I've been going on a bit of a http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/tileMania.png the last few days and now I'm curious to know what sort of new interior environments people would be interested in seeing in the game.

The tileset I'm working on right now is my first really serious full-scale set. The one you see in the image is a 'dev set' that I'm creating to set up the basic pieces, line up textures, etc. I'll use that as a base to build more elaborate models. I plan on releasing at least one set as a modders' resource.

So what do you think?

Tiles can be useful...but leave little to the imagination. Forced to put a pipe here and an indent there, a hallway in this place and a small room there. I just believe so much more level designing could be done if there were at least brushes with wall textures to pop on. Like with what Valve uses.

EDIT: sorry if this wasn't helpful...Just my opinion. But I'd like more variants in every tileset. People liked what Cube Experimental did with everything and they used some tiles and blocks.

how about this for fun http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/matrix_5.jpg
would be mostly making the texture really. easy enough. then just playing with a texture transform until it look good. the fixing that to every mesh object in the tile set lol. actually you don't need to make a new tile set for this one, though new UVs and adding the transforms to existing assets would suffice . so probably not a good suggestion.

how about an organic interior, tyranid hive ship or alienesque spookyness. some weird FEV infected bacteria growing everywhere, turning the walls and floor into mutant creature things. watch where you step.

decrepit anything works for me. I really want to do a rusted up scifi ish industrial complex interior.

I started doing a dome-based tileset for a canceled moon project. We planned on using the vault tiles for underground areas, but above ground domes would be the dominant structure.
Basically the same concepts could also be used for an underwater set, just with more water...

I'm open to share my design notes (such as they are) if you wish. I didn't get very far with the actual modeling.

underwater domes.... hmmm, yeah, that would be interesting project to play with. as long as it has windows to see out into the water

You can certainly do a lot with an editor like Hammer, but it's really a moot point. You could model the exact same environments in Blender or 3ds, though it might take you a little longer. Then again, you can do more in a real modeling application than you can in a brush editor, so there's a trade off there. If you want really unique environments, just use a modeling application to create the levels and skip the tiles altogether.

Games like Oblivion and Fallout use tiles instead of unique levels/interiors because they have to create a lot of different 'dungeons' to explore and it's just not feasible to create them all from scratch. Most modern interiors are essentially modular in any case, so the tiles work well in mass-produced buildings, though you generally need to dress them up a lot.

A generic tileset is easy to retex in NifSkope. Add some custom props and you pretty much have a new environment.


Ack! That would drive me bonkers. :wacko:

A buggy virtual network might be kind of fun for a cyberpunkish mod, though.



Yeah, not difficult at all. I think it might be prudent to stick with more or less geometric shapes until I get this whole process down. I do plan on doing interiors like this eventually, though.


I've been thinking about that, actually. The difficulty is coming up with a fresh look, since this describes a good proportion of all the interiors in games. A good opportunity to stretch the creative muscles.

Destination Moon? I was disappointed when it was abandoned. I'd love to see the notes, if you want to share. :nod:

I vote for the 'dome' type tilesets. The could be used underwater or on a moonscape. Doors like in Rivet city could be used if you build the doorways around the door.

Turns out the forum (the http://thewormhole.nfshost.com/forum/index.php, not a bad place for a project forum) we used has been deleted, which is hardly surprising since it's been at least a year since we posted anything. :cryvaultboy:

It was mostly discussions on construction techniques that could have been used, and the logical layouts for moon bases. We figured a mix of domes for agriculture and underground tunnels for everything else would satisfy both style, practicality and gameplay.

One of the sketches I used to illustrate my points, and some WIP images are still in my photobucket though:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/spgop004.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/GECK_tip.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/DMxDomeWIP2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/DMxDomeWIP2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/domes.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Tubal/F3/peary_high.jpg with north pole aproximately marked.

I also have about a gigabyte of moon maps, if anyone's interested.

They could also be used for the interiors of large space crafts. Hmmm. I will have to meditate on this.



Thanks for the images. The moon maps sound like a good resource, but I'm not planning on any full-scale moon base mods atm.

Pre-War versions of current tilesets. Such as the metro tileset.

I dunno, I think it'd be cool

Underwater domes with windows that somehow create the illusion of there being water outside (or another object that could be placed around windows to do that) would be awesome.

Bioshock with radioactive water?

one tileset i always wanted to see was an http://art4heart.info/gallery/data/media/18/The_Ice_Cave_small.jpg http://lh5.ggpht.com/_voIS3I6EpZ4/R9IXefDt1-I/AAAAAAAACGU/AtVpua9j0gs/IMG_0034.JPG sort of look

the problem i had with the fallout series is it's always deserts and Savannah style climates, whatever happened to the http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/images/content/ice_cavern.jpg http://www.michaelandersongallery.com/images/large/The-Ice-Cavern-MAG1.jpg of the world? or the more tropical cimates(radiation mutated rainforests would be amazing)

but i'd really love to see something like a naturally hollowed out glacier that ended up being used as a makeshift bomb shelter during the war, and an entire http://www.planetware.com/i/photo/quebec-city-cdn1271.jpg


REAL pictures of an entire building http://www.worldtravelertips.com/images/History-Of-The-Ice-Hotel-In-Quebec.jpg:

http://blog.ratestogo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/icehotel-jukkasjarvi.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Sweden_Ice_Hotel_5.jpg

http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2007/12/ice-hotel-square.jpg

http://www.pm4girls.elizabeth-harrin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/icehotel.jpg

actually i think most of the game's pre-existing tilesets for caves and vaults could be re-textured to cover most of this. pretty much any default structure with a big focus on natural curves rather than sharp angles. zeta tiles in particular would work extremely well for ice construction designs

Edit: oops, accedentally hit reply instead of edit ><

More great suggestions. Thanks guys.

My initial tileset is going to be a sort of 'lego' set. It's going to be pretty bland, but very versatile so that you can create pretty much any sort of box interior with a quick retex and some custom props.

Here's the work so far: http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/tileMania2.png.

There are currently 18 completed tiles (actually, I have to tweak a few of them to add another material to the inside of the door frames, but that shouldn't take long). You can see a retexed corner piece using office interior textures in the back. The zDevBlock piece is just an 'uncarved' block I use as a base for some of the tiles. Door frames are sized to fit vanilla doors.

All you have to do to use these in your mod is change the textures, the UV should line up perfectly as long as you use the standard 1024x1024 texture page size. The walls, floor, and ceiling all use different materials so they can all be given their own texture and material in NifSkope. If the NifTools guys ever figure out how to export nifs with working multiple collision materials you'll be able to do that just by changing the collision material in Blender and re-exporting.

I expect to have between 50 and 100 pieces by the time I'm done (and that's just the tiles). I'd also like to create tiling prop models (like pipes, vents, wires, etc.) that work the same way as the tiles. That's the plan anyways.

Keep the ideas coming. I've always loved interesting environments, and I love to hear more ideas. I'd also be happy to hear your comments and critiques of the set in progress.

i'd want to see more variety in the tiles, especially those used for homes. basically different architectural variations/additions on current tiles:

• afaik, there is only one window style you can use for interiors. how about some some http://www.findreplacementwindows.com/images/specialty-window-shapes.jpg windows?
  
• the same goes for http://www.allersaluminum.com/images/DoorStylesL.jpg... how about some sliding doors, or even fancier french doors? double doors?
  
• to me... it seems like all the ceiling heights are at ~8ft for homes. how about some 10 or 12ft (or higher) ceilings?
  
  • along the same line... how about vaulted/cathedral ceilings?
  
  
• i'd love to see some http://pics.mrlandlord.com/lc%28il%29/WashArch.jpg to create some unique room transitions.

that's my short list (if you can call it short :hehe:) of tiles i'd really like to see. i'd thought about making some of these awhile back, so if there is some interest i might be able to contribute to this project as well.

Modular interior and exterior tilesets.
Not nearly enough to actually construct what we have imagined.

Meos made a good start there.
I've just begun messing about with those.

I'd like to see more variety in residential interiors as well. The problem is that the tiles need to be constructed in such a way that the interior matches the exterior. You can't have a vault ceiling or bay window inside without a matching feature outside. In Oblivion, the house meshes are constructed as whole units: 1 inside to 1 outside. In FO3 it doesn't really seem to matter too much whether or not they match. :shakehead:

I've thought about splitting homes into chunks vertically and horizontally (into floors) but haven't really gotten around to experimenting with it properly yet. I'd love to see what you can come up with. The doors and windows should be fairly easy, since you can just change out wall pieces, it's the overall shape of the building that presents the real challenge.


Well, what have you imagined?

Details, please!

lol... totally forgot about having matching exteriors. i'd be way to difficult imho to get an exact 1:1 match, but you're right about that. you could have a non-matching exterior, but it would just look really odd.
i think the devs made it like that for simplicity's sake (being able to get away with the non-matching). i just think there are way too many combinations (even using vanilla tiles) to worry about having the windows and doors line up from inside and outside. unless you'd want to edit every exterior house model to accomodate every single window/door possibility...... :wacko: :ahhh:

there's one other thing that i found sorely missing in FO3: kitchen cabinets. i don't think i've ever seen a home that had one... sure they had the "lowerbar02" meshes all over the place, but c'mon, no cabinets? that's something i'd really want, plus it would double as storage.


i think the arched doorway is something that is doable right now, and it would add some additional visual style that i think is sorely needed for residential tilesets.


ps:
how did you get your name in the GECK object window??

actually most point lookout houses had cabinets in them, a few even had traps like grenades that poured out when you tried opening them

everything you bring into the GECK, is found in the object window under the folder its inside in the data folder.

his meshes are under the folder TheMagican. So they appear so in the GECK.

All I have gotten around to is the concept.
I do not have the graphics skills to make it happen.
What skill I do have is in coding pretty much.

ha... so it is. thanks for the info... makes organizing my meshes alot easier.

proof of concept of http://picasaweb.google.com/Falcon8204/MiscModels#5506144367842749810. if anyone wants the NIF i made, i can upload it somewhere. the UV/texture needs to be tweaked, but hey this is just a PoC.


Edit:
has anyone done size comparisons between exterior/interior models? for example, if you take Silver's house in springvale, does the length and width of the interior tiles match up with the exterior model?

I make them all day at work, I don't want to model them in the evenings too!

maybe it doesn't, you're best off looking yourself

in oblivion, i know a whole bunch of interiors and exteriors didn't match by quite a bit. iirc MW was the same.