Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

and @unholyjoe i will write , fight and beg for newsstand until it will be added! my glourious newstands. they are so perfect

...and SKELETONS! TONS of SKELE!

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, Kinyajuu said:

haha, asking the potent questions, technically yes. the number is just a simple way for us to define them. You can add _whatever to the end and it'll still go in the list.

 

Kin, 2 questions for you.

 

1) I would assume the important part is the prefix so the code knows how to connect the custom tile to others? (e.g. rwg_tile_downtown_cap_xxxxxx).

 

2) Could we create our own tile set as well independant of the vanilla sets? (e.g. rwg_tile_lazman_cap, rwg_tile_lazman_interesection, etc.)

 

 

[Kinyajuu]

10 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Kin, 2 questions for you.

 

1) I would assume the important part is the prefix so the code knows how to connect the custom tile to others? (e.g. rwg_tile_downtown_cap_xxxxxx).

 

2) Could we create our own tile set as well independant of the vanilla sets? (e.g. rwg_tile_lazman_cap, rwg_tile_lazman_interesection, etc.)

 

 

1. You are correct.
2. Yes, new districts can be defined in rwgmixer xml and you can also define what townships they go in.

[stallionsden]

24 minutes ago, Kinyajuu said:

1. You are correct.
2. Yes, new districts can be defined in rwgmixer xml and you can also define what townships they go in.

So Tiles be town and city or just found in the city.

[Annihilatorza]

7 hours ago, stallionsden said:

So Tiles be town and city or just found in the city.

From the sound of it, we will have city tiles to make unique city's and other tiles that will fit into the wilderness as POI, like a ranger cabin or the like.

 

Also from Kinyajuu 

 

1. Yes, wilderness. anything above 100 probably won't fit the largest and the hard rule is nothing bigger than the poi marker size. The code for smaller Prefabs to get centered when a smaller one is chosen is already in place, it's simply turned off while we get things finished up as we don't want non standards popping up in test generations.

[gizmomelb]

are there still plans to update the game to the newer version of Unity?

 

[Annihilatorza]

37 minutes ago, gizmomelb said:

are there still plans to update the game to the newer version of Unity?

 

In the video they are using 2020.3.1f1 and on twitter they did say they might have a higher version they are working with.

[gizmomelb]

1 hour ago, Annihilatorza said:

In the video they are using 2020.3.1f1 and on twitter they did say they might have a higher version they are working with.

 

thanks for the info.. will go see what ray tracing support etc. is in 2020.3 (if any) - but hoping a Unity update will eventually mean ray tracing support for really impressive gfx and shadowing (and Unity 2021.2 beta has support for PS5 and XBOX X series - so TFP could end up producing console versions themselves).

[Matt115]

12 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

...and SKELETONS! TONS of SKELE!

yes, there is nothing better that go inside of newsstand and you see siting skeleton on chair with pack of cigarets

[Rabbitslovecactus]

On 7/30/2021 at 11:20 AM, faatal said:

In A20, surprise, there are some switches that open doors where they drop and were then staying asleep.

 

You could also remove a block they were standing on.

Any ideas floating around where doors when the are visually damaged to the point of having a small hole, auto unlock? Make sense since you could just stick your hand in and unlock it. Also, having doors that are locked from one side and not from the other. 

[Matt115]

12 minutes ago, Rabbitslovecactus said:

Any ideas floating around where doors when the are visually damaged to the point of having a small hole, auto unlock? Make sense since you could just stick your hand in and unlock it. Also, having doors that are locked from one side and not from the other. 

well in F3 you can find hard destroyed door with 100 lvl 

[Annihilatorza]

13 hours ago, Kinyajuu said:

1. You are correct.
2. Yes, new districts can be defined in rwgmixer xml and you can also define what townships they go in.

1. With this new tech is there a way to stop the same kind of shop populating the same tile, eg two different Shamway foods?

2. Can we build a subway system that can interconnect across different tiles?

3. In the world gen options can we set city size?

4. Could we make a football stadium across 4 different tiles and have them line up in the world gen?

5. Does the Distant POI work correctly with this new tech?

 

Thanks again Knyajuu

[Blake_]

13 hours ago, Kinyajuu said:

1. You are correct.
2. Yes, new districts can be defined in rwgmixer xml and you can also define what townships they go in.

I have further questions:

 

1- Are the complete set of Navezgane POIs (aside from those specifically tailored, like the desert canyon POI) included in every map that surpasses or equals Navezgane's map size? (plus many more for bigger sizes)

 

2- Regardless of the answer, are there options to ensure complete POI repertoire or lack thereof in sizes equal or bigger than 6k x 6k to satisfy that issue ?

 

3- Is the amount of findable terrain features, like secret stashes, secret mountain pathways with some cool feature,  or even city stuff like sewers ..........  tunnable bia some kind of option?

 

4- Rivers.... how are they flowing? are they in and working fine with bridges?

 

5- Waterfalls... Yes, no, maybe or never? It always sounded more like a tiny landscape POI to me though.

 

6- The city generation algorithm looks very reliable, what about the landscape generation? I only recall the hill-side terrain warts common in the a19 RWG beach borders near the water as an issue to compare between the current and former RWG quality. Are those warts cured or still need treatment?

[Kinyajuu]

6 minutes ago, Annihilatorza said:

1. With this new tech is there a way to stop the same kind of shop populating the same tile, eg two different Shamway foods?

2. Can we build a subway system that can interconnect across different tiles?

3. In the world gen options can we set city size?

4. Could we make a football stadium across 4 different tiles and have them line up in the world gen?

5. Does the Distant POI work correctly with this new tech?

 

Thanks again Knyajuu

1. We have a tagging system now for all prefabs so we're working on making sure two things of the same theme don't spawn close together.

2. So long as you make sure the exits line up like the roads do, yes. You would have to make sure you used all custom street tiles with the sewers built in though.
3. Basic options were given for the UI but in rwg mixer xml you can set the min and max tile count, that will control the overall size.

4. Nope, it has to fit in the tile in a POI Marker.

5. Yes.

[Matt115]

17 minutes ago, Kinyajuu said:

1. We have a tagging system now for all prefabs so we're working on making sure two things of the same theme don't spawn close together.

2. So long as you make sure the exits line up like the roads do, yes. You would have to make sure you used all custom street tiles with the sewers built in though.
3. Basic options were given for the UI but in rwg mixer xml you can set the min and max tile count, that will control the overall size.

4. Nope, it has to fit in the tile in a POI Marker.

5. Yes.

Are bus stop  "buildings?" if yes can be sitation like - on both sites of street will be bus stops? like  :

 

Bus stop

------> ROAD

line on road

<----- Road

Bus stop

[Callum123456789]

the new city tiles thing looks like it will massively improve rwg which is awesome

[Fanatical_Meat]

3 hours ago, gizmomelb said:

 

thanks for the info.. will go see what ray tracing support etc. is in 2020.3 (if any) - but hoping a Unity update will eventually mean ray tracing support for really impressive gfx and shadowing (and Unity 2021.2 beta has support for PS5 and XBOX X series - so TFP could end up producing console versions themselves).

unlikely for any update. 
basically too many in place systems need to be changed however I could be thinking of DLSS or whatever.

I suspect adding a feature like that may cause unintended consequences and at this point they really need to focus on wrapping this thing up.

36 minutes ago, Kinyajuu said:

1. We have a tagging system now for all prefabs so we're working on making sure two things of the same theme don't spawn close together.

2. So long as you make sure the exits line up like the roads do, yes. You would have to make sure you used all custom street tiles with the sewers built in though.
3. Basic options were given for the UI but in rwg mixer xml you can set the min and max tile count, that will control the overall size.

4. Nope, it has to fit in the tile in a POI Marker.

5. Yes.

Ignoring performance impacts could an entire world 4/8/12/16k be generated with the tile system as in the entire world is one big City?

[Callum123456789]

10 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

unlikely for any update. 
basically too many in place systems need to be changed however I could be thinking of DLSS or whatever.

I suspect adding a feature like that may cause unintended consequences and at this point they really need to focus on wrapping this thing up.

Ignoring performance impacts could an entire world 4/8/12/16k be generated with the tile system as in the entire world is one big City?

it depends on what pois are generated because certain pois take up a lot of your performance whilst you ar ein that area and if you have a massive city with lots of huge buildings id think that would most likely tank your pc and give you like 30 fps or lower 

[zztong]

Q: If we use A19.6's Prefab Editor to make a 150x150 POI, would we be able to bring that into a future A20-Experimental and convert it into a Tile?

 

(Assuming we also pay attention to the blocks that will be available in A20.)

 

Q: If so, could you tell us the width of roads/sidewalks and their relative placement along the sides on the Tile?

 

(I can try to spot/count it via the video, I guess, but I'd probably run afoul of "tricks of the eye." Is a city street 27 blocks ... 7 sidewalk/6 lane/1 divider/6 lane/7 sidewalk? Hmm, smaller sidewalks in the later Tiles. Maybe a street is 15 blocks? An odd number when the Tile is 150x150? Maybe 16 or 14 blocks? Hehe.)

[dcsobral]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:03 AM, Kinyajuu said:

1. Yes, each district has a set of tiles in Prefabs/RWGTiles/, they can be overwritten or simply add a number to the end and you can have any number of variants. They can be any height (meaning you can add sewers and other things underground) and must be 150x150 in size.
2. Yes, there are 4 way intersection, 3 way intersection, striaght, corner, and dead end type tiles.
3. Yes, we have several tiles where the streets veer off and dead end, alleyways, etc. within the tile. only the edges have to match up

4. We are just calling them POI spawn markers as we also have something called Part spawn markers.
5. All town/city district tiles use an exact size, the rural edges of a town will take anything that can fit in the space (down to the next POI marker size). I will be adding an option to allow the same on the district tiles via the rwg mixer.
6. Yes, Extra Small = 25x25, Small = 42x42, Medium = 60x60, Large = 100x100
7. They can be directly next to each other as the POI will always fit in the dimensions
8. They are all at the same level, doing multi height tech will be a large undertaking and not something we'll be doing for a20 for certain.
9. Yes, parcels are 2d, no height requirement as we had no need for that with the current system
10. It's better to leave out anything that isn't part of a real world lot, sidewalk from the house to the edge is fine, but you wouldn't want to put a frontage on there (at least on residential) I've seen some downtowns with front sidewalks that blended well with the downtown tiles.
11. Yes, zoning is associated with the tile. The definition of a tile to be a zone type is in it's name.

12. Yes they will, we have city, town, country town, and another I'll leave as a surprise.
13.  Nothing was planned as of yet as this tech is still new. We'll be fleshing it out after initial release as per usual.

1. How do intercity roads connect to tiles? I see no special tiles for it.

2. Are all streets connected? Like, a straight tile will always have tiles with connecting streets on each end (or intercity road), and so forth for every tile?

1 hour ago, zztong said:

If we use A19.6's Prefab Editor to make a 150x150 POI, would we be able to bring that into a future A20-Experimental and convert it into a Tile? (Assuming we also pay attention to the blocks that will be available in A20.)

 

If so, could you tell us the width of roads/sidewalks and their relative placement along the sides on the Tile? (I can try to spot/count it via the video, I guess, but I'd probably run afoul of "tricks of the eye.")

Give the new shape system I wouldn't put too much effort on creating anything on alpha 19. This might be a good time for some Shape System dev to tell us how the conversion from alpha 19 goes...

[dcsobral]

20 hours ago, zztong said:

Related to the discussion of Tiles, I'm thinking of Mods like the CompoPack where there are lots of contributed POIs of many wild sizes...

 

1. Is there still a place where very large, non-standard sized POIs can be placed? The wilderness, perhaps? The edge of cities and towns?
2. Can we define additional "standard sizes" via XML/XSLT in mods that include custom Tiles? Or, is that just a matter of how big the dimensions are drawn onto a Tile for POI Spawn Markers? (And the, by convention, TFP have just always drawn those standard sizes.)
3. Interesting... as I look at the video at 0:57 the POI Markers don't appear to be square. The standard sizes were all square. It must be a work in progress.

 

Not to quibble, but I think he was asking about the colors being shown for the POI Spawn Markers, not the sizes. Or maybe I read it wrong.

 

Huh, for some reason it is appending this to my other comment. Neat forum feature. Not what I intended.

Well, yes, and he answered it. See answer 11 at 

 

 

[Kinyajuu]

21 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

1. How do intercity roads connect to tiles? I see no special tiles for it.

2. Are all streets connected? Like, a straight tile will always have tiles with connecting streets on each end (or intercity road), and so forth for every tile?

Give the new shape system I wouldn't put too much effort on creating anything on alpha 19. This might be a good time for some Shape System dev to tell us how the conversion from alpha 19 goes...

1. I leave a couple of the outer tiles with road exits with no tile beside them and then connect the highway to that for now. Later I'm hoping to do some kind of highway off ramp tile to make it look more natural.

2. With the exception of the above, yes, all roads will connect to other tiles.

[jorbascrumps]

This new tile system sounds like it's going to be fantastic! I can't wait to see what the devs and community can do with it. Keep up the great work, @Kinyajuu and team!

[Matt115]

well a random thought -  do this alpha will add something to hallowen  event?

[MechanicalLens]

So pausing the A20 City Tile Tech video at 30 seconds in and looking towards the top right of the district... I see what could be the sewer system.