How to make a good city or city-like level?

[Katamori]

What do you think how can a city or at least city-like level be good? I saw several tries but most of them wasn't realistic enough.

[40oz]

i dunno, windows? good gameplay?

[Mithran Denizen]

Use lots of free-roaming non-deaf monsters, especially flying ones.

It's more of a personal gripe with me, but I'd also eschew using UAC/starbase textures if at all possible, unless you're making a "space city" or something. Nothing kills my immersion in a typical city level quicker than seeing BIGDOOR1 on the front of what is supposed to be some unassuming office building.

[DeathevokatioN]

Doom city map done right: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=13697

And play the whole thing before you tell me any different. ;)

I also enjoyed that city map in Plutonia, and Unholy Realms also has some really really cool city maps in it's later levels.

I've been meaning to build a city map for a while but never got round to it.


EDIT: Yeah and I agree with 40oz.

[hervoheebo]

The primary obstacle in city maps for me is the lack of textures. The default textures only allow for brown brick and rusted metal ghettos and space age dome cities.

[MajorRawne]

I agree with Hervoheebo. One of my favourite city maps is Doom 2's Suburbs, without a doubt. It makes the best of Doom 2's extremely limited palette to bring us a map that looks reasonably city-like, without being a single colour. Doom 2's textures also don't tend to look good on very large structures like tall buildings.

Didn't anyone tell id that there are more colours in the rainbow than brown, which actually isn't in the rainbow anyway?

[Katamori]

Agree, there's impossible to make good city level with stock Doom 2 textures.

I'll try to make something with CC4 textures, I hope I can be succesfull.

[DeathevokatioN]

Katamori said:

Agree, there's impossible to make good city level with stock Doom 2 textures.

That's a load of bullshit.

[Phobus]

Katamori said:

Agree, there's impossible to make good city level with stock Doom 2 textures.

I'll try to make something with CC4 textures, I hope I can be succesfull.

CC4 is a bit of a mixed set, with a few themes and colour combinations being very different to do properly. I reckon a gothic city would be very easy though... or a techy one actually. The window textures for both sets would help immensely.

[Katamori]

Yes, the second one. I'm planning something futuristic stuff with some unusual architecture.

[hex11]

darkcvnt.wad has some good city maps (3 & 7). It's all stock Doom II textures, besides a waterfall animation and red sky.

[NaturalTvventy]

While I was working on my industrial zone map, I was looking at photography by Dernd and Hilla Becher, who took pictures of just such places. It was fun to see how close I could get to the real thing in the pics. When I didn't build based on a picture and just tried to wing it, things didn't look nearly as good.

That humongoud city level who's name escapes me at the moment was also based on real architecture. So do a little research, find some actual architecture you like the look of, and see what you can reproduce.

[Snakes]

I follow the same philosophy no matter what map I work on: height variation and natural flow. Things in a map need to be marked at least somewhat clearly, I don't care how "real" the city is.

This style is especially good for creating nonlinear maps with great gameplay. Monster should be able to roam the city streets. Also, always plan to repopulate those streets in some variation in numbers, because some players will want to take them all out before moving on to the next step in the map. This way, no matter where they are in the map, there will be something standing between him/her and victory.

Also, arch-viles. A good city map needs a... er, emergency responder ;)

[Vordakk]

Snakes said:

I follow the same philosophy no matter what map I work on: height variation and natural flow. Things in a map need to be marked at least somewhat clearly, I don't care how "real" the city is.

This style is especially good for creating nonlinear maps with great gameplay. Monster should be able to roam the city streets. Also, always plan to repopulate those streets in some variation in numbers, because some players will want to take them all out before moving on to the next step in the map. This way, no matter where they are in the map, there will be something standing between him/her and victory.

Also, arch-viles. A good city map needs a... er, emergency responder ;)

This makes me want to play your upcoming megawad even more than I already did. Come on, only 10 levels to go!

[MajorRawne]

Probably one of the best city style maps I've ever played is the deserted clown village map. The design of that city was pretty sensational, but it didn't use a lot of stock textures. I suppose a highly creative person could build a good looking, large scale city with standard textures, as long as they avoided large walls with the closed window on it.

Oh, the revised version of Alien Vendetta features an impressive cityscape at the start of map 3 but you can't get to it. If you clip over to it, it is less impressive, but it goes to show you CAN create a rather epic vista if you're careful with your texture choices.

[NoneeLlama]

Katamori said:

I saw several tries but most of them wasn't realistic enough.

Doom isn't realistic to begin with, so I don't find that to be a problem, as long as the map itself is fun to play.

[Katamori]

MajorRawne said:

Oh, the revised version of Alien Vendetta features an impressive cityscape at the start of map 3 but you can't get to it. If you clip over to it, it is less impressive, but it goes to show you CAN create a rather epic vista if you're careful with your texture choices.

Yes, I know. That one and Kama Sutra MAP01 start were the best tries I've seen.

[printz]

Eternity linked portals? How about subways and multistory buildings?