How to fill a city with life

[KR153]

I guess you all know that city webcams from towns and cities all over the world. I for one enjoy to watch those from time to time as it is a bit like sitting in a cafe watching life rolling by. Sitting on a dock at the bay...
Although a city builder consists mostly of... building (duh!) I guess we all like to sit back and just watch our "ant farm" buzzing with life. Many components combine themselves to that chaos of modern civilization, small and big cities alike. Since it was confirmed that we won´t have neither weather nor different day times, I have a feeling the list grows short. Let´s see what´s left:
- Traffic: Without any fluctuation you will have the same traffic all the time. In CXL I found that pretty boring. How could this made be interesting without different day times?
- Pedestrians: People walking around, doing stuff. That´s the basic principle of any human settlement. Would be nice if those "agents" would really enter vehicles and shops, maybe interacting with each other. Diversification is another factor here. Seeing the same people over and over again breaks the immersion.
- Ambience: Trees, animals and stuff. The wind blows through trees, birds get feeded in the parks and roam through the air, deers in the woods.
I would like to get some more opinions on this and maybe some more suggestions. A balance needs to be found between gameplay functions and graphical display. A city with many working moving parts is nice, but visually it will get static after a while. Don´t you think?

PS: Don´t argue with DLCs or mods because neither one is guaranteed to come. Despite all announcements the possibility must be considered that we have to play the basic game as it is.

 

[TotalyMoo]

I agree that a lively city is very, very important for a fun game. As I'm not too deeply involved with development myself I am not fully up to speed as to what we're doing in this area, but I can say that we often talk about how to make the game fun and alive so it's a very central and important part for us. I can't promise we have any great and detailed information to share right now, as there's still quite a lot of development time left before we're close to launch, but I will poke our developers about this and see if they have a good response, otherwise that will have to wait a bit

Thanks for your patience and support, it means a lot to get this kind of interaction already.

 

[co_martsu]

Our priority is to make a solid gameplay first and then have our artists work their magic in details closer to the release. I was thinking some animals (do you remember the free roaming pigs in Cities in Motion? Loved those little guys...) and people doing things already adds a lot of life to the city. Also small things with how the wind moves the trees, flags etc. Animations is what I'm getting, at I guess Small cute things as well!

 

[KR153]

Sorry, never played CiM, only watched some videos. Free roaming pigs, huh? I´ll take those, but only if they are upgradable as a form of transportation. As in "I gotta catch the 7h pig to Bayside"
Moving flags and trees would be nice, but only if they are "desynchronized". It didn´t look that good in CiM. Birds would be nice too. On houses, on wires, swimming in the lakes...
Another thing I noticed on the CiM videos were the ambient sounds which are a bad joke in CXL. Your sounds are dynamic at least, but please more diversification. Different motor sounds for different vehicles. As a city grows, so should the sounds. I come from a small town and one of the things I noticed after a while in NYC was that "wall of sound" that penetrates that city (like most really big cities i guess). It is hard to descibe, a constant growling and buzzing, interstratified with sirens and car sounds.
If you manage it to get it really dynamic, so that the sound changes as you approach certain things, that would be nice.

 

[Viljainen]

Cities in Motion 1 and Simcity 4 were pretty good in making the city feel alive. Cities CiM 2 and Cities XL feel a bit sterile. It's really hard to say exactly why.

 

[slornie]

Also small things with how the wind moves the trees, flags etc. Animations is what I'm getting, at I guess Small cute things as well!

Pretty please can you decouple the tree movement animation from the game-speed in CSL? In CiM2 it always looked really weird having hundreds of trees waving about frantically! With everything else going on (people/vehicles moving around, buildings changing) there's already going to be plenty to show the game speed without adding the trees into the mix.

 

[whosthebestcop]

Our priority is to make a solid gameplay first and then have our artists work their magic in details closer to the release. I was thinking some animals (do you remember the free roaming pigs in Cities in Motion? Loved those little guys...) and people doing things already adds a lot of life to the city. Also small things with how the wind moves the trees, flags etc. Animations is what I'm getting, at I guess Small cute things as well!

Def need Riots.

 

[Goldiva]

I second the point on 'desynchronised' animation of trees (and other animated items too). Randomising tree facings can also do wonders in visual richness, and cost little resource. CiM2 trees and water waves imply chronic mega storms, hopefully we get wind speed slider option for C:SL. Better still, wave speed and tree speed separate control.

Well, at the least... the confirmed Decoration Tool will allow on-the-fly placement of props and vegetations all over the city. So the possibilities are limiteless. Sculptures, planters, benches, trash bins, vending machines everywhere.

IF, only if, Decoration Tool could pull off drag-dropping any custom textures onto any 3D "frames" in the city, billboards, posters, sign boards, ANY flat facing of any buildings, C:SL's visual richness will simply explode.

Of course, ability to doodle or spray paint on city building walls will be great, but I think that's just asking for too much! :happy:

Animation spawns of animals and sims is a must. Not asking for whales or anything. But some basics. Pigeons on plazas. Dog catching stick in parks. Sims unloading goods/ screen-gazing/ window-shopping. Etc. Beyond pedestrian sims, it doesn't seem there are plenty of animation spawns in CiM2 videos. Still, that doesn't mean C:SL won't come with them... Right?

 

[co_martsu]

I second the point on 'desynchronised' animation of trees (and other animated items too). Randomising tree facings can also do wonders in visual richness, and cost little resource. CiM2 trees and water waves imply chronic mega storms, hopefully we get wind speed slider option for C:SL. Better still, wave speed and tree speed separate control.

Well, at the least... the confirmed Decoration Tool will allow on-the-fly placement of props and vegetations all over the city. So the possibilities are limiteless. Sculptures, planters, benches, trash bins, vending machines everywhere.

IF, only if, Decoration Tool could pull off drag-dropping any custom textures onto any 3D "frames" in the city, billboards, posters, sign boards, ANY flat facing of any buildings, C:SL's visual richness will simply explode.

Of course, ability to doodle or spray paint on city building walls will be great, but I think that's just asking for too much! :happy:

Animation spawns of animals and sims is a must. Not asking for whales or anything. But some basics. Pigeons on plazas. Dog catching stick in parks. Sims unloading goods/ screen-gazing/ window-shopping. Etc. Beyond pedestrian sims, it doesn't seem there are plenty of animation spawns in CiM2 videos. Still, that doesn't mean C:SL won't come with them... Right?

We'll see what we can do with the animations!

Comparing Cities in Motion 2 and Cities: Skylines is difficult since we updated the engine and are generally talking about two very different games, albeit both developed by us. So you don't have to feel concerned if something was missing in CIM2, since there's little that carries over to Cities: Skylines at this point.

 

[Inge Jones]

I second the point on 'desynchronised' animation of trees (and other animated items too).

Thirded

 

[Goldiva]

We'll see what we can do with the animations!

Comparing Cities in Motion 2 and Cities: Skylines is difficult since we updated the engine and are generally talking about two very different games, albeit both developed by us. So you don't have to feel concerned if something was missing in CIM2, since there's little that carries over to Cities: Skylines at this point.

Ah good to know the engine is updated. I really hope C:SL will look many times "hotter" and "fresher" than CiM2. Visual impact is essential to entice SimCity crowd fed on a diet of too-shiny too-sugary visual candies.

Questions:

• C:SL is made with latest Unity 4.x?
• Will C:SL be made with Unity 5 when it's released? (If so it'll be awesome - saw some Unity 5 real time GI videos)

 

[FourWinds]

Desynchronised is a good word I guess the people moving about the city could do with a bit of desync love too: different heights, walking speeds - the odd jogger, directions, maybe some jay-walkers and some waiting at the crossing, kids on skateboards, the odd guy standing on a corner getting cell-phone directions.

I'm not sure if it's in scope for the release but audio when zoomed is a thing; city noises will bring life to a city I'd say. I wonder if the mod tools will allow for some custom audio for mods linked to the cam position; maybe that's a lot to ask, it would make for some interesting mods though.

 

[Bipin]

In my opinion, its the little, eclectic details that count and really make a city come to life. Without little inconsistencies like garbage in an alley, cracked pavement, graffiti, billboards here and there, or animated trees as had been said earlier, the city feels too clean and sterile. I feel like these details are a hallmark of the life that goes on inside the city (e.g. garbage left in random places on the sidewalk identify that people live or work around there).

I don't want to stray off topic, but this is about those little details: Will we have driveways that cross the road verge and sidewalk? I'm kind of tired of my sims in SC4, among other city building games, having to drive across the grass in front of their homes to get to them... :rofl:

 

[Johnnysims]

Cities in Motion 1 and Simcity 4 were pretty good in making the city feel alive. Cities CiM 2 and Cities XL feel a bit sterile. It's really hard to say exactly why.

Totally agree, coming from every Simcity game that there was, except Societies, it has a nice feel to it. I feel very depressed playing Cities XL because of their dead feeling. All buildings and things felt generic and did not influence each other.

Sometimes I don't move the screen and just sit and watch an area develop. It's nice to see things grow and be alive.

 

[Crotalidae75]

Totally agree, coming from every Simcity game that there was, except Societies, it has a nice feel to it. I feel very depressed playing Cities XL because of their dead feeling. All buildings and things felt generic and did not influence each other.

Sometimes I don't move the screen and just sit and watch an area develop. It's nice to see things grow and be alive.

I've never played Cities XL, as I have a Linux machine -- but I have seen plenty of videos showing gameplay, on Youtube.

You are right, though. The game feels very sterile, and I'm not sure why. There's just something about that game that bugs me, and I can't quite put my fingers on it. Even though SimCity 4 is technically less advanced, for some reason, that game seems more realistic, despite the older graphics.

I hoping that Colossal Order will avoid that sterile, lifeless look in C:SL. Another thing I didn't like about Cities XL is that the roads didn't seem too realistic. I think so far, the roads in C:SL look more realistic -- and I think that has an impact on overall realism.

 

[Goldiva]

To me, CXL feels sterile because of

• the LIFELESS environment - homogenous trees, prefab maps came with bald hills, flat same old ground textures from over-stretched rock texture to sad-looking farm texture sets, wrong proportion human sims
• limited building variations - sterile-style commercial towers scaled too tall, flat and fake-looking shop windows, buildings seemingly made of one material = plastic, no mods at launch, post-mod painfully tedious to import anything
• limited animated spawns - no roadside props except the occasional advertising board, clean empty plazas with no birds no loitering youth no women no shopping no buzzing cafes
• no dynamic growth - once area is built, no more construction activities, no change, no surprises

The natural environment, the grass, the trees, light and water quality, the richness of organic lifeforms, the ambience, is super important to "suck in" creative gamers. I recall my first impression with SC4, via God Mode, was wow. Cities XL, not so.

Both CiMs did come with very nice architecture designs, even when they were more goal-oriented rather than "creative construction" kind of game. Style wise, CO artistic style is more my taste than SimCity's hyper Disney+OC or CXL's inconsistent Delicatessen meets Dubai. I'm more concerned about the graphics's improvement potential, which hinges on a few things...

Unity engine is not known for its graphical prowess, but in good hands amazing things can still happen. Style vs optimization balancing issue too. I don't expect Crysis level lush world or advanced glass reflection, but I really hope C:SL lighting and natural environment will be a huge improvement from CiM2.

Can't wait to know the details of material system and lighting system for C:SL! Until then...

 

[slornie]

I don't want to stray off topic, but this is about those little details: Will we have driveways that cross the road verge and sidewalk? I'm kind of tired of my sims in SC4, among other city building games, having to drive across the grass in front of their homes to get to them... :rofl:

There doesn't appear to be driveways at the moment, according to this screenshot from the screenshot thread:

Obviously CO have said there will be many different road types/layouts, but I certainly hope that grass verges like this at least get pavement to the road edge at pedestrian crossings! Whether or not every single attached property should have a driveyway depends imo on whether vehicles actually appear on properties and drive on/off them, rather than just spawning on the road when a cim leaves the house/office.

 

[Goldiva]

Like this? (and spot some other changes in the pic)

Obviously I'm bored. Still waiting for new screenshots...waiting...

Must say I like the more neutral style of the residential homes. Ground textures look organic too.

And then there's the inevitable Depth of Field fog, the equivalent of "tilt shift" look of SimCity2013. A little DoF is okay, but too much makes the world looks like miniature toyland.

I definitely have issue with the cartoony trees.

 

[Bipin]

I like what you've done to that screenshot Goldiva! I especially like the zebra crossing you've got there.

In regards to depth of field, the distance range at which objects are in focus differs greatly depending on the focusing distance, even when the focal length and aperture remain the same. At, say a 28mm focal length similar to the above screenshot, the depth of field would be very narrow, only a few millimeters at f/5.6. This would imply you are viewing a small model; something far smaller than life-size scale, which is why the scene in that screenshot looks a bit strange. By using the same focal length of 28mm and the same f-stop of f/5.6, but a hyperfocal focusing distance, you achieve the largest possible depth of field. If this screenshot were of a life-size city, you'd be using the hyperfocal distance for sure, especially given how wide the field of view is. I own a 28mm, f/2.8 lens. Hyperfocal distance is achieved when you focus beyond ten meters. The scene in this screenshot, assuming it is supposed to be life size, would definitely be farther than ten meters away. At those aforementioned settings of 28mm, f/5.6, virtually the whole scene would be in acceptable focus. Of course there would be some blurring the farther away you get, but the falloff would be far less severe than what is seen in the above screenshot.

Long story short, I think many of us would like to see depth of field blur/bokeh that can be adjusted.

 

[Goldiva]

Long story short, I think many of us would like to see depth of field blur/bokeh that can be adjusted.

Yep. Possibly a slider under Settings.

Most games use DoF or distanced atmospheric particle to reduce rendering load on lower end PCs. I personally prefer the distanced haze/ fog looks over the DoF looks. I believe C:SL use both. Again as long as they come with sliders, fine with me.

As to the driveway implementation...possibly an extra piece of flat object with sidewalk-material spawn for every building. It's a popular enough pet peeve indeed...worth addressing.

On a positive note the light quality and color scheme looks way better than CiM2. Brighter sun and more saturated. The bins are cute - but better not block our (imagined) driveways. :happy: