

Procedural City Generation - Developer's Log - jerf
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940

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jd
This is a great series. The guy can write (he's also funny) and he writes the
series in a really accessible way. Definitely worth reading.

Also check out his "terrain" series, it's terrific.
<http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=141>

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mkyc
If you're heading off to google images to see how this compares to real and
not overexposed cityscapes, then the below links will save you some time. Open
the last picture up while you watch the video at 2:09, bottom left building.

[http://media-
cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/12/00/de/t...](http://media-
cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/12/00/de/tokyo-by-night.jpg)
[http://abodenyc.com/images/New%20York%20City%20Images/New-
Yo...](http://abodenyc.com/images/New%20York%20City%20Images/New-York-Skyline-
Night%20-%20Fixed.jpg) <http://edp.org/Travel/Chicago/ChicagoNight.jpg>
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/arjunpurky/2507602603/>
[http://www.picturecorrect.com/wallpaper/japan/tokyo_1024x768...](http://www.picturecorrect.com/wallpaper/japan/tokyo_1024x768.htm)
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/yayatan/35736937/>
[http://www.postcardsfromhonshu.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/0...](http://www.postcardsfromhonshu.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/03/tokyo_at_night_1600x12001.jpg)
[http://www.markmyhsieh.com/Blog/files/page0_blog_entry78_15....](http://www.markmyhsieh.com/Blog/files/page0_blog_entry78_15.jpg)
[http://leejones-
san.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilde...](http://leejones-
san.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/tokyo_night.jpg)

Projects like these are great examples of hitting that 5% that gets you 95% of
the way home. When he talks about avoiding simulations, that's precisely
right. I wish he would talk more about how he's choosing the right things to
focus on. Perhaps it's just luck? For example, I think that a few of his
steps, like bloom, were detrimental. Irregular streets might have solved the
streets problem by hiding them (cf. 1st pic). Brightening up buildings in the
distance could also have made this look even better.

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bd
You can see the process and the end result in a video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d2-PtK4F6Y>

Also, if you are interested in procedural cities generation, there is a very
cool Swiss startup:

<http://www.procedural.com>

It's a spin-off from ETHZ graphics research. You can find their SIGGRAPH
papers here:

<http://www.procedural.com/company/publications.html>

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jerf
Follow the "next" link under the title bar to go to the next parts. It's a
blog so there isn't (currently) a unified page to submit.

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sp332
Introversion, the UK games company that did Uplink, Defcon, and Darwinia, has
been working on a game called Subversion that has procedurally generated
cities, from terrain mapping to placing desk chairs in the offices of the
buildings. <http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/>

~~~
wlievens
Young's is nice, but the Subversion concept is orders of magnitude more
awesome because it populates the city on the fly, as you approach. Like a
fractal.

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ujeezy
Very cool - reminds me of a City Generator include for POV-Ray I used back in
the day:
[http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/citygen.ht...](http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/citygen.html)

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SingAlong
I was always thought the game developers designed the whole city in 3D.

Nice article.

Why is the city's nighttime generated based on lights?

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diN0bot
quite engrossing. i read and skimmed. lots of great pictures.

this is the opposite experience to blogs posts that run out of steam halfway
and then end with some dumb conclusion. well done shamusyoung. wish there were
more of these kind of project reports on hn.

