Buildings with random objects and textures?

[phaeden 0]

Greetings,

I am wondering if it is possible to create buildings with randomly generated objects attachment and/or randomly generate textures.

Part 1 - randomly generated objects: What I would like to try is to create memory points in/on my buildings that would be "placeholders" for objects that could then be create, hopefully via a module, that would auto-populate various new objects on, in or around my buildings. For example, lets say I have a 10 x 10 meter single story buildings with stairs for roof access. I would like to be able to 'randomly' generate (again, via a module) roof top objects such as clothes hanging on a line, air conditioning units, satellite dishes, chairs, piles of trash, etc. Normally, the building would be 'sterile' until a module was activated to create the objects. The player could adjust the module (or launch different levels of them) to adjust the amount of auto-generated objects. In this way, the game would create unique environments that are beyond the scope or scale of one simple 10 x 10 meter buildings.

Second, I want to know if it is possible to create textures on buildings that could also be randomly (or user controlled) generate on buildings that have been placed in Visitor. For example, I recall that some vehicles had the random (or player set) ability to change the number on tanks/planes in the mission editor. In this way, I might be able to add "burn mark," graffiti, bullet/weapon damage, wear and tear, etc. textures on a simple building to give the appearance of many unique structures within a town.

So, there is the idea but I have absolutely no idea how to make it happen. Any of you have any ideas how one might go about making either or both of these ideas a reality?

[[aps]gnat 28]

Objects: hmmm, yes, through proxies that you randomly hide / unhide using animation.

Textures: If building classes allow hidden sections (not tested myself), I see no reason why not.

But all above assumes buildings placed in the editor.

For Visitor / Terrian placed objects, you need an expert on whats possible for static object Event Handlers.

If you can trigger an event hander for every building (hmmmmm ... wow, thats a big initial CPU hit I suspect) then you can trigger the scripts for each building to hide/unhide random proxies and splash random textures.

[phaeden 0]

Thanks Gnat. I know it is possible to do it with objects placed in the editor (just like a tank) but I wonder if it is possible to do it through Visitor....

For the buildings, I would try to do it so that it wasn't a hidden proxy/selection but would be based off memory points so that the game could, potentially, generate a lot of possible objects to replace on each building (instead of having larger building file sizes).

I believe it can be done in other programs (like VBS2) but I am not 100% certain. I'll finish what I have before I start playing around with it more.