Chinatown Assets

[boformer 3,169]

I would really like to see some Chinatown growables (High-Density Residential and Commercial).

A steam user had the idea that it might be easier to redecorate the default buildings with Chinatown props.

Is anyone willing to create some?

Some Ideas:

• Vertical Signs
• Canopies (With Chinese letters, or pagodas)
• Booths with Chinese Goods (sold in front of the store)
• Chinese Lanterns

A Chinatown Gate with a road going through would also be nice.

[foxnine 6]

I was thinking on doing some assets like the gate (drew some sketchs) but since I just started, Don't know how to effectively do the roofs..

On the other hand, chinese stores are easy to do. Can give a try

[soldyne 111]

I am getting ready to start with some Chinese assets.  I will try a guardian lion statue and some Chinese lantern props.  I was also going to try my hand at the gate, specifically the one you have pictured above, unless foxnine beats me to it.

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

This is another building theme that just screams for narrow streets...! You can repruduce the buildings, but in order to get this chinatown feel you really need these narrow alleys.

I would like to contribute some buildings to a chinatown theme under the following conditions:

1. Someone releases a number of props such as chinese shop signs and stuff. I'm not a good at props myself so I'd like to leave this to more skilled people

2. Someone mods narrow streets (one tile / 8m wide), or makes a mod that allows buildings to grow at pedestrian paths.

[boformer 3,169]

what about the Traffic++ zonable pedestrian paths?

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

That exists?? I've never had a chance to use Traffic++ because it was broken since the last pach (and that was before I returned). Just checked on Steam and it was finally updated. Let's have a look!

 

Edit: Tested these pedestrian roads and I'm disappointed. Yeah it is what I had in mind but sadly it is still 2 units (16m) wide. Way too much for a narrow alley  

  Edited July 14, 2015 by Dubai Skyscraper  

[pieuponieu 70]

This is another building theme that just screams for narrow streets...! You can repruduce the buildings, but in order to get this chinatown feel you really need these narrow alleys.

I would like to contribute some buildings to a chinatown theme under the following conditions:

1. Someone releases a number of props such as chinese shop signs and stuff. I'm not a good at props myself so I'd like to leave this to more skilled people

2. Someone mods narrow streets (one tile / 8m wide), or makes a mod that allows buildings to grow at pedestrian paths.

I totally agree and have been wishing for one-tile-wide streets for awhile.  

[boformer 3,169]

If I had the time, I would look into one tile roads.

[wallacet 336]

I can do signs and what not. This will essentially be a vertical billboard. Also, I do not believe awnings will be that hard to do. As I have not done much in the way of placing props onto buildings in the asset editor, are there any particulars I need to pay attention to or can you pretty much place these things where you want them on the sides of buildings?

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

All props I've used so far in my assets stick to the ground or a horizontal surface of the buiding, which makes it impossible to attach them to vertical surfaces like walls. I don't know if this behaviour can be changed or not, but a workaround would be easy, just let the prop "hover" a few meters above the ground. Then their height would be always fixed though.

[wallacet 336]

Would it be possible to model in a horizontal ledge on the buildings and just give it a transparent alpha mapping? This way, a sign could be placed on the horizontal surface, but the surface would be invisible. I don't know how the asset editor would treat the invisible section though. Anyone tried this before?

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

Yes, that should work in theory. But that makes their positions kinda fixed and requires extra work for each building. I'm sure there is an easier way... let's see what the prop modelers have to say.

[soldyne 111]

Just to give an update.  I have a Guardian Lion model ready to go.  I need to put the finishing touches on it (LOD, test in game, etc) and it should be on the workshop tomorrow.  I will have a bronze and stone variant.

I'll start working on a gate next.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Whoaaaa, this is lovely ! 

[soldyne 111]

This is my raw attempt at a Chinese gate.  obviously its still rough and needs texturing, but, you get the idea.  its big enough for a two lane road and two pedestrian paths underneath.  I will not scare you with the triangle count, but, I loaded the untextured version in the game and plopped down 10 copies in the same general area and had no slow downs.  my machine is about 5 years old, so it should be good to go.

 

[6StringShaman 112]

looks great

  Edited July 23, 2015 by heartless  
wrong forum

[wallacet 336]

This is my raw attempt at a Chinese gate.  obviously its still rough and needs texturing, but, you get the idea.  its big enough for a two lane road and two pedestrian paths underneath.  I will not scare you with the triangle count, but, I loaded the untextured version in the game and plopped down 10 copies in the same general area and had no slow downs.  my machine is about 5 years old, so it should be good to go.

 

if the tri count number were, say, 1 dollar bills....how many beers could i buy at the bar? (if you put it in terms that we can all agree with, it won't seem so scary)

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

Excellent work. Just give us the damn number though, if you release it we will figure it out anyway 

[boformer 3,169]

@Soldyne nice work! Is there a way to support you somehow, like donations or a steam gift?‌

I will see if I can make some shop signs tomorrow. I never made a model for CS before...

[soldyne 111]

LOL!  I've never thought of myself as someone worth donations before.  right now, I am content to give my time and effort to the community without reward, your support is enough

as for the tri count, well, its about 3800 as pictured.  it might end up being slightly more as I add more detail.  2300 of those tris are from the lattice work.  and yes, I removed as many "unseen" faces as I could.  one issue though, is that the model is large enough that you might see the underside of the roofing especially if you walk around in first person.

I am curious how you can find out the tri count from a .crp file.  is there some utility that extracts the mesh from the file?  also, where do you find the downloaded .crp from a subscribed resource?

The texturing is going to be the hard part.  the UV map is ugly with so many tris.  this may end up as a 2048 texture, but, I think it will be worth it in the end.

but, like I said, I loaded it into the game and plopped down about 10 of them in one area and saw no slow downs.  the LOD should be fairly easy to get under the 100 tri limit though, its that lattice work that kills it.

Chinese architecture is just so darned intricate which is why it looks so cool, but, makes for very triangle heavy meshes.

when I release this I will have 3 variants which will hook up to various sized roads (2 lane, 4 lane and 6 lane connections)

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

LOL!  I've never thought of myself as someone worth donations before.  right now, I am content to give my time and effort to the community without reward, your support is enough

as for the tri count, well, its about 3800 as pictured.  it might end up being slightly more as I add more detail.  2300 of those tris are from the lattice work.  and yes, I removed as many "unseen" faces as I could.  one issue though, is that the model is large enough that you might see the underside of the roofing especially if you walk around in first person.

I am curious how you can find out the tri count from a .crp file.  is there some utility that extracts the mesh from the file?  also, where do you find the downloaded .crp from a subscribed resource?

The texturing is going to be the hard part.  the UV map is ugly with so many tris.  this may end up as a 2048 texture, but, I think it will be worth it in the end.

but, like I said, I loaded it into the game and plopped down about 10 of them in one area and saw no slow downs.  the LOD should be fairly easy to get under the 100 tri limit though, its that lattice work that kills it.

Chinese architecture is just so darned intricate which is why it looks so cool, but, makes for very triangle heavy meshes.

when I release this I will have 3 variants which will hook up to various sized roads (2 lane, 4 lane and 6 lane connections)

3.8k is less than I thought when you said you're not going to tell us  It's actually okay, because props disappear when you zoom out so it's not a big deal.

We can find out the tri count with mods like "Mesh Info". Though, it doesn't seem to be accurate in all cases. Other mods can extract textures so I wouldn't be surprised if they can do the same with the meshes.

Subscribed assets can be found in the folder [Steam directory]\steamapps\workshop\content\255710\

For your UV map, make sure to have identical parts overlap, that saves sooo much space.

 

  Edited July 23, 2015 by Dubai Skyscraper  

[soldyne 111]

well here it is.  This is about 95% done.  I still need to make the LOD, import into the game and mess around with the texture saturation levels.  but the large part of the work is done.  this should be on the workshop some time this weekend.

[wallacet 336]

If we (yes, me when I get the time!) are going to be making a specific set of Chinatown props/buildings....do you think we should have a set description item (sort of like the Paradox competition #TEMPTED) so that it will make it easier on someone down the road to lump these all into a collection?

[soldyne 111]

a curated collection of chinatown assets sounds like a good idea.  I am not familiar with the competition though, but, if we want to put in a standardized description that would be fine by me.

 

I nominate schmidtbochum as the collection curator as he was the one that got all this started.

 

(btw, this is my 666th post, and the subtitle under my name says "Mwa ha ha!")

  Edited July 28, 2015 by soldyne  

[wallacet 336]

a curated collection of chinatown assets sounds like a good idea.  I am not familiar with the competition though, but, if we want to put in a standardized description that would be fine by me.

 

I nominate schmidtbochum as the collection curator as he was the one that got all this started.

 

(btw, this is my 666th post, and the subtitle under my name says "Mwa ha ha!")

Just FYI, schmidtbochum is getting ready to take an extended break from the modding community, so we will have to decide something here. My suggestion is, whenever anyone uploads any Chinatown asset to Steam, put #chinatown or something somewhere near the top of the description. I don't know how the Steam search feature actually works (as far as if it only searches the title of a file or the whole file description), but this should do for now.

[soldyne 111]

ok, I can start a curated collection of my own.  I will add my two and any new ones I produce.  I can also scan the workshop for anything that might fit.  going forward, if anyone else creates anything chinatown related let me know.

the question I pose to the group here is; should this collection be an "asian" themed collection or a "chinese" specific collection.

I had an idea to do a torii later, but, those are japanese not chinese.

 

*edit*  I did some experiments and all you need to do for an asset is put in a word anywhere in the description on the workshop and people can search that word and find it.  I put a "Tag: " line at the bottom of my chinatown assets and added a bunch of words like "Chinatown", "China", "Chinese", etc *edit*

  Edited August 6, 2015 by soldyne  

[boformer 3,169]

I experimented a little bit. Here is a road with chinese lanterns instead of the default street lights:

 

This could be turned into a mod.

[soldyne 111]

how does that work?  I am not sure how to proceed with the street level lanterns.  if they are placed over the road as a prop then they need to be about 16 meters wide, but, if they are placed as a replacement for the street lamp (like in your picture) then they need to be about 10 meters wide.  the ones you are using there are about 8 meters wide.

also, does the replacement cause the entire city to replace the street lamps or just where you specify?

another thing to consider is that the prop right now is already at 700 tris which seems like a lot for prop, making it bigger with more lanterns would probably double that.

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

What matters in this case are mostly the LOD stats because you rarely zoom in very close on streets (given there is an LOD, of course).

[soldyne 111]

yes, the LOD is about 114.  it would be a little more if I have to make them bigger of course