LOD texture works on the asset editor, but not in game.

[LucasK336 54]

This problem is Solved! If you are having a similar issue, please look at a few posts below.

 

 

 

Hello all! It's been a while  . I hope you don't mind if I ask you about a little something problem I have.

 

Basically I made this building...

 

 

...and released it. People then sugested me to make a LOD for it, so I made one. Imported it and loaded the Asset Editor, it looked nice!. I then added the props, and just before updating this I decided to test it in one of my cities... you know... just in case... And guess what, the custom LOD texture didn't work! whyyy???

 

And oh boy, my journey began. Exported the models again just in case, uppercase LOD, lowercase LOD, uppercase this, added specular, alpha and normal maps for the LOD, changed its resolution to 1024 and 256, imported and exported and imported again, and it never worked. I would always get a 100% working LOD texture on the asset editor, but it would NEVER work in game, I would always get 100% reflective textures or a crappy automatic texture.

 

Here is what I mean. The two lower pictures are with the LOD activated.

 

 

And this is what the Import folder looks like:

 

 

I will give a giant digital hug to that one who helps me fixing this 

 

Thanks!

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

Could be that the texture is working, but the lack of a color map makes the whole building turn blue. Add a black image as a color map (insti2_lod_c)... definitely worth a try.

[LucasK336 54]

Thanks for the suggestion, but it didn't work. As usual, the LOD worked perfectly fine on the Asset Editor but it showed a terrible automatic texture in game.

 

 

Also, on that example I posted earlier it didn't turn blue, it turned 100% reflective. That's the other one. It always turns 100% reflective or 100% crappily automatic-textured. And yes, I also tried to give it a 100% black specular LOD map but it didn't work. Any other suggestion? 

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

Alright, then it should be the missing _lod_s texture that causes this

[LucasK336 54]

No, that didn't solve it either 

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

Very odd... I had the same problem and these two textures were always the problem. Perhaps someone else comes up with a solution, and if not, you can always send me the files and I'll have a look at it (via PM for example) ... given you trust me

[namspopof 117]

I had same problem but I have resolve it by don't save UV for the lod model.

In game, it's working.

 

I use Sketchup + SketchUV plugin.

[LucasK336 54]

I don't know anymore. After a few new tests It loaded the roof LOD textures OK, but for the walls the game decided to pick the LOD texture of another model I made weeks ago. Which isn't even on the import folder 

 

 

@namespopof Yeah, I tried that, didn't work, but thanks for the idea.

 

@Dubai Skyscraper Thanks for your offer. As long as It doesn't bother you... I will send you a PM with everything inside the import folder, maybe you can find what is wrong. Thanks a lot 

[LucasK336 54]

Tried to convert the .dae files to .fbx, just in case, but the same stuff is still happening.

 

Also, somehow the game now loads the texture of some of the LOD model faces correctly, but it autogenerates the texture for some other faces 

 

 

Maybe someone had this kind of problem, where just some of the LOD faces are correctly textured while the others are not? 

 

This is killing me

[SimBa1911 3]

I map the LOD model to the same UV map as the original, and I don't bother with a specular for the LOD. So my import folder will look like:

 

model.fbx

model_LOD.fbx

model_d.png

model_s.png

model_n.png

model_thumb.png

 

And try clearing out your import folder before starting just to be sure.

[Lot Creator 304]

Well the problem is that the game does several things auto generated, as a result things get hairy when this happens. I've personally not "encountered" many problems, however I can say that the way you make a model does affect how the game renders/builds the model ingame. The game is extremely picky when you try merging outside polygons from the single polygon that the game importer recognizes.

 

Another thing that I see is that you are importing in .dae. While this is correct for practically every 3D modded game I've encountered, I've not tested this in Skylines. I personally use .fbx (autodesk file format) as the wiki recommended that file format. I don't know if this could be affecting your model in the import process for this particular model but it doesn't hurt to test by importing the model in .fbx temporarily.

 

Also where did you get the program that does normal maps? A certain someone would like to finally do normals without B&W.

 

Hope this helped.

 

Edit: I don't believe file format has much to do with the LOD bug, my own import folder is a mess of models and textures, I don't even know how to do a low poly LOD (Great! mysteries revealed!).

[LucasK336 54]

Thanks a lot for answering

 

@SimBa1911

 

Yeah, I already tried that. It still doesn't work.

 

@Lot Creator

 

I tried that too. Used the Autodesk FBX Converter, but there was no difference at all. As usual, the LOD worked fine on the Asset Editor but not in game.

 

For the normal maps I use this website. I prefeer to load every texture separately so I can tweak the options for each one, and then put all the normal textures inside the same map. 

 

https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

 

 

 

I posted yesterday this very same problem on the official forums. Not answer yet. And I don't want to make any new building until I fix this annoying problem because I know it will happen again.

 

Maybe I could mail the devs... or something... 

[namspopof 117]

Hi Lucas, after some test on new model, I constated that a real Bug !

 

Explain :

 

When I make the model, I always test it as unique model before make a grow model.

Model on asset work fine (as same you)

When I open the game, it don't.

 

I had save 4 time (so 4 lots created) and in game, the 3 last model saved don't Lod, the fourth (so the first) become good... lol

No modification of the lod, just re-save a number of time and it's good.

 

I don't now what this bug.

[LucasK336 54]

Well, I'm sure this is some kind of bug because what is show on the Asset Editor should be what will appear in game... right? 

 

I imported this building so many times trying everything, but it never loaded correctly the LOD texture, even after creating a full new LOD model. I don't know what do do anymore 

[LucasK336 54]

YES YES YES

 

It turns out that when texturing the LOD model, we must use only the area inside the "0-1" square of its UV map. As seen on /u/justifications (Gula) mini-tutorial:

 

 

This only for the LOD model.

 

Thanks to that I could finally fix the model's LOD and update it! You can find it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=428615066]

 

 

Still, thanks to everyone!

[namspopof 117]

Hi Lucas,

 

How have you make the UV in good bounds ?

Is you can explain a few details for use the good area only.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

YES YES YES

 

It turns out that when texturing the LOD model, we must use only the area inside the "0-1" square of its UV map. As seen on /u/justifications (Gula) mini-tutorial:

 

 

 

 

 

 

What exactly does it mean to use only area inside 0-1??? I'm reading this in multiple posts but I don't understand what it means. I UV mapped my LOD model but have the same issue as in the OP.

 

EDIT: I think I understand now after some reading. The original tile space of the UV map and not from within any areas that are "tiles" of the original coordinates (0-1)?

  Edited June 25, 2015 by Mr_Maison  

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Maybe you have unuvmapped polys that go outside of the UV...

[BaskB 52]

 

What exactly does it mean to use only area inside 0-1??? I'm reading this in multiple posts but I don't understand what it means. I UV mapped my LOD model but have the same issue as in the OP.

 

EDIT: I think I understand now after some reading. The original tile space of the UV map and not from within any areas that are "tiles" of the original coordinates (0-1)?

Ok see attached. I use Blender so am unsure what it is like in other "modelling" programs.

But if you see the + shaped cursor on the Texture below, this represents my 0,0 mark on the texture when I export it. Thus as C:S only uses textures in the 0,1 area it will only display textures on my model that are TOP RIGHT of that cursor, anything below will be ignored and "random" textures get applied to model/lod. 

 

To resolve I need to move my cursor back to the very bottom left of my texture map by using the cursor location on the right of the screen and setting as 0 X, 0 Y, this happens in blender often by accident (the cursor move) as it operates on a left click of the mouse when I need to use right click readjust my polys on the map.

Of course may not be relevant here but is what I've established so far (I'm also new to the whole modelling so please any pro's forgive any terminology I've got wrong)

 

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I am just right now experiencing lod texures problems...

 

I don't even get consistant results by importing several times exactly the same source files.

Sometimes it looks like the asset editor mixes between maps (using part of the color map as an alpha map for me...).

[merc187 46]

 

What exactly does it mean to use only area inside 0-1??? I'm reading this in multiple posts but I don't understand what it means. I UV mapped my LOD model but have the same issue as in the OP.

 

EDIT: I think I understand now after some reading. The original tile space of the UV map and not from within any areas that are "tiles" of the original coordinates (0-1)?

Ok see attached. I use Blender so am unsure what it is like in other "modelling" programs.

But if you see the + shaped cursor on the Texture below, this represents my 0,0 mark on the texture when I export it. Thus as C:S only uses textures in the 0,1 area it will only display textures on my model that are TOP RIGHT of that cursor, anything below will be ignored and "random" textures get applied to model/lod.

 

To resolve I need to move my cursor back to the very bottom left of my texture map by using the cursor location on the right of the screen and setting as 0 X, 0 Y, this happens in blender often by accident (the cursor move) as it operates on a left click of the mouse when I need to use right click readjust my polys on the map.

Of course may not be relevant here but is what I've established so far (I'm also new to the whole modelling so please any pro's forgive any terminology I've got wrong)

 

 

DO you mind me asking if the coordinates to set your UV space area (as you mentioned, you need to reset it to the bottom left) is the top left and right "x/y" coordinates on the UV menu you have showing in the screenshot?
 

I thought that Blender auto defaults the space in the UV Image editor (like when you first open it) as 0,1 only.  I had no idea you could extend this or make it larger etc.  Any tips on how to make the display show more grid space than the 0,1?  I understand as well that this probably isn't useful especially in context of this thread but I've always been curious as to how to change this or take a look at the display features for that.

[boformer 3,169]

I can explain you why this is a limitation of the game:

All LOD textures are merged into one large megatexture. If you go out of the 0-1 range, the texture of a different building will be displayed.

[GC_Vos 714]

It's understandable from a technical pov. And it works fine if you take this into account while modelling. It's just a shame this prevents you from tiling textures vertically or horizontally (which I do a lot personally as you can really boost pixel density doing so). I often still end up tiling my base, then adapt the UVs so the LOD doesn't. It's a strange workflow I haven't seen other games do it like this, or even Unity for that matter, but it works fine once you get used to it.