Building Textures Explained

[oppie 487]

If you've looked at the RW4 files, you've probably noticed how all of the textures seem to be viewable - except for anything building related. This is puzzling, because I'd assume that building textures would make up the bulk of the data in the game - after all, there are many buildings and a few of them even have different color schemes. I first assumed that these would be stored in the mysterious RASTER file format, but upon viewing them, they seemed to have more to do with lighting. Plus, the colour scheme seems to be way off (which might or might not have something to do with my decoding routine). Here's a typical RASTER file you might find in the _Graphics.package:

However, others look like a pretty standard normal map:

As you can see, the above normal map even includes a brick pattern of sorts. Anyway, to make a long story short, I already had my suspicions that the buildings are textured by pasting certain 'decals' on certain locations; a window isn't modeled in 3D (this can be confirmed by looking at the 3d models of some of the buildings), but just pasted on - and with the clever use of normal mapping it can even look 3D on the higher graphics settings. Personally, I think this is very promising for the inevitable BAT - instead of painstakingly having to model each window, we can simply copy-paste the decals.

That still leaves the weird colouring on the non-normal map images though - but there's a logical explanation for that too. Remember how some of the buildings have the same model but different colour schemes? Well, it seems really obvious in hindsight but they've basically taken the pattern feature from The Sims 3 and used it for buildings. See the The Sims 3 tutorial below for an idea of how they take the RGBA channels and use them for different colours.

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Sims_3_Custom_Patterns

Still left to figure out is how they map the different decals onto the model (I don't think this works with simple UV coordinates), but I must say that this method is pretty ingenious, especially when it comes to modding. One of the strengths of the SC4 BAT was that you didn't need to have low-poly modeling skills to create a building - anyone could make them and it wasn't that hard to learn. With SC2013, I was afraid that the learning curve was going to be impossibly steep, because suddenly you had to work with a polygon count and some very tricky texturing. It seems that they've kept ease of modding in mind when they decided this approach, and I hope that thanks to this, the learning curve for the inevitable SC2013 BAT will be a lot smoother than I expected.

[JaceTwice 115]

Interesting. I'll be looking forward to seeing just how these decals are applied to each building.

 

I'm fairly experienced in with low-poly modeling and UVing for games so I'll be watching this closely. I'd like to get into modding for this game as close to ground level as possible.

 

Any resources you'd recommend for someone inexperienced with modding maxis games?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Can we create custom color schemes/pallets? I think SimCity 2013 needs more colors, such as beige, grey, brown, army green, pastels, and other neutral colors.

 

--Ocram

[cerulean 15]

im actually shocked this game has normal maps at all. the buildings looked awfully flat to me. ill have to look a little closer I guess.

[Falango 1]

I will be following this closely as well.  I didn't do any mods for SC4, but installed some.  I've been working in VFX as a modeler for 4 years, and will definitely be posting some custom buildings and models when the tools to integrate them are available.

[Titan 8]

Same here. I've been in the modding scene since early 2000. I've mostly been involved with Sim racing mods doing vehicle modeling, but I've always loved the SimCity stuff and wished I would have switched over.

 

This is going to be a very interesting modding scene.