After dark update : very bad decisions taken by CO, come and see

[Cool_Z 1,547]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/cities-skylines-after-dark-dev-diary-2-whats-new-with-modding.878916/

 

CO basically decided that the illumination map would be used as light intensity and diffuse map as the light color.

 

This will create huge problem for glass buildings and almost prevent those buildings to be using colored glass by day or completely ban the use of dark glass.

 

 

Please, all builders react to their post, maybe there's still a way to make things change.

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

... I'm not sure whether I understand this or not. In their post they are showing the base game highschool which has blue glass, but the ingame illumination is yellow 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I don't think the diffuse was blue. The speculars change the color during the day

[Drosovila 86]

Wait....I though the randomnized colors(128-255) would also randomnize the colors of the windows, but it seems I was wrong. On the building with the textures the windows light up in a yellow-ish tint even though they are blue on the diffuse map which is weird. I always make my windows very dark on the diffuse map since a white diffuse makes them look horrible. If the color was actually derived from the diffuse map...I don't know, if I would find the motivation to update all my buildings.

[Dubai Skyscraper 129]

I'm not going to make the glass of any of my buildings yellow. Why can't we use full RGB values in the illumination map instead of greyscale??

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Problem is that it would make every building heavier. i can understand them on this... but it sucks !!!!!!!

 

There must be a solution for this !!

What annoys me is that a part is not clear... does the diffuse just give the color information or is it multiplied by the illumination to get the final result. If it is multiplied they just killed our dark glass buildings. If not there's hope.

 

....

Ok I found a solution... not the best but better than no solution at all.

 

What if they keep the greyscale illumination but they add an option when we import, we could add a 0-255 value to tint the lights instead of using the diffuse color.

 

Ok it would force us to have only one color for the whole building, but at least we would'nt have to kill our diffuse maps.

  Edited August 27, 2015 by Cool_Z  

[Azurespecter 506]

Haha, calm down guys! This is CO we're talking about, they've got your best interest at heart. You act like they've never listened before.

Give me some time to get some clarification from CO, or get someone better informed to answer your questions and concern about colored lighting =)

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Haha, calm down guys! This is CO we're talking about, they've got your best interest at heart. You act like they've never listened before.

Give me some time to get some clarification from CO, or get someone better informed to answer your questions and concern about colored lighting =)

Lol... but man, our brains are boiling right now, you have no idea. 

[wallacet 336]

Haha, calm down guys! This is CO we're talking about, they've got your best interest at heart. You act like they've never listened before.

Give me some time to get some clarification from CO, or get someone better informed to answer your questions and concern about colored lighting =)

I've already got my pitchfork out though...

[Azurespecter 506]

[wallacet 336]

I might have to change...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Man... you can run Simcity will all options to max !!!! The first Simcity.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Ok good news, the values around 192 in the emission map will serve as a colorwheel going over the diffuse map color.

[wallacet 336]

Ok good news, the values around 192 in the emission map will serve as a colorwheel going over the diffuse map color.

I'm going to let someone make a tutorial for this before I even attempt nightlighting

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Ok good news, the values around 192 in the emission map will serve as a colorwheel going over the diffuse map color.

I'm going to let someone make a tutorial for this before I even attempt nightlighting

I'm not sure I understand it at all... will need some testing.

[GC_Vos 714]

It's an interesting way of doing it, I don't really understand the negativity. It will probably mean a lot of buildings have to be updated, which is not so nice, but at least they are not going the lazy way of turning 100% specular into emissive.

Will want to try before criticizing.

[pieuponieu 70]

Shouldn't we be talking about the elephant in the room?  Did anyone notice that they are also including building styles by district in the new release?  Just when boformer has developed quite the stable of themes for his amazing Building Themes Mod, they go and snatch it out from under us (I'm not really mad at a software company that listens to its users, but...).  I wonder if the functionality will even be better.  I am in love with that mod and the theme manager in general.

[Shroomblaze 320]

Shouldn't we be talking about the elephant in the room?  Did anyone notice that they are also including building styles by district in the new release?  Just when boformer has developed quite the stable of themes for his amazing Building Themes Mod, they go and snatch it out from under us (I'm not really mad at a software company that listens to its users, but...).  I wonder if the functionality will even be better.  I am in love with that mod and the theme manager in general.

They could have been developing that tech long before the release of the building themes mod. People were requesting it.

[pieuponieu 70]

Yes, but no one seems to be talking about it, that's all. I just really hope that transitioning won't be painful, especially for all the folks who've put so much effort into creating building sets. 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Yeah, We were asking for such a thing even before game release... If they integrate it at least let's hope they'll have the right set of functions in it (several themes in the same district, theme banning, adding vanilla buildings to a theme)...

 

Concerning the nightlights... I still don't understand how things are supposed to work (the 0-120 being used if we want our diffuse to be used, ok... but the 128-255 part needs more explanation. I don't understand if the 128-255 will be used as a greyscale map like the 0-120 or not) . I hope they'll give us more info soon because it still feels a bit weird.

[Shroomblaze 320]

. I don't understand if the 128-255 will be used as a greyscale map like the 0-120 or not) . I hope they'll give us more info soon because it still feels a bit weird.

I believe that this is how it's going to work.

128 not used actually, it starts at 129. So 129 will represent the lowest form of brightness that will randomly turn on or off on your building. 255 will represent the brightest illumination that will randomly turn on or off. Any of the parts of the texture using this area on the illumination map will be whiteish or slight yellowish according to CO. Meaning that you are only adjusting the illumination intensity. They have already picked the colors for you and will randomly spawn those colors on various windows.

so basically look at 129-255 as a sliding scale as we have it now from 0-255 in terms of intensity but is only used for randomness and have no say in the matter of color. 

0-120 will be the diffuse color illumination but have no option to randomly turn them on or off.

  Edited August 29, 2015 by Shroomblaze  

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Yep for me it's the thing that makes the more sense... (damn the way they explain things...).

 

I've suggested they add a colorwheel (a bit like what we have for the color variation system) so that we still can vary the global illumination tint.

 

I think it's the best way to still have some control (and save our cities from begin mostly yellow at night), I hope they could take this into account. (If you think the same, support my proposition in the PDX forums  )

[boformer 3,169]

Yes, but no one seems to be talking about it, that's all. I just really hope that transitioning won't be painful, especially for all the folks who've put so much effort into creating building sets. 

I am proud that they integrated building themes into the game.

  Edited August 29, 2015 by boformer  

[pieuponieu 70]

Yes, but no one seems to be talking about it, that's all. I just really hope that transitioning won't be painful, especially for all the folks who've put so much effort into creating building sets. 

I am proud that they integrated building themes into the game.

You should be proud. All I'm saying is that I hope they build it as well as you did.

[boformer 3,169]

Yes, but no one seems to be talking about it, that's all. I just really hope that transitioning won't be painful, especially for all the folks who've put so much effort into creating building sets. 

I am proud that they integrated building themes into the game.

You should be proud. All I'm saying is that I hope they build it as well as you did.

I think the selection of a single theme per district is ok. There is no good reason why you would want multiple themes per district (you could still create a "merged" theme in the asset editor if needed).

It is also a great feature that the district styles are limited to the growth of services/levels which are included in a style.

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Hi guys, I'm upping the subject because there's still something wrong with the color system that they propose us.

The fact that a greeyscale _i map has been chosen for the system will prevent us from doing lots of things (mostly color projection on walls. We might be able to color the "lightsources" like neons, but we won't be able to have the walls being lit the right color at night)

I invite all builders feeling concerned to read my latest post here (there are example pics to show you what the problem is) : https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/cities-skylines-after-dark-dev-diary-2-whats-new-with-modding.878916/page-6#post-19879700

 

I hope the devs will listen to us, let's make us heard there. It might not be too late for them to give us more freedom.

[ReneXL 16]

Boformer's building theme mod is pure awesomeness, and the theme manager is essential.

Judging by the feedback to the "styles" - it's 50/50 chance will they make it mix'n'match of at least two themes - they have two "styles" so what would stop them? Only one "style" would be 2 steps backwards. But this is the red line they said about styles "Buildings have specific requirements to tie-in with corner buildings and we would have needed to redo the entire stock buildings set to scale with the wall-to-wall and corner buildings feature. That obviously was not a viable option." Looks like mixing isn't gonna be a feature.

Anyhow whatever is coming out, it will be modded, and stuff can be added back to city/districts policies.

About night lights - at first I wasn't so keen about them - but they add bunch of other stuff with it. Not only in DLC's but in patches too, in general, if CO comes up with new "ordinances" it would be nice to see those tabs and lists growing. Only, if only, there is a manager (similar to cxl?) for the day/night cycle it will be a great addition.

When they (CO) launched euro buildings they said basing them on biome might not be the end result. So here's hoping the european biome will be ditched. There's too little amount of euro buildings to play a whole city only with them.

 

  Edited September 9, 2015 by ReneXL