Pixel City: Computer-generated City
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Pixel City is a procedurally-generated city by Shamus Young. For the non-coders out there, this essentially means that based on a certain set of rules, this 3-D city is generated dynamically each time the program runs. Here, the video that shows the Young's process will make it more clear:
Check out the very detailed 10-part explanation for more on how Pixel City was built. Hopefully more comes out of it than just a screensaver. If it does become a screensaver though, I'd gladly use it.

You’ll love the Subversion city generator:
http://forums.introversion.co......php?t=1132
http://forums.introversion.co......php?t=1837
As an amateur film maker, something like this would be great for establishing shots of a city.
If it does become a screensaver though, I’d gladly use it.
The screensaver is available now, you just didn’t look far enough (that “10-part explanation” is actually 15 parts):
http://code.google.com/p/pixelcity/downloads/list
surely the fact that we can make a realistic looking city in this random way shows how badly cities are designed in the first place.
@Resummit
You make no sense whatsover.
i agree that most of our cities are badly designed -but I think pixel city just shows that our cities are assembled on the aggregate based on basic rules -from the macro: zoning, FAR, height restrictions, to the micro: building codes, materials standards, etc.
If anything the exercise points to the need for better rules to make better cities.
That is really well done. There are many papers on the subject, sure. But besides all that, it is always hard to make it work, make it look good AND make it easy to understand. You have done all these things very well, and good on you.
thanks
really cool screensaver luv it!!!!
Nice one.
Take a look here:
http://demoscene.tv/page.php?i.....prod=12909
That’s a PC demo where textures/geometry/sounds are procedurally generated, it does involve city stuff, buildings, roads, brigde etc. They also tried to get the smallest binary possible,
the whole(directX based) thing is 177k.
Enjoy.
Reminds me of the procedurally generated city in this 177KB demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Eg3dBnsHk
Great work!
The Matrix’s city creation algo. v. 1?
Looks like a scene from Tron 2! Where’s the MCP?
Nathan, this showed up on my digg.com front page!
Great job but It lacks some realism in that I don’t know of any city that is all modern buildings. I live in Chicago and I think the number of modern/newish bldgs concentrated in the downtown area is probably not more than 2 or 3 dozen, though it seems like a lot more.
I’d kill to use this in an FPS or flight sim or something.
Terrific job! You just miss a bit of green and landmarks and it’s perfect :)
Gyrocopter deathmatch game please.
This would be great for SimCity. One of the biggest problems that people have in that game is that they get weird looking cities because the same buildings pop up again and again. This could solve that problem.
wow, it’s really cool :)
Looks like a scene from Tron 2! Where’s the MCP?
Nathan, this showed up on my digg.com front page!!