New Detroit

[Marc]

Allright, here's a simple question; can this pass-off as New Detroit?

I'm shure I got the shape 100% right , but as for the texture... I don't know. I mean the source image is so small (the image in the lower right corner). Aside from the colors there's not mutch more I can take from it, witch means the tiny details that make up the surface of this texture came from my imagination
On top of that, I made a frozen white north and south "pole" to hide the deformation that happens in shperical texturing (the top left corner image).

So anyway, all this makes me ask the following,
can this pass-off as New Detroit?

 

[criticalmass]

Looks like home to me...

Actually, the lights look a bit too random-spread, almost forming some criss-cross lines. If you look at cities from above, lights are clustered in areas of activity, like ports, factories, etc., with dark patches inbetween.
The original small picture gives some idea of that.

 

[TIRex]

it looks to much structured to me.
I guess it would look better if is looks more like Coruscant from Star Wars
(i fact, when I first saw Coruscant in EP1, I thought of Privateers New Detroit)

 

[Shipgate]

Nah, New Detroit's much more interesting than Coruscant. But yeah, the orange lights do look like they could be randomized a bit more. Besides that, it looks nice. New Detroit was my favorite base to land.

 

[lorddarthvik]

thats right! I thought the same thing about EP1 couruscant! "They stole it form Privateer!!!"- I thought Yep, work on those textures if you have time!

 

[Marc]

I've toned down the "structured look" and made denser lights in some areas, like a metropolis inside a city planet.
http://img134.echo.cx/img134/3658/detroit023ac.jpg
http://img134.echo.cx/img134/2084/detroit034pf.jpg
I've always felt Coruscant was different from NewDetroit. Coruscant is all about style, oppulence and looks (well on the uppermost levels anyway). NewDetroit is more about the machines, "It is our industrial heart and it beats with the rhythms of heavy machinery".

 

[Marc]

OK... now I've re-done my 'metropolis lights' into something more in-line with the source image... oh boy, I'm all over myself with touch-ups.
http://img226.echo.cx/img226/8341/detroit048sq.jpg
http://img226.echo.cx/img226/2501/detroit053xi.jpg

 

[criticalmass]

Ahhh... Request landing..

 

[Marc]

I think I'm a lot closer now than I was at the beginning...

I've even got the night-side lights working

 

[Delance]

Just like old detroit.

Why don't they evern answer it?

 

[ChrisReid]

Answer what?

 

[Delance]

If you open a comm to new detroy and say it's just like new detroy, they don't say anything in return.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

All the bases in Privateer have 'joke' options on the comm list.

 

[Ptarmigan]

Cool. New Detroit reminds me of Coruscant.

 

[Marc]

Well, I guess in the way that they are two city-planets... I suppose so.
but for me New Detroit and Coruscant are two visualy different planets...

by the way, this ain't my texturing. It's from http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/fic_starwars.php

 

[Bob McDob]

Yeah, Coruscant has some subtle visual differeances, most notably a far more irregular and radial structure, whereas New Detroit sometimes looks like a lava planet (though if memory serves right, you still have some circular formations here and there.)

BTW, good to see you back, Marc

 

[Bandit LOAF]

This is what New Detroit looks like in the game:

 

[Michelle D]

I searched for a while and found a nice tip for mapping planets, they use a cube and cubic mapping and then distort the cube into a sphere instead of using a sphere.

I just made my first sphere this way in XSI using the "PUSH" and "SMOOTH" tools. It took me a while but the results are pretty amazing. I'll post up pics soon, I just need to make a cubic ready texture of New Detroit.

 

[Michelle D]

well I'm still having trouble texturing with the cubic map, it was harder than I thought.

 

[Michelle D]

I like this one more then the last, while there isn't much distortion, the real problem is the SEAMS where the 6 sides combine. I got around the problem by overlaying a few textures inside the 3D program to create a more contiguous look instead of trying to use one texture. These layers can later be baked together to form the single texture.