Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
CityGen is a runtime C++ plugin for Unreal Engine 5 for building indie city-builder, RTS, and 4X games on top of infinite procedural worlds. It's built on WorldGen — inheriting its chunk streaming, biomes, hydraulic erosion, and foliage systems — and adds the city-builder layer on top: the tools the player uses to actively shape their world. Roads, building placement, and zone systems, all running in real time with no baked landscapes or pre-authored heightmaps.
Previous videos covered the road tool, bridges, save / load, and building placement. This video adds the third core verb: zoning. Paint a stripe of cells along a road and the system auto-fills it with weighted-random buildings from that zone's pool — residential, commercial, industrial. Erase a cell and the building it spawned disappears; hand-placed buildings are left alone. Junction-aware so zones don't tile across crossing roads, with mesh variants and per-placement height variation so painted blocks don't look copy-pasted.
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🏘 CITYGEN — ZONING
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► Citygen on FAB: fab.com/listings/943e7e83-f24c-4914-a3b5-d6ac38a9f017
► Built on WorldGen — get WorldGen on FAB: fab.com/listings/e4e93fbe-9326-40b8-a043-a809f788306a
► WorldGen Project File: patreon.com/posts/158314143
► Patreon (early access + project files): patreon.com/posts/159888273
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IN THIS VIDEO
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✔ Zone data asset — weighted building pools per zone type
✔ Z key — paint cells along any road, 4×4 brush per click
✔ Auto-fill — paint a cell, get a building (weighted random)
✔ Eraser — clear a cell, auto-spawned buildings disappear
✔ Origin-cell tracking — manual placements survive zone changes
✔ Mesh variants + per-placement Z scale — believable visual mix
✔ Junction-aware — zones skip cells inside crossing roads
✔ Accurate ground Z — no more buried buildings on spawn or reload
✔ Dezone-on-demolish — full footprint cleared, not just anchor
✔ HUD API — EnableZoneMode / DisablePlacementMode for one-button-per-zone UIs
────────────────────────────────────────
🎮 SUPPORT & COMMUNITY
────────────────────────────────────────
► Patreon: patreon.com/cw/CodeLikeMe
► Subscribe: youtube.com/codelikeme
────────────────────────────────────────
#UnrealEngine #UE5 #CityBuilder #GameDev #ProceduralGeneration #IndieDev #CitiesSkylinesStyle #OpenWorld #UnrealEngine5 #CityGen #WorldGen #ProceduralTerrain #Zoning #AutoFill #MeshVariants
► 👇 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 // 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐀 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧!
patreon.com/codelikeme
CityGen is a runtime C++ plugin for Unreal Engine 5 for building indie city-builder, RTS, and 4X games on top of infinite procedural worlds. It's built on WorldGen — inheriting its chunk streaming, biomes, hydraulic erosion, and foliage systems — and adds the city-builder layer on top: the tools the player uses to actively shape their world. Roads, building placement, and zone systems, all running in real time with no baked landscapes or pre-authored heightmaps.
Previous videos covered the road tool, bridges, save / load, and building placement. This video adds the third core verb: zoning. Paint a stripe of cells along a road and the system auto-fills it with weighted-random buildings from that zone's pool — residential, commercial, industrial. Erase a cell and the building it spawned disappears; hand-placed buildings are left alone. Junction-aware so zones don't tile across crossing roads, with mesh variants and per-placement height variation so painted blocks don't look copy-pasted.
────────────────────────────────────────
🏘 CITYGEN — ZONING
────────────────────────────────────────
► Citygen on FAB: fab.com/listings/943e7e83-f24c-4914-a3b5-d6ac38a9f017
► Built on WorldGen — get WorldGen on FAB: fab.com/listings/e4e93fbe-9326-40b8-a043-a809f788306a
► WorldGen Project File: patreon.com/posts/158314143
► Patreon (early access + project files): patreon.com/posts/159888273
────────────────────────────────────────
IN THIS VIDEO
────────────────────────────────────────
✔ Zone data asset — weighted building pools per zone type
✔ Z key — paint cells along any road, 4×4 brush per click
✔ Auto-fill — paint a cell, get a building (weighted random)
✔ Eraser — clear a cell, auto-spawned buildings disappear
✔ Origin-cell tracking — manual placements survive zone changes
✔ Mesh variants + per-placement Z scale — believable visual mix
✔ Junction-aware — zones skip cells inside crossing roads
✔ Accurate ground Z — no more buried buildings on spawn or reload
✔ Dezone-on-demolish — full footprint cleared, not just anchor
✔ HUD API — EnableZoneMode / DisablePlacementMode for one-button-per-zone UIs
────────────────────────────────────────
🎮 SUPPORT & COMMUNITY
────────────────────────────────────────
► Patreon: patreon.com/cw/CodeLikeMe
► Subscribe: youtube.com/codelikeme
────────────────────────────────────────
#UnrealEngine #UE5 #CityBuilder #GameDev #ProceduralGeneration #IndieDev #CitiesSkylinesStyle #OpenWorld #UnrealEngine5 #CityGen #WorldGen #ProceduralTerrain #Zoning #AutoFill #MeshVariants
► 👇 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 // 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐀 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧!
patreon.com/codelikeme
