Heblem's Cities:Skylines builds

[Heblem 600]

Hello, just doing some testing, I managed to get my original HBS Wal-Mart from SimCity 4 to Cities:Skylines...

 

This one is only 150 polys! againts the original one from Simcity 4 with 40k polys. I've used normal maping and unwraps for doing this build, I might transfer some other builds I have done for SC4 to Cities:Skyline...

 

As for this Wal-Mart the only thing missing is the parking lot, im doing some personal props for those, due the game lot limits i'll leave the walmart alone and the parking lot would be separate by a different lot...

 

Any new creation I do from now will do a version for both SimCity 4 and Cities:Skylines

What do you think?

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Looks great... and good news one more good builder joins the C:SL ranks. 

[TPB 563]

Omg, that is fantastic news, this means we can transfer most SC4 BAT's to C:SL? Woooo.

[SteveManx 24]

Sweet!

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Omg, that is fantastic news, this means we can transfer most SC4 BAT's to C:SL? Woooo.

 

No we can't. Those who made them can use their previous work but it's a tedious job as there were no limitations on modelling for SC4 because all was prerendered.

[TPB 563]

Aww, oh well, still nice for those who can

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I know it's sad... but lots of buildings that were made for SC4 will be absolutely awful to convert to C:SL by the authors. The workflow is very different.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Looking really good Heblem! And if you have really large buildings make them into landmarks!

[mrsmartman 200]

Support.

[Heblem 600]

I know it's sad... but lots of buildings that were made for SC4 will be absolutely awful to convert to C:SL by the authors. The workflow is very different.

 

Right, just happened with the New York times, due its a huge building still using a 2048 pixels texture, the results looks somewhat bad, also gotta look how to do the reflections as like other buildings in game...

 

 

 

This one is 240 polys (original one for SC4 was 800k polys)

[Cool_Z 1,547]

The reflections, transparencies, normals, all of them have hard limitations in CSL (you don't make a huuuuge buildable area with a 1000000 population limit without any limitations or all our PCs would burst in flames.)

 

I've made some experiments about reflections. Under 80% you begin to have artifacts in the borders at certain distances if your polygons are not of the same specular level (the engine tries to make some "bevel" between levels of specular when the color is not uniform.).

[Heblem 600]

 

Updated the building, should I share it?

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Positive point (hey all can't be negative) you can go to the pixel level when building you textures and the engine will still render it correctly. My first released building does have details that are a pixel wide in the texture map and still show quite sharp. (yeah... I ran out of space in my uvmap...)

 

Updated the building, should I share it?

 

 

Well... speaking for myself... do you feel you could make it better ?? If you do, you know what to do 

 

Better late than not perfect.

[jaredh 195]

What I'm seeing here is telling me Skylines is not an SC4 replacement and never will be without some serious engine changes. 

If you can't get more than a few hundred polys on a model, nothing will ever look anything but the existing cartoonish stuff that is in there now. 

 

Extremely disheartening.

[eugenio1982 6]

coooooooooooooooooooooooool!

[Cool_Z 1,547]

What I'm seeing here is telling me Skylines is not an SC4 replacement and never will be without some serious engine changes. 

If you can't get more than a few hundred polys on a model, nothing will ever look anything but the existing cartoonish stuff that is in there now. 

 

Extremely disheartening.

 

You just can't say that.

 

A game that offers you full 3D in your cities, modable, where people can build and share what they've done... CSL has limits but it blows SC4's limits away. CSL is what we all waited for. (unless some unknown challenger just wants to jump on the ring... no... no competition ????

[aable 63]

 

Updated the building, should I share it?

 

 

It's beautiful!

 

I would love to have this in my city!

[jaredh 195]

 

What I'm seeing here is telling me Skylines is not an SC4 replacement and never will be without some serious engine changes. 

If you can't get more than a few hundred polys on a model, nothing will ever look anything but the existing cartoonish stuff that is in there now. 

 

Extremely disheartening.

 

You just can't say that.

 

A game that offers you full 3D in your cities, modable, where people can build and share what they've done... CSL has limits but it blows SC4's limits away. CSL is what we all waited for. (unless some unknown challenger just wants to jump on the ring... no... no competition ????

 

 

The only way I'd upgrade out of SC4 is to have one of:

 

1) A 2D isometric remake that improved graphics and fixed the bugs

2) A 3D sim game that achieves AT LEAST the same graphical standards SC4 did 10 years ago

 

Right now, what I'm seeing everywhere about Skylines is that it comes nowhere near the same graphical standards SC4 did.  It's more like SC3000 in appearance.  Sorry, it looks like a kiddie game to me.

 

Presentation is everything.  I've got no interest in building a city that looks silly.  SC4 cities look great, very visually appealing.  Right now C:S cities look fairly lame.  And as Heblem is pointing out here with models he put into SC4....you can't get anything approaching the SC4 visual standard in Skylines today.

 

Maybe that will change.  But I doubt it.  Sounds like it is a significant engine restriction.

BTW Heblem, you might want to trim your product key out of that pic....

[aable 63]

 

 

What I'm seeing here is telling me Skylines is not an SC4 replacement and never will be without some serious engine changes. 

If you can't get more than a few hundred polys on a model, nothing will ever look anything but the existing cartoonish stuff that is in there now. 

 

Extremely disheartening.

 

You just can't say that.

 

A game that offers you full 3D in your cities, modable, where people can build and share what they've done... CSL has limits but it blows SC4's limits away. CSL is what we all waited for. (unless some unknown challenger just wants to jump on the ring... no... no competition ????

 

 

The only way I'd upgrade out of SC4 is to have one of:

 

1) A 2D isometric remake that improved graphics and fixed the bugs

2) A 3D sim game that achieves AT LEAST the same graphical standards SC4 did 10 years ago

 

Right now, what I'm seeing everywhere about Skylines is that it comes nowhere near the same graphical standards SC4 did.  It's more like SC3000 in appearance.  Sorry, it looks like a kiddie game to me.

 

Presentation is everything.  I've got no interest in building a city that looks silly.  SC4 cities look great, very visually appealing.  Right now C:S cities look fairly lame.  And as Heblem is pointing out here with models he put into SC4....you can't get anything approaching the SC4 visual standard in Skylines today.

 

Maybe that will change.  But I doubt it.  Sounds like it is a significant engine restriction.

BTW Heblem, you might want to trim your product key out of that pic....

 

 

From my limited understanding of such things, It is impossible for even modern computers to render full 3D cities full of buildings with as much detail as SC4. You might be waiting a very long time. The art style of some of the details in Skylines are exactly my cup of tea, I would prefer realism over silly donut trucks everywhere too, but graphically it is quite beautiful, especially when you play around with the color balance. The aerial views of people's cities look like shots from google earth, way more than SC4 ever could - the base for very realistic cities is there. 

 

Where the game really shines is the mod support, which is integrated beautifully. SC4 has ten years of amazing user content behind it, but if you were just starting now it would be much harder to mod the game without getting lost in a dependency jungle. Which is why seeing great awesome stuff like what Heblem is creating being added to the game already is so exciting. 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

*Right now, what I'm seeing everywhere about Skylines is that it comes nowhere near the same graphical standards SC4 did.  It's more like SC3000 in appearance.  Sorry, it looks like a kiddie game to me..

 

 

*cough cough* Everything that was done in SC4 could have been done in SC3K... and reverse. It was just a choice in game design.

 

Same goes here, the devs went for a "bit cartoonish" approach for Skylines but the buildings that will be released will soon change this.

 

If you can't see this... 

[Heblem 600]

Well too late for that, lol 

 

Final modifications, forogt to include speculars, thanks Cool_Z for the suggestions...

 

Just one problem.... how do i add an icon image for the building to appear at menu?

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

I think the problem here is that the walls and windows lack a 3D depth to them and this is giving the appearance of pasted textures/pictures upon the buildings sides.

[Heblem 600]

I think the problem here is that the walls and windows lack a 3D depth to them and this is giving the appearance of pasted textures/pictures upon the buildings sides.

 

I know, the problem is im trying to limitate it to keep low polys, I'm even using normal's map to give best possible depth and details, withouth them would look worse...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I learned how to model hoping to make things for SC4 (which never happened)... and I had to learn again when I heard about C:SL...

 

If I can give advice (considering how much of a beginner I am in terms of 3D modelling but very advanced in terms of "oh my god I'm lost"). Think of big structures and how to break them down. Can I model this with a low amount of polys ? Or shall I make it a face and lose some Texture space to use an alpha map ??

[Heblem 600]

I learned how to model hoping to make things for SC4 (which never happened)... and I had to learn again when I heard about C:SL...

 

If I can give advice (considering how much of a beginner I am in terms of 3D modelling but very advanced in terms of "oh my god I'm lost"). Think of big structures and how to break them down. Can I model this with a low amount of polys ? Or shall I make it a face and lose some Texture space to use an alpha map ??

 

Good point I can arrange the unwrap uvw to maximise space and avoid repetitive texture for better details, It could work, but will take some time in editing at 3dsmax and photoshop...

 

As what I learn today about doing assets for Cities Skylines somewhat lacks of tools you can use for adding details to your buildings, unlike SC4 you need to have certain knownledge about low poly modeling, unwrap and render to texture. My technique is doing those buildings from high poly models to low poly somewhat works as expected, I think it works best at small models such homes, buildings no more than 10 floors, props, etc...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Doing is learning... and failing is learning too.

 

I (as much of a beginner I am) may give a huge advice here. If you want a building to look good you might want to burn the ambient occlusion... that means you can't overlap geometry or reuse some parts of the texture map... unless you do so for repetitive parts of the geometry, where the AO will be consistent even if you reuse the polys. (and now my head hurts...).

[Heblem 600]

BTW (off topic), this tutorial should help to those who know how to BAT for SC4 and would like to use their creations for Cities Skyline, using low poly models, take a look:

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Nice...

 

But normals aren't always the answer...

 

Low poly from the start... low poly is life... I only released one damn building and it already made my mind feel like marshmallows over a campfire.

[aable 63]

Just tested out the NYTB, saw that you put it on the workshop... the textures are pretty good, but the whole thing was very bright for me, it looked white. I would also scale it down a little, it was way bigger than any of the other skyscrapers I've downloaded from the workshop. Needs a LOD too so it doesn't degrade when you zoom out. 

 

Just my two cents, you are doing work that I don't know how to do and it looks great! This is one of my favorite buildings and I'm glad someone is working on it. It's not an easy one for sure. 

[Heblem 600]

Check out this new one, looks much better than the New York Times...

One Penn Plaza:

 

[

 

Just tested out the NYTB, saw that you put it on the workshop... the textures are pretty good, but the whole thing was very bright for me, it looked white. I would also scale it down a little, it was way bigger than any of the other skyscrapers I've downloaded from the workshop. Needs a LOD too so it doesn't degrade when you zoom out. 

 

Just my two cents, you are doing work that I don't know how to do and it looks great! This is one of my favorite buildings and I'm glad someone is working on it. It's not an easy one for sure. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions, will fix the zoom problem and best I can do for textures and scale... thanks!