Pixel City - Procedurally generated city

[Kremesfeka]

Nice work! You could even play with the arrangement of buildings with difference style and height as higher/newer buildings tend to be built close to each other (like a business district or something). Or you could create a random city grid with short and long streets. But this is a really amazing work!

[unix001]

this is like some tron shit, haha

[thedixter1]

Step 7, sell to google as fast way to model cities/urban maps without actually taking graphical pictures of every building.

[unununium88]

Awesome work! Love how it looks so real but still its randomly generated.

My only critic is the street lights. They are too close from each other and there is no random factor in them. Perhaps some spacing and some light emission at different hues or intensity would definitively look better.

Love your ideas and videos!. Keep the great work!

[bauxitus]

you rock!

[palmshoot]

I reckon if someone paired this with a 3D printer, they'd have a profitable business concept.

[KaptenN]

Awesome!

Are those company names picked from a list or generated?

You know what? You should sell advertisement space in the generated cities.

“10 bucks to have your company name and logo in the randomly pulled list of company names to place on buildings!”

It’s cheap enough to be a worthwhile investment even for small companies and it could turn out to be a lot of money for you.

Then all you’d have to do is have the screensaver check an Internet server for an updated list of company names.

[k1ngdeth]

wow, nice. y'know, if you make a "daytime" version of this and make some form of transitional effect, you could have yourself an exceptional setting for an airplane dogfighter/simulator/whatevers­.

[MadMullet81]

Its amazing the complexity you can get just from a simple set of procedures.

[DukeTwicep]

Lots of car crashes

[Fuogor]

@ShamusYoung

You should see if you can get some gurus to port it to Linux as an Xscreensaver module

[mccauley404]

Very good.

Make it an helicopter training/game.

[Muhznit]

Whoa. That's crazy. A bit of nitpicking though, they don't quite seem so tall near the center as you wanted.

[m1dlguk]

....You wrote this? in less than 50 hours? Impressive! Game designers should be knocking on your door if they haven't all ready! This is work of someone able to command a a bigger salary and a bigger cubical!

[robertwizzy666]

@m1dlguk procedural generation makes programming very time efficient(albeit extremely mechanical and generic results in the long run), so 50 hours of this doesnt seem like a stretch. it was a good job nonethless.

[Stingercms]

F#@%$^& AWESOME man. highest kudos too you.

just watched an amazing vid of a great screensaver build into formation right Infront my eyes. Seemed so simple :O

but amazingly stunning.

Would love to make this my screensaver. (y)

[1337knarF]

Amazing, if you release it as an xscreensaver-compatible thing -- it's going to replace the one I have now, which show molecule structures of things like caffeine and dextrose, On 7½FPS -- for the most dramatic effect :D

I'm not sure if it is possible, but it would be cool if I could have this one on my primary monitor, and keep the molecule-thingie on my external monitor.

[live785412]

AWESOME!

[kevnar]

Dude. That's amazing. I wish I had those kinda skills. I have so many ideas for things that would be cool games, but I don't know how to make it happen on a machine.

[2centthompson]

can you make a cyberspace world with this like the movie tron legacy but like make it that you can be a person and explore the city i have this software for artificial intelligence that programs itself and the programs mutate its pretty cool yould you be up to working on something like this makeing a replica of the grid?

[Scrapsies]

Saw two cars collide! =)

[Luminapolis]

One of the favorites of luminapolis_tv

[Salocin27]

keep the world turning!

[ericfontainejazz]

excellent job. Better than most real-life city planners.

[jotauvece]

nice job!

[cappie2000]

Looks really good.. why wasn't the screensaver released yet? :)

[siryouareaterd]

FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!

[D6team]

Truly amazing!

[heisenfeis]

looks like the quality of those intros of TV shows in the 90's ! XD

[azzy314159]

Awesome. I am dvastated. Could be used to study the effect of disasters. or spread of disease/fire. by multiple simulations on a random generated city.

[RadleyBO0]

Wouldn't the natural next step be to incorporate procedurally designed terrain, procedurally designed roads that follow the natural flow of the land, and then procedurally designed buildings that work around the curved and sometimes varied roads? It would be really cool if the entire city layout wasn't just grid-based.

But as a person who has a very small amount of coding experience, I must say that this is ridiculously sick. Great work!

[tranceemerson]

this is hard core :D

[TheRealNici]

This is amazing. I first heard of shamus young when he wrote articles for the escapist, but I didn't know that he was a coder.

[Legarsdu76]

The Matrix has you.

[GrizzlerBorno]

You could add some Ad billboards. Brightly colored rectangles spawning near the bottom floors of buildings. The further up they are from street level the bigger they get. Maybe add some rudimentary neon patterns in gaudy colors? Would look realistic for a consumerist city....

[heldercro]

the website is off to me. Error 403.

[shuffle12mania]

cool!1 now free gudzilla to drestoy it :P

[gnawingonfoot]

That's beautiful!

[jeremiah256]

Excellent demo! Thanks.

[chrisvarns]

This is so fucking mint. I'm still knee high to a grasshopper in terms of my open gl / general programming knowledge, i wouldn't know where to start!!!! mental

[drwalen]

you can add some street lightings, neons on walls of buildings and anti air crush marking lights on top of higher buildings - it should look more realistic.

but now this is amazing ;)

[someonefromsomewere1]

Breath taking!

[ysangkok]

integrate it into FlightGear! :D

[pbizunow]

(Yawn) nice, now sqeeeze that into 4k and see You at Assemby 2012.

[Jender42]

This is the simplest, yet one of the coolest virtual cities I have ever seen. Now that is an achievement...

[Bukuzoid]

One thing I wonder about - who are that 37? Aliens? Retarded morons? Terrorists?

[albertomassidda]

beautiful

[daGrevis]

Now you can code up GTA 6!

[MysticDingo]

Very cool. awesome that you programed it! ill be posting videos up of some pretty cool screensavers (not created by me) im just showing the youtube world how cool they are and where to get them =]

[polyrider81]

This is awesome Dude.

please check out my 1 day turnaround stuff:

watch?v=wdbgDAwTjOs&feature=ch­annel_video_title

quick question. Where did you made those textures ? ) Thanks!

[MrRileyI777]

AWESOME!

[poesneus]

Why would you dislike this :S

[goodstadt]

smart and seductive just seen tron2 and left me feeling the same

¿link generation to site web prescence and traffic to visitor ips...?

keep the white lines on and sim the flight hud from escape from ny

microlight in from beyond the beyond then land over at your own site ;-)

[SpanishInAustralia]

you an use this to help our goverment to solve trafic jam for example or thomake more atrative cities ,I from spain, Madrid for example sucks all building are old

[FalseFeatures]

rooftops have more lights than you'd think. couple tall buildings could even have helipads.

[CorrinMovies]

thumbs up if foofles led you here

[Sterben10]

@CorrinMovies lol who?

[J1Militans]

Sorry to be so blunt... to release it as a Screen Saver is just dumb. You can make into a plug-in for Maya or Max or Blender or some good 3-D application, or make it a stand-alone 3-D application. Look up City Engine and see what I mean. Good, good job though. Pax Christi.

[whateverwhynosymbols]

You say "Release it as: Damn I have no idea what this is for"

I say it's a demo. It is art, it is bragging rights, it is fairly awesome.

I say release it at a demoparty.

[nourddinexfx]

i need a step by step tutorial plz your site is not working any idea

[Futil1ty]

SCREENSAVER PLZ

[goodgoodgoodful]

if the lights can be animated using musical input, this can make a great music visualization. kind of a disco city.

[TheInconceivableTOAD]

lol, car accidents galore. look at the traffic.

(I also know now how acecombat did their ground.

[mmalingo]

wow just wow what programming language did you use

[mtgradwell]

@benanderson88 : It is ported to Linux. You can find it in the latest version of the "Really Slick Screensavers" collection, for instance, where it fits the description admirably. Search in your distribution's repository, or Google it. I don't know about MacOS, but I imagine it's been ported.

[XLandoXx]

great!!!!!!!!!!!

[funmeister]

Impressive. Reminds me of Greeble, only different and really cool in its own way.

More than a screensaver, this can be a tool that saves thousands of man hours in game, art and other contextual applications.

[dannz4fans]

this is really great! nice job :)

[iiiears]

The early use of procedural generation extensively. see "Elite" "StarFlight", "Fractulus".

[gamebuster5000]

HaHa Sim City for programmer?

[marscaleb]

I want a city building generator tool for Maya now.

[esgimasd]

Bloody clever.

[pols1985]

Awesome!



[Dagg215]

Imagine the possibilities in using this for a game...

[PixelOutlaw]

Great job with this project! People just don't realize how powerful procedural generation is. If you need a city simply have the computer do the work, things like this save quite a lot of disk space.

[DefieOPartyBoy]

DIRECT LINK PLZ!

[echoxxxx]

Wow. Downloading already.

[thejackdavis]

manthis is impressive and looks great

[kvanmete7675]

epic i wonder how hard it would be to have streetlights???

[11matt555]

I would love to have something like that as a screensaver :)

[asianaven]

this video makes me feel like god.

[franticsledder]

Brilliant! And awesome =)

[tomknudsen]

Could this be implemented in games like FSX?

[annettesalsman]

neat



[ThaMC22]

50 hours of coding equals 5 seconds of anxiety and ever lasting happiness :)

[Koriyandr]

Wow. I am so amazed. The only thing that sort of bugs me are the cars.

[VacItRen]

It's really good, but I haven't permission to view how-I-made page :(

[tekmrs]

This would be so perfect for an anime movie.

[PavelBNovikov]

Hey, dude!

It's just amazing, I should say.

But. Try to generate not only square "avenue-street" streets. Look at city in GTA 2/3Vice City. Of course - the are not dynamically generated, but there are

1) A seashore

2) Non-square streets (try to make them Bezier-curved or polynomial)

3) Not only buildings but squares and parks

4) More different buildings types (look in direction of fountains and parkings)

Try these ideas.

Finally, you have my idea stolen =(

[Zoonyboyz]

You probably get allot of comments but this is just amazing!!!!!!!!! One of the best youtube videos out there. you make it sound just so simple. again if you wanted you could make a quick car game or controllable fly through of the place. also i have a very suckish computer so is there is anyway that you could make a low res version??? i hope i am not asking too much but it would be cool.

[tigranater]

This is one of the best things I have ever seen on YouTube.

Completely amazing. Provided you implement collision detection, higher res textures and of course an actual ground level, this would be an astonishing setting for a video game.

Frankly, I just want to view the city and any other city you can make with this brilliant tool, all day long.

And hell, I'd like to live there :P

[TigranTheMetz]

@tigranater Haha that's my old account :D Shame it got banned. Thanks for thumbing up!

[DusterPanCake]

You can sell it to a big movie cooperation...

[GLaDOS10130]

Does the screensaver generate a new city each time or just get the original city?

[Orannnnis]

35 people found out they were procedurally generated when they were born.

[overphloh]

make it a VJ plugin! in the look at 3:30 with changing colors to the beat this would rock!

and...let me know if you di it ^^

[yourtime]

you got me motivated to make some smiliar simple thing

[Daedalus733]

The streetlights should probably be above the cars, and there should be less of them. Also, the car lights seemed a bit large.

Still, this (especially the buildings) is extremely awesome.

[Shodex4]

Talk to the guy working on Infinite: Quest for Earth. :D

[morco83]

That's very impressive, both the coding and the video. Good job!

[Luingar]

I'm waiting for the CityScape Generator screensaver download.

[inphanta]

A true work of art.

[racetime224]

roads like unreal tournament ha ha

[scopeeyevideo]

Next step: procedurally-generated giant monster attack!

[Terran123rd]

YES!!!!!!!!!!

[seht97]

Unbelieveable that a guy can make this in 50 hours and sims has used 1- months to make their game.. Weird..

[DeDean16]

Awesome!!! *-*

[kalleanka71]

That was fantastically cool!!

You are really good!

[kingorgg]

"Is kinda pretty" is an understatement ....

[evilhowser]

This doesn't only look awesome, it looks good too :D

[TheIntelligentQube]

would be excellent for flight sims...

[nandadzn]

you are the man!

[madmax10101]

rly cool :D

[granatdavid]

What about the words printed on the buildings? Im thinking about the; Motors Corps, Motors Uk, Wed USA, Financial Labs, Global systems and Online One -words... is it some kind of subliminal message or am i just one of these conpiracy-nerds?

[leniopable]

what software you used this impressive demo sir?from cebu philippines

[neocyberkat]

@leniopable: he uses openGL. check out the link given in the description. He explains step by step how he built it. its simple yet so freakin amazing.

[photomanrick]

Looks really really awesome. If you can, I think it would look totally sweet if you added in some red/green/yellow traffic lights and some tall amber street lights.

[stanaangel]

Great job ! ;O)

[TheSzamannn]

woooow ;O great work

[alexander256]

Release it as a demoscene demo! :)

[hnry23gmail]

Awesome, a really good work!

[GCD231]

How big is the source code for this project?

[LKRaider]

Really cool. You should work on the street generator so it isn't just a grid, check out "procedurally generated city" here on youtube for the techdemo of the Subversion game by Introversion software, they employ a generator that creates more organic looking streets.

[tirram1ssu]

Pretty nice :)

[rne1223]

Amazing how little details makes the whole scene so much better. Thanks for the inspiration.

[TechnologicsCo]

YUS

[botscoolnesss]

hi mom!

[korniszon68]

cool stuff bro!

[qurben]

Super cool, got the screensaver!!

[Lezhlee]

neat !!! beautiful music choice too. kudos.

[dimebagplan]

This was one of the best youtube video i ever saw.

[oursvince]

Hey Vampolka,

I can't post urls here, I'm sending you the links via pm,

Cheers

[JoshuaH688]

This is wonderful work.

[deimos2k6]

you could release it as a plugin for 3d programs like 3d Studio or Maya or whatever.

I suggest you to add some more illumination for the streets, they are too dark, if you look at an aerial night picture of a city, you would see them clearly. Anyway, this is quite good.

[VampolkaXL]

Am having trouble getting my hands on the song, and any other songs by this artist :(

[kingluke2]

heh - that's awesome - I'm inspired

[perplexedmoth]

YOU SHOULD HAVE RELEASED IT ON POUET.NET YOU .......

[illustriouschin]

sell it as an "app" for cell phones people will go crazy for it

[iwatcher69]

could you make me an apoclyptic type city with an alpha'd background

[oursvince]

The song in the second part of the video is Around 2, which is released for free under a Creative commons licence (free for non commercial use), the song is not public anymore but will be released in an upcoming free album. If you would like to get the version used in this video, send me a message and I'll send you the download link, cheers

[VampolkaXL]

@oursvince Hell yeah dude, I would really love to get this song and would appreciate getting a link. Cheers mate :D

[vauclerc]

@oursvince same for me man. we even met in Left4dead2 (biloubill) and I told you that I had known you through this video. I love this version, if you can send me the link too that'd be cool !

[ThomasKrueger1969]

great score, great gfx

[FigmentsNetwork]

Awesome! What else is there to say?

[maninator2]

Wow... speechless....

[tr0llslay3r]

looks very nice !

[jazzpsalti]

Cheers ror using the lores BIOS font

[theDisto]

Works on Vista. Although the skybox is borked.

[MrAntonioRn]

aaaxuenno!

[MinaithSarathai]

Definitely release this as a screensaver, I would love this on my desktop!!

[tzekelkan]

Awesome video, Shamus! I just read the entire series and downloaded it as my screensaver. I love your blog and your projects, keep it up.

[lunatizh]

Awesome!

[J0RDSKI]

Far Cry 2 has kind of the same technique and it is only 3.7GB to install. Other games on that scale would be closer to 15GB. Will be cool for the future of video games. But obviously this city lacks detail and just has square blocks everywhere. Still good though.

[CSFSalt]

Makes me think of Spiderman.  Very cool. ^_^

[calvinthedestroyer]

The only thing your missing is a ROFLcopter :)



[jzj1]

This is a sexy engine you made! :D ALL HEIL PIXEL CITY!!!

[StationaryIDontMove]

I'm still trying to work out the music. It's credited as "Around" by Oursvince, and some of it is - The first 1:09 are from the original, 2.11 version that the artist has available to download. Then it changes to an Around remix with the choir, which I can't find. Does anyone know which version this is?

[pr0noffice]

@StationaryIDontMove +1 on this. The track is amazing. I want it :(

[wallpony]

thats epic

[elburro88]

this city needs some parks

[denilsonsa]

It would be nice to port this to xscreensaver (for Linux).

[jci10]

I like your "ghost" cars (ie. they go through each other). Add some logic for collision avoidance and stop/go for traffic lights. BTW Nice Commodore64 font!

[godfather12m]

can you make this WHOLE city one model? and have its textures with it? (except for the cars).

it would look cool in a game im making

[Edotter]

Anyone else notice that the "modern office towers" look like a Cray? ^^

[sylversphere]

.... This is why I keep studying for CS.

[Thanagrim]

awesome, nice work!

[suplaf]

release it as a demo. that's what it is :) wikipedia demoscene.

[dagonra]

nicely done. which language did you use? What graphics library?

[LeeviON]

Damn, it is just so beautiful <3

[g7dude9]

Nice. I could imagine spending > 50 hours just getting building models to look that good. How much of the time was spent on that?

[designjockey]

@g7dude9 lol really? those buildings are just boxes dude, its the texture and the dark lighting that makes it look good.

A good 3D artist knows that this stuff will only look good in dark lighting conditions... I bet you it looks like shit in bright light or daylight, because in 3D you can hide a lot of stuff with dark lighting but can't with bright lighting.

[FireballFlame]

@designjockey I think with the right texture they'd also look pretty in daylight though