06.04.2008, 10:06
Hey thanks M8s for suggestions! 
Magpie, that's one hint I'm considering, would like to place some other stuff in the middle too, have to be careful about not placing too many objects though.
Zorin, a few remarks to your suggestions and screenshots.
This is a town template I was showing. As such the most important thing is to be featureless. otherwise if you use them on a map you'll see the same distinct features in all town. Being a template it means that when I autopop a map with it, next comes the mission of personalizing the towns, and that includes concentrating buildings in the "heart of the town". That also cleaning the incnsistencies, like big buildings at the edges etc, those you can't avoid because the way the game places the texturres and so on, no matter how you build the town templates. There are 3 textures for towns: down mid and centercity with more green in downcity etc. In the shot you see mostly the midcity template, the buildings are more sparse at the edges where there is downcity texture. I dislike the centercity texture, the ground is so dark, hopefully new town textures will come. These textures are not very rational and it's hard to populate the town in a credible way...Slovakia ones are much better
The other thing is density of objects which worries me, so I think for a template it's good to be a bit economical, that's why I can't think making a tewn template at the level of detail you showed in your very nice screenshots. To have such detail and still have good fps over a town, that would be fantastic! It's quite an interesting subject: how to make a town look ok without so much detail such that the fps will not suffer.
I think it'd be profitable discussing this stuff at large and I'm planing to start a thread inviting people to post ideas and screenshots of town templates or simply towns . Same goes for village or industrial areas..
Magpie, that's one hint I'm considering, would like to place some other stuff in the middle too, have to be careful about not placing too many objects though.
Zorin, a few remarks to your suggestions and screenshots.
This is a town template I was showing. As such the most important thing is to be featureless. otherwise if you use them on a map you'll see the same distinct features in all town. Being a template it means that when I autopop a map with it, next comes the mission of personalizing the towns, and that includes concentrating buildings in the "heart of the town". That also cleaning the incnsistencies, like big buildings at the edges etc, those you can't avoid because the way the game places the texturres and so on, no matter how you build the town templates. There are 3 textures for towns: down mid and centercity with more green in downcity etc. In the shot you see mostly the midcity template, the buildings are more sparse at the edges where there is downcity texture. I dislike the centercity texture, the ground is so dark, hopefully new town textures will come. These textures are not very rational and it's hard to populate the town in a credible way...Slovakia ones are much better
The other thing is density of objects which worries me, so I think for a template it's good to be a bit economical, that's why I can't think making a tewn template at the level of detail you showed in your very nice screenshots. To have such detail and still have good fps over a town, that would be fantastic! It's quite an interesting subject: how to make a town look ok without so much detail such that the fps will not suffer.
I think it'd be profitable discussing this stuff at large and I'm planing to start a thread inviting people to post ideas and screenshots of town templates or simply towns . Same goes for village or industrial areas..