What kind of street furniture for Sci-fi city?

zoombapup

Hi all, first post, glad to meet you all etc.

I'm working on a sort of syndicate game and I was trying to come up with ideas for street furniture to model for the environment (the city itself is built mostly procedurally).

To give you a clue, the city style I'm thinking of will be a lot like a crossover between Mirrors Edge (blank whites, blue tones in shadows, strong colour accents) and Deus Ex 3 (Harsh angles etc).

I'm trying to make the city feel that its both new and high-tech, but with an underlying air of corruption. So the city feels sterile but tainted.

So, I need ideas for props to put in the streets (characters need something to hide behind, as its a squad based stealth game).

I've got ideas for vehicles (like a high-tech garbage truck) and a few ideas for transit (sort of underground stations that accept mass rapid transit) but cant really imagine what a futuristic city would actually have otherwise. I really need some cover to have guys hide behind!

Any ideas you've got, preferably with an image linke would be appreciated. It can be anything really, just trying to brainstorm some ideas of common stuff.

Thanks.

PeterK

Hi Phil, welcome to Polycount. Consider Syd mead, and some concepts for blade runner.

also, there's a lot of concept work here to gain inspiration from: http://www.cghub.com

greevar

It sounds like you're looking for contemporary modernist style furniture, something you might see at a museum of modern art.

zoombapup

I guess I'm looking for things that might feel useful in the future. Stuff like map terminals on the street. Maybe electronic billboards and such. But not quite sure.

Ghostscape

Streetview some major metro areas if you can't go outside and walk around downtown for whatever reason. Pay attention to the kinds of things they have - bus shelters, sales kiosks, trash/planters/benches, etc.

greevar

Why would people bother with map terminals when we already have portable computers in reality? How about teleportation terminals? WiFi antennas? Picturesque parkways in place of roads and automobiles (who needs a car when you have teleportation?). Art and sculpture would be everywhere instead of traffic lights. Lit walkways. Food vendors.

marks

I'm gonna second Syd Mead here - I recently picked up a copy of Sentury II which has been an incredible reference

mdeforge

street furniture

That made me smile, lol. I've never heard it called that before. I imagined people watching TV on the curb.

Just think about where technology and culture is heading and make some predictions. I think artist predictions on the future are much more interesting than just copying the generic stuff we'll probably see one day. You have artistic liberty here, it's sci-fi!

danr

mass transit systems are always good, like a superconductor tramway either street level or elevated. Lots of excuses for clutter then - pylons and other tech gubbins, waiting shelters, info boards etc

zoombapup

Yeah, I figure that most of the environment would be non traffic, because by then someone will have figured out that a really useful city needs mass transit that works. So it really does come down to things that are either informational or entertainment. With a few functional things (as I said, trash wagon for instance) and a few law enforcement options.