, once you're inside the city, you're always in LOD0 even if you have more for distant view.

[indiadamjones]

Thanks KW71, and thanks HiFlyer for that earlier tip.  I hadn't considered Level of Detail as a bottleneck, but I'm sure it must be.  We don't want to call all these polygons from space, now do we!?  Well, that being said, I'm still orienting myself, and so this looks like an excellent model for testing import and export functions!  Thanks!  I guess since you mentioned it, I'll poke around for more information about how LOD gets implemented in Outerra, and update the thread.  For now, I'll keep this thread going, and try to stick this one idea of implementing more city structures.  Otherwise, I'll get torn into a bazillion small fragmentary projects!  Yeah right, like that's avoidable.   

[zombie00]

Looks plausible!  Follow along with me on my journey to learn new things! 

First I needed to make my own Greeble, so we need the Greeble plugin from http://max.klanky.com/plugins.htm

Just place plugin file from that download into your Autodesk/3ds Max 2014/plugins/ folder and restart 3ds. 

Now, you should be able to make a box and then add the Greeble modifier from the modifier drop down.  Here's what I came up with in a few minutes...

My neighbor stopped by to try and get a hand-me-down computer, and I got interrupted, by the time I got back to it, I discovered the Dystopia model for FREE, but you have to sign up on this site, and buy the product.  Here's a link to the sales page, where you can see the product...http://www.daz3d.com/dystopia-city-blocks-011-020-lwo

I'm quite the tech illiterate, but does any of this helps?
https://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/133770 (kind of an old thread)
The approach seems reasonable, get a script to cut down the individual blocks created by the greeble/procedural generation engine. You would still need to optimize the individual models (for different LOD) and then either place them by hand or make a scrip that places them for you following the greeble pattern.
Again, there are high chances that I'm just speaking nonsense.

EDIT:
I also found this.
https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/qtown
If I'm not getting this incorrectly, this gives you individual buildings with their corresponding individual coordinates. That's pretty much what you wanted, isn't it?