Real scale to Unreal - streets & buildings

[Buster]

Hey.

I have been working on a little project just for fun. I wanted to put together a collection of generic textured objects that can be stacked up to create a cityscape. Something along the lines of fancy Unreal lego pieces, which can be easily textured and duplicated for quick use.

Each piece had to be an appropriate size according to several criteria: The average dimensions of common objects in the real world converted to Unreal units, but also taking into account ease to repetitive use. In other words, I tried to keep everything base 8. I also did a lot of behind viewing to see how it actually looked.

I thought I'd share a bit of the info I collected. Please note that these are AVERAGES taken from Civic Regulations (and other such sources) from a few dozen cities in several countries. They may be different in your local area.

The whole conversion of real scale to Unreal is generally as simple as 16 units (1 default grid in the editor) is equal to 12 inches. There are of course exceptions to this rule.

A city street is 10-11 feet (3.20 m) wide per average lane. 2 of these lanes translates to a full traffic lane and a parking lane, as is found in most cities.

In Unreal units I found this to be 320 units, or 160 units per lane.

A sidewalk is 4-5 feet (1.37 m) wide on average. A common exception here is they are usually wider in the core areas. But that is mostly provided by the lot area.

In Unreal units I found this to be 96 units, or 6 feet (1.82 m). This looks and works better, keeps very close to the average sidewalk size, and easier to texture.

Putting this all together:

Your average city street (2 lanes with a sidewalk on each side) is 512 units wide. That's 96 sidewalk 160 lane 160 lane 96 sidewalk. VERY nice and simple.

The average sidewalk/street curb height is 5-8 inches (16.5 cm). Use 16 units OR 1 foot even. Trust me.

All the above stuff was easy to figure out. Next was the lengths of each section of street. Those changed based upon what part of a city you're in. Business or residential, downtown or suburban. ETC etc etc. So the main thing was to figure out the different lengths each 'modular' piece needs to be.

Again, you'll have to just take my word that these really do work out darn good. Pretty darn good. And here they are:

1280 units street 'front' section
1792 units street 'side' section

Of course, they will be 512 units wide with a 16 unit rise of sidewalk above the street. Putting these together with 512x512 unit intersections will supply you with all your city street layout needs.

A little touch is making an average 'back lane' 384 units wide. It does end up being a little wide (street pavement wise) but some of that can be used for the lot.

So now let's put all this together and make a fast city block in an average residential area. NOTE: Of course there will be wider multi-lane streets between the section of blocks. Those are put in (160 units per lane) as needed by traffic demands.

Take 2 of the 1792 unit sections and put them end to end. Put a 512x512 intersection at each end of the 'block'. The width of the block will be 1 of the 1280 unit sections. Have the 'short blocks' going street backlane street (etc). I think you get the drift.

An average 2 story house (based upon the statistics found after a few hours on Google) is 576x576 units. The average interior height of each floor is 208 units with 16 units between the floors. That's a total of 224 units per floor PLUS at least 96 units for the average height of a sloped roof. If you're going to have any steps up to the front door, don't go any higher than a total of 64 units (4 feet / 1.21 m).

When putting together quick office/apartment type buildings I came up with this:

1152x1152 .. 1152x1664 .. 1280x896

I found myself seeing those dimensions popping up everywhere. They work out quite well. Pleasing to the eye from the player's PoV and fits in VERY well with the above street sections.

This converts roughly to average city buildings being 72 feet (21.94 m) by 104 feet (31.69 m).

The 'formula' I use to figure out the height of a building is 256 units per floor + 64 units. Trust me, it works like a charm. Keep in mind that the average floor interior is 208 units high with 16 units between them. Lobbies (etc) are a bit higher, around 224 units on average. As you stack the floors on top of each other it averages out to the 'formula.'

So, a 10 story building would be 2624 units tall.

Remember the average 2 story house I mention above? 2 floors of 208 units each with 16 units ceilings plus 96 units for the roof. That's 544 units in total. Let's toss in a few stairs up to the front door. 2 feet (0.60 m) or 32 units. That's gives us an easy to work with 576 unit total height.

And look at that: 2x 256 +64 = 576 units.

One last 'rule of thumb' I have found is use a street length of 768 units for every 256 units of rise. Just keep that in mind when using bridges, overpasses, tunnels (etc). On average that 3to1 ratio to the slope fits well with all of the other 'pieces'.

WAKE UP. I'm done.

[Turboman.]

nice and interesting read (wish there was an example map to accompany that)

although i disagree with the 256uu per floor, with a floor interior of 208uu, that amount is INSANELY high for human standards, an ingame character is about 80uu high (measured with a brush, their collisionheight is about 40*2?), for that matter 128uu for a floor interior sounds alot more realistic (the fact that unreal characters jump unrealistically high is another matter )

with 80uu being comparable with 1,80m (just picking an estimate average), 128uu would be comparable to 2,88m, which is pretty much the average room hight (2,9-3m)


furniture is another difficult thing to scale with, since unreal doesn't support real crouching, its impossible to jump over obstacles in a 128uu room, i've found it acceptable to have tables of about 40-48uu, chairs to sit on around 16-24uu, the problem is that with unreal's physics a chair of that size can easily be treated as a large stairs to walk over by the player character.


unreal's environments were always overscaled in that respect, even the enemies are almost twice as tall. Epic wanted to gameplay to be spacious and roomy. Its very hard to create properly scaled environment in the game, but its very fun and rewarding if you succeed.... gameplay is another matter though, its not really fun to be fighting a skaarjgunner or officer in a narrow corridor, or not being able to jump over that desk because the player bops against the ceiling.

[GreatEmerald]

I bet the player movement speed is nowhere close to realistic, either.

[Buster]

In response to:
"although i disagree with the 256uu per floor, with a floor interior of 208uu, that amount is INSANELY high for human standards"

Huh??

16 units is 1 foot. The average interior height of a room is 8 to 10 feet. An 8 foot ceiling (128 units) is too low. It doesn't pass the 'behind view' test. When you jump up or stand in a properly scaled doorway it just doesn't LOOK right.

A 10 foot ceiling is 160 units. That still isn't right for all the reasons mentioned by Turbo. As stated at the outset, "There are of course exceptions to this rule."

It's NOT just about keeping it to a perfect mathematical conversion.

Due to the average model size and ranges of movement, how things actually look in behind view, how furniture needs to be sized (etc etc etc). After testing every height from 7 to 14 feet (112 units to 224) I have found that using 13 feet (3.96 m) 208 unit ceiling height works the best. It's what is best to represent an average 10.5 foot ceiling of an average room in an average building in an average city, all tweaked for ease of use with the UnrealEd grid.

I explained how and why I came up with the building height formula. 256 per floor +64 (ie. 3 story building is 832 units tall). It really does seems to work out pretty good.

All of these are averages of 'guidelines.' Sorry, but I just gotta chuckle. One line says 208 is too high, and a few sentences later all the reasons it needs to be that high. LoL



It's just one of those things I DO state. Trust me.

[Buster]

The main reason I came up with all this stuff was just to use for the initial layout of the streets and buildings. Once you know where all the streets and buildings will fit into the terrain, then you can replace to 'generic' cube of the building with a completed building (custom made as a mesh if you want). If that building just doesn't look right on that block then drop in another one in its place. Tear down the old building and put up a new one on the same street lot.

It's all based on 'modular game design.' I just thought I'd share a few of the Unreal scales I've worked out.

In the later games (UT2003+) the scale averages are different. Instead of 10 feet being roughly 160 units its closer to 224 units.

There is a handy conversion tool...
http://www.oldunreal.com/gatherstone/sb_tools/real2unreal-0.3b.zip

[Hellkeeper]

You stated that 16 units is 1 foot. I disagree.

When a player is 1,80 m or 6 feet tall, and 96 units high, as in UT2003/2004, then yes, you are right. However, the player's height in Unreal and UT is about 80, so 6 feet is about 80 units, precisely [url=http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:General_Scale_And_Dimensions#Units_.26_Scale]78 according to this[/url], so the equivalence 1 foot = 16 uus is incorrect. Assuming the player's objective size remains 1,80m, or 6f give or take a few centimeters, the entire scale changes with the size of the player's model. Now to find out how it works, I can reuse [url=http://hellkeeper.net/tutoriaux/Mesures.php]my own formulas[/url] in frogspeak (every unit will be grossly rounded), so that I have 80/6 = 13 1/3, so one foot is a bit more than 13 units, which means that one unit is exactly 13,3333333../12 = 1,111111.., so we have a crazy scale where one inch (2,5cms more or less) is 1,11111... units. by this logic, 256 units is about 19 feet (with tons of decimals), and you get to see that the entire thing is completely unusable for precisely realistic scaling: your ten foot ceiling will be 133 units high and 208 units is a bit above 15,5 feet.

In UT2004, as noted in my previous link, the player is 96 units high, so 6 foot = 96uu, 1f=16uu, and everything si good and nice (and then you get 256uu = 4m80 because 256/16 = 16, so 16 feet is 256uu and 16 foot, when a foot is about 30cms, gives you 480 cms).

I guess you can make a map with no visible problem by rounding everything to 1f=16u, but I just wanted to point out that I think your approach is flawed.

[Buster]

Disagree with me all you want. It don't change the facts. Grab the Real2Unreal tool. It's VERY accurate, and created for a distinct reason.

Also, you can't use the player height to figure the conversion rate. The model heights are actually based on a slightly different conversion ratio.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I didn't spend all this time to come up with these numbers on a whim. I personally don't agree with some of the numbers I came up with either. I was using ceiling heights like Hellkeeper. But I came across the same problems with jumping and furniture size.

But the more and more I tested different ratios using how it worked and looked in 'behind view' the more it just looked wrong. So began the research.

Another bonus to using this 'modular design' approach is seen when lighting and pathing a map.

Let's say you have the generic 1792x512 street section already made. You now just have to texture the road surface, texture the sidewalk, intersect and save. Now add in 3 street lights and a fire hydrant. These can be pre-made (and textured) objects (mesh or bsp). It they are bsp then place them 1 unit above the surface, so it doesn't touch. That really decreases the amount of bsp cuts, and from a player's PoV you really can't tell.

Now put in the light sources for the 3 light posts, and toss in a line the path nodes down the street. You now have a fully textured, lit and pathed section of street, so all you need to do is duplicated the whole mess and drop it in the map as needed.

As for all the discussion about my being right or wrong about the ratio 16 units = 1 foot, it doesn't matter. It is what it is, even if I personally don't like the results of my findings. They are what they are.

You'll just have to trust that I did put in all the time and work into this, or you don't. If not, then do all of the work yourself and share the results. Don't insult my results and efforts. Spend the time and do the work and research yourself, and share your findings with us all.

As for the height of a player model being 80 units. Look at it this way. That's NOT the height of the player. That is the height of the camera. The camera doesn't sit on top of the players head, it's on his shoulders. Maybe that's why when you duck your vision is below the top of the tunnel, but the top of your head still hits it.

I know that's lame, but it is a plausible reason for the collision height problems.

[pprabhu]

Agree with Turbo and Hellkeeper. I've been mapping and using the player model's height ~5.5ft 78UU for over 6 years here without problem. 256 units is very huge for a single floor.

Disagree with me all you want. It don't change the facts. Grab the Real2Unreal tool. It's VERY accurate, and created for a distinct reason.

A simple division of two numbers does not require a third party tool. Also, the only thing factual about this discussion will come from math.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

Average human height, US, age 20-29: 5'7'' = (5*12)+7 = 67''
67'' spread over 78 UU ~= 0.86''/UU
16UU = 0.82''*16 = 13.74'' ~= 1.1 feet

Also, you can't use the player height to figure the conversion rate. The model heights are actually based on a slightly different conversion ratio.

If that's true then all of Unreal is out of scale (?). I don't get what you mean here.

As for all the discussion about my being right or wrong about the ratio 16 units = 1 foot, it doesn't matter. It is what it is, even if I personally don't like the results of my findings. They are what they are.

You'll just have to trust that I did put in all the time and work into this, or you don't. If not, then do all of the work yourself and share the results. Don't insult my results and efforts. Spend the time and do the work and research yourself, and share your findings with us all.

I don't see where anyone "insulted" your conclusions. To disagree is not to disrespect.

As for the height of a player model being 80 units. Look at it this way. That's NOT the height of the player. That is the height of the camera. The camera doesn't sit on top of the players head, it's on his shoulders. Maybe that's why when you duck your vision is below the top of the tunnel, but the top of your head still hits it.

The measurements of the player model are taken from a third person perspective. The EyeHeight that the player views from is indeed lower than the full 78, but that doesn't change the fact that a full standing human is on average (in the US, age 20-29) 5'4'' and stands 78UUs.

[Buster]

I knew long before I wrote all that it would end up being a big discussion of opinions.

How about this: length and width is 16 units is 1 foot. Height is 20 units is 1 foot. Is that better?

Another factor quite noticeable when constantly checking how things actually look in behind view, the players feet are not usually touching the surface of the ground. Sometimes the model is as much as 3 units above. That's just under 3 inches. So now the average 6 ft player is more like 6'3". Now let's factor in thick soled boots and a hat. Taking all these things into consideration and then trying to find a happy average to the whole mess. It comes back to height is closest to 20 units is 1 foot.

As for saying I was insulted. Hmm. And I quote: "I guess you can make a map with no visible problem by rounding everything to 1f=16u, but I just wanted to point out that I think your approach is flawed."

My approach WAS to simplify it as much as possible with "no visible problem." So my approach was flawed.

OK. It's flawed. So the whole purpose of everything I wrote is flawed. No insult intended. Even though I fully admit that the whole thing is flawed I still think it was worth all the time.

[Buster]

In other words, I did all this to simplify stuff for myself, so I could make 'modules' to use in the fast and easy creation of city maps.

Creating stuff in Unreal to exact scale to the stuff around us is very possible. To an accuracy of 2 inches per quarter mile. But it's not easy to keep it to base 8 for easy use with the Editor grid.

KEY concept here: Base 8.

[Hellkeeper]

Oh well, sorry if you feel attacked, that was not my purpose; I was simply saying that your approach might very well work, as you said, when actually testing the map and playing, but that in absolute, objective numbers, the 16u=1f scale is wrong. That's not really a matter of opinion as much as a problem of real numbers versus the look of things while playing. I personally don't care too much about this, but I worked on converting these kind of stuff before in UnrealEd, so I thought I might add my grain of salt. Have fun

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

Manual says nali is 8 feet which is easily doable since they're hunched over a little, otherwise should be 9.

It also says the titan is 30 feet.. but it's clearly not, It's probably just made up, or the titan was scaled down to fit larger rooms, if you check it's collision cylinder it's way too small for it as well.


Really, scaling is difficult to achieve in a map without constant reference to the player, when I used to map for duke3d I used to make hallways way too big for players, although they were just fine for the big ass bosses lol

[pprabhu]

BTW Buster, thanks for putting this together. Scale is a very important topic and something that's tricky to get right. Thanks for putting together this info & the resource pack you're making. This could even open the door for interesting new opportunities such as random map generation w/ static meshes..

[Buster]

Quote: "This could even open the door for interesting new opportunities such as random map generation w/ static meshes.."

EXACTLY !!