So hey, I'm really itching to make a world that looks and feels more like the place I live in. I like the whole mountainous neighbourhoods and all, but I want it closer to home.

Now, one way of course is the distant terrain and I'm looking at ideas and ways to mesh a distant terrain that would give me a skyline like this:


And also add a city in the distance. I've been working with a model I downloaded from 3Dvia.com. But what I really like to go for is that densely built world look. I was thinking of having low polygon objects of houses spread around in the distance, like so:


So, any ideas how I would go about this, meshing wise? Maybe make a hill base in polygons and use billboards for the buildings (billboarding is thin polygons where the texture gives the illusion of an object).

I am SO BAD at making decisions, I always freeze up :D

Personally, I wouldn't worry about that until after I have finished my world and could then scale the Distant Terrain Mesh to match up accordingly. Or (which I think a simpler solution) is to make your world the maximum size, mask the camera from viewing the borders, and then scale your Terrain Mesh to fit that. It would enable you to work on your Terrain Project without worrying about perimeter issues.

Now, if you're perhaps wondering just how to texture a sky/scenery box, here's a good tutorial: http://sites.google.com/site/canadi.../skyboxtutorial

The mesh is easy, just make a large box primitive. You can find textures made specifically for sky-boxes, if interested, since the textures are a bit tricky...

I would render the city you have in Max (you use Max, right?) and then use that as my texture.

Cool idea, and then use transparency to make sure the actual game sky still shows up! I'm gonna try experimenting with that :D

Yep, good luck ^^

you could use EA's create a world tool?

Not if your game is patched up to date...

Of course I'm gonna use CAW if I'm making a world It's just I want to make a world where you get the impression it goes on forever in every direction without it being mountains.
I have a separate pc (my old one) where I've got CAW installed and the basegame without the crippling patch. I was all excited but the old pc isn't strong enough, and chokes on CAW (sad face).