Koesj's Building Woes: Dingbats!

[Koesj 659]

Check out what I'm working on right now at the end of this thread; my initial post continues below...

 

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Hiya people! I've decided to bite the bullet and (re-start) my modeling efforts for Cities: Skylines. My last effort kinda faltered at not knowing how to have a decent enough workflow going, and real-life commitments being in the way.

Still, as a pretty long-time SketchUp modeler, I really felt like I should pick up this hobby of mine again and apply it in-game. As you might be able to discern from the picture at the right, I quit in exasperation at the point where I had just figured out object instancing in 3ds Max (my intermediate software solution) and some kind of UV-mapping workflow  Fixing up normals, efficiently doing multiple texture maps, and lods were still out of my grasp though.

 

However, after putting a number of decent-sized (and seemingly popular) interchanges on my C:S workshop page (http://steamcommunity.com/id/koesj/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710) I decided to really delve into getting a nice building done.

 

And immediately bit off more than I can chew, because I wanted to do this one: 

1000 de la Gauchetière in Montreal. Yeah. As a first building? Yikes!

 

However, I came prepared with a ton of free time, and an urge to prove myself in this, so let me sum up the 10-day long process of trying to get this thing done with pictures and some descriptions  

I luuuurve Sketchup, too bad that it generally produces nasty models for games:

By being really disciplined about your modeling, stuff can definitely get done right, though:

Through instances, for... instance:

So I started UV-ing:

And filling up my texture atlas:

Then After Dark came out, deadline missed , and my model still had some faults:

I feel like I'm pretty much done with the geometry though, and a quick diffuse for a post-modern building like this one isn't that difficult either:

Never mind specular and illumination, those pretty much build themselves.

 

Still, I feel like I've still got some nasty challenges ahead of me. Somehow my instantiation messes up normal maps (even after resetting normals post-collapse in Max), and properly baking stuff into textures kinda eludes me at the moment - with my lod showing stupid mistakes all round. Also, my texture atlas is an inefficient mess, with lots of empty space and stupidly rotated elements (before I 'got' what normal maps are for). 

 

But...

 

My first building! It's not yet done, but it could have been so much worse 

 

Footprint: 10x10

Height: 206m (I think the extra meter is either something going wrong with my crown, or at the building's base)

Tris: 4575

Texture maps: 1024x1024 - 10cm surface detail resolution throughout the model. And yeah I'm kinda regretting this right now!

 

 

To continue the discussion we were having in your thread, AJ3D...

 

On 9/29/2015 at 2:57 AM, AJ3D said:

For your LOD "baking", just run your specular and illumination maps into the diffuse channel of your material, and make another render.

I would really try to pickup some of the modeling and UV tools in Max if you want to take things to the next level. Sketchup is kind of redundant now. It was originally meant to make simple models for Google Earth, but the 3D scans have replaced it. It really isn't the ideal tool for making CSL buildings. Your Sketchup models are also not as clean as you think. Although they look clean in the Sketchup viewport with all the nice Ngons, the triangle interpolation under the hood can be messy. Its not a big deal for small buildings, but it makes a big difference for giant complex ones where you've got lots of repeated patterns.

Worse case scenarios for your normal maps is that you have to flip the UV's horizontally on mirrored polygons, or include that part twice on your texture with the diffuse flipped but the normals the same direction. Its really no big deal and only takes a few seconds.

 

Yeah I'd already figured the baking into the diffuse channel out myself

Re: SketchUp. To be fair, I've kept ngon creation to such a bare minimum that it has only affected me once throughout the entire building. I look out for tri interpolition throughout my modeling workflow by importing into Max and checking the polys there. And honestly, SketchUp is so intuitive to me (in years of mucking about) that I'd rather stick with it until I've fully figured the texturing side of Max out. Only afterwards comes the point at which I'd consider upping my modeling game by learning to do it in another program, since right now it's way ahead of all the rest of my skills. 3ds Max is of course the place where I already do my UV-ing mind you.

Let me check up on the normal map situation because I'm tearing my hair out over it!

[Koesj 659]

If you really want to take your work to the next level, I would recommend you bite the bullet and learn the editable poly tools in 3DS Max.

As far as your normal map mirroring issues...

Use long thin vertical or horizontal strips of texture that can tile in one direction and be used on both sides of your model without needing to be mirrored on the texture.

Your model doesn't need to be made from continuous connected polygons. This is one area where modeling tools in 3DS max will help you. Right now you've got complex patterns and shapes in your texture that's UVed onto simple geometry. A very Google Earth type of method...

Try instead to use simple and repeatable patterns in your texture, and UV them onto single polygon strips that represent the different colors on the facade.

For example, your model has tall red strips that go in between the windows, and white bands that go around. On your texture, have one vertical and tileable column of red, one of white, and one of just windows. UV those onto single polygons, and use them to form your facade. The advantage with that is you can better model subtle changes in the facade pattern without having to add stuff to your texture. It also separates out the various colors, and makes better use of your texture space.

You could UV a "base" mesh of just windows over your tilable window strip. Then use your long thin polygon strips on top to form the various patterns with the red and white. Just place them so they are just a tiny bit above the window surface, and they will look fine in game.

Again, I only started learning how to texture last week, so I'll try and get a grip on 3ds Max modeling after I've actually delivered an asset with correct normal maps, a lod, the works.

At the moment I don't use thin vertical or horizontal strips for my asset's 'base' geometry, but discrete instantiated blocks on which I've painted overlapping UVs. The vertical elements are all of the 'thin vertical' type though, and they  You are aware of the fact that importing components from SketchUp completely eliminates its problems with continuously connecting polys, and keeps instantiation intact as well? It's set-up like this:

I don't particularly prescribe to the idea that this combination of software is somehow a fundamentally flawed method. The reason I want to be able to do the modeling in Max is purely workflow-related: disintermediation. Now that I've read your thread and the great advice here though, I kinda hate the way this model is set up because full tiling unfortunately isn't being used  Definitely something I'll be doing in my next project!

In the end my whole texture atlas is a mess. I wouldn't say there is very complex texturing going on over simple geometry though, it's just that with the knowledge I already had I could have laid them out better. I also fully re-UVed the model like three times, and threw away my texture work a couple more times as well. Doesn't come easy, this!

Anyway, some solid color texturing eye candy:

 

  Edited September 29, 2015 by Koesj  

[Koesj 659]

Aww, thanks for the compliment! The tiling tip is definitely a great idea, and something I'll take into account next time. Another thing: how do you prepare for AO passes when laying out your model+texture atlas in concept? Does tiling help with avoiding artifacting on the AO bake? I've got tons of overlapping geometry which kinda renders (haha) the whole AO process useless, at least as far as I've got it set up right now.

Also, normal maps: has the one on the right got the correct alignment for stark vertical differentiation on my building's roof? I know I've got to invert something to make it work in C:S, supposedly the Y channel, but I'm still super-unsure of how this is all going to work out. The mirroring problem seems to have gone away since I re-UVed my model (which luckily could be done quickly), but now I've got to wrap my mind around getting these normal maps looking right. I've added the temporary diffuse texture below for good measure...

 

  Edited September 29, 2015 by Koesj  

[boformer 3,169]

AJ3D, I found out that using large faces to reduce the vertex count does not actually increase performance.

[Koesj 659]

To get back to my normal map problems for a bit: Unity does bog-standard tangent based normals with the Green channel inverted, as we all know, and the engine should have zero problems with mirrored normals 'as long as binormals and tangents have been properly exported in your 3d package'! IOW click the checkbox when exporting the .fbx from Max for example, and everything should be good. Preliminary testing shows that this is indeed the case with my mirrored roof elements, so it looks like things are moving forward  

e: I've got to say I'm decently happy with how my asset's progressing. Inefficient modeling means I've still got binormals and tangents pointed the wrong way, but seeing as how this is pretty much a 'fine detail' problem on my very first building, I'm not going to have any sleepless nights about it. 

So, onwards to cooking up a decent diffuse, rebuilding my illumination map, figuring out the lod textures, and adding some niceness.

  Edited September 30, 2015 by Koesj  

[Koesj 659]

I was totally unsure on whether or not I could get those corner cupolas on the building's base to work, but lo and behold you can just crib off of Colossal Order's solutions

The game's City Hall monument has got a great-looking dome on top of it, and after extracting the mesh and textures with mod tools it was pretty clear how it got UVed. Half of the dome was flattened on the Z planar, like so: 

The end result, with an added normal map and some specular sheen, is of course really nice:

I was able to recreate this effect with my own building, using the same technique on quarters of the cupolas, which were then copied over to make them whole:

Not exactly the look I was going for, but that's ~only~ a creative problem I need to tackle. Which means I've gone past the point of worrying whether or not I could even get it done  

 

e: I guess I'll add the stupid stuff I already posted on Reddit here as well 

  Edited October 1, 2015 by Koesj  

[Koesj 659]

Sod it, I uploaded this sucker to Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=528198245

 

Please critique!

[Darf 1,439]

I'm going to try it out!

[Bolduck91 54]

You finaly made it ! Hahaha !! Congratz  I hope that it won't stop you to make tons of others ! Can't wait to try it out in my city ! Mercii 

[Koesj 659]

OK, building done? On to the next one!

 

First off it's proof of concept time: can I get vertical tiling to work?

 

Yes.

To me, this is insane, because I'm running a 260m tall model (884 tris right now) off of a 512x1024 map with a 32ppm density, and there's room to spare:

This texture resolution is just out of this world to me, so thank you AJ3D  

The only thing I'm kind of unsure about is the tiny amount of illumination variation I can cram into it. On the other hand, some creative tiling, and the fact that offices are pretty much rented out by floor, mean that I probably shouldn't worry at all.

 

Next up, the competition:

Yeah I'm pretty sure this one's going to turn out quite alright. Also, my floorcount was off a bit but I don't mind, this only took a couple of hours to cook up and with tiling I can do whatever I want har har har.

The top's going to be a total $%&^! to get right though. Every piece of art I've seen done on this building seems to not notice that it's vertically asymmetrical 

Asset size right now: 1513KB...

 

  Edited October 3, 2015 by Koesj  

[GC_Vos 714]

I want it! Looks amazing, very well done!

[DethKwok 238]

Looks great man!

Since I think your forgot to mention it, this is Two Prudential Plaza in Chicago...

I would maybe try to model those white columns as geometry. They do stick out a little bit, and somewhat mask the windows from steep angles. They also travel all the way from the street to the roof, while the facade and window patters change several times. If you look at the base especially, it would be way easier to model that if the white columns were poly boxes. They also bend around at 90 degrees at the top, and from that cool roof shape.

Use boxes, and stretch them all the way though both sides to save on polys. So one box would form the columns on both sides. I think the roofs will need to be separate polys. If you could model them in around 1500-2000 tris, that would really add a lot to the model.

If you need some extra texture resolution, I think you can do something like 2048x512, but I've not tried it. I personally have not been using a "ppm" mindset, but rather just been making things as small as I can by painting the smallest details I want visible with single pixels. So things like mortar between bricks and blocks, window frames and bitchumen roof seams are all just a single pixel wide. Some patterns and details need more "ppm" than others.

As far as your illumination, you can offset your window strips. I've also been experimenting with using single hovering illuminated windows to simulate the light "rings" you see around office buildings at night as certain tenants leave their lights on. The single poly windows need to be "just" above the surface. A ring every 10-15 floors looks nice, and only adds maybe 50 tris per ring.

Good observations about the normal mirroring. It does seem to work just fine. There must be some kind of information in the .fbx file that tells the game those faces are flipped. Its maybe the "tangents and binomials" setting, but it still works when I've got that turned off.

Also, congrats on getting your first building posted. Keep up the awesome work!

 

Can you elaborate this more? I'm interested in what you mean

[Koesj 659]

That's some sage advice regarding the light bands! I did the exact same thing on my 1000dlG model, but only through texturing near the top where I could apply the same stuff all-round. My shaft so to speak is unwrapped as offset blocks all over a window field.

I'm definitely looking into making an optimal decision regarding those columns on 2 Pru, and seeing how it'd come out as a bumped texture was simply an easy first choice. I think they stick out no more than 30cms, which seemed a tiny amount to me, but the mipmapping kinda borks their normals in some places  So next up for me is trying out your contiguous boxes.

Re: normals. They work out fine on this one because I found out about object transform, but don't ask me about simple mirroring shells and thinking they'd come out okay on the previous one hahahaheurghhh. Oh and good tip on relative texture details, I was planning on playing around with it in the space I've got left currently.

 

  Edited October 4, 2015 by Koesj  

[Darf 1,439]

I've looked at your building ingame and it looks really nice! You really need a custom lod with diffuse and illuminationmap though, from a distance it becomes really distorted.

I'd also roughen up your roof textures a bit with some dirt and maybe a little specular on those grey panels would looks good.

[Koesj 659]

The LOD model is custom of course but I went with Gula's advice of just having the game do the textures... and about 20 repacks later something came out that kinda works 

With my 2 Pru project I think I'm going for a custom bake, and depending on how it works out I'll go back to 1k de la Gau and do it with that one as well.

Good ideas on the roof dirt and specular on the paneling, the latter which I'm already testing out in my new project!

[Koesj 659]

Dang I'm fast running out of space on my 512*1024 map:

 

Question: if I up it to 512*2048 (lol the asymmetry) can I preserve my current UVs?

  Edited October 5, 2015 by Koesj  

[Darf 1,439]

If you are using 3ds, it will scale your Uvs to the new texture, but you can use the freeform gizmo to scale them back, correctly.

[Koesj 659]

Ah yeah that should work out. 

Imma test AJ3D's idea on modeling those columns on 2 Prudential Plaza in a minute, so watch this space for the results  

[Koesj 659]

Incoming screenshots Batman! At native 1920*1080 without upsampling because I wanna see how this looks during normal gameplay (take a peek at full size for best results!)

 

Yikes, jaggies:

 

And some more...

 

The difference isn't that big on this side (geometry columns start 3 windows down from the top):

 

Whoa okay, in these lighting conditions the story changes a lot!

 

Yeah I'm definitely going to continue with the experiment here, finishing off with adding all the columnspace and doing some 1-to-1 comparisons.

[Darf 1,439]

My advise would be to keep them, there's already not that much geometry for such a big building and up closer it looks a ton better. I also play normally at 175% normal resolution instead of using AA, because this game is really shitty at it.

[Koesj 659]

I'm close on pulling the definitive trigger on it yeah. I'll have to adapt my model wholesale but hell, let's just tile more than a hundred meters upwards and see where it goed  It'll also free up considerable amounts of texture space meaning that I can probably keep my stuff inside a 512x1024 area.

 

Can't run the game at anything more than 100% on my 2-year old PC though, and there's loads of people who are literally running it on a potato, but jaggies are a fact of life in C:S so eh. Also, gotta think long term!

[Koesj 659]

Maaan this modeling job just got a lot harder!

 

e: And the top is absolutely murdering me. Stupid thing isn't even done yet!

 

  Edited October 6, 2015 by Koesj  

[Attercap 123]

This top is maybe murdering you... but it's beautiful. You have to sacrify yourself for the community, and keep working.

[Bolduck91 54]

Man ! It's amazing tho ! Keep the good work ! 

[Koesj 659]

Thanks people! I've arrived back at the point where I was, but now with all the vertical elements added and the top laid out roughly the way I want it.

The latter's good to go with regard to its dimensions, but the whole thing needs to be cut up for texture placement. Again, the relative size of the diffuse I'm using just astonishes me, and I want to keep it as compact as possible  

 

I should probably refrain from posting a bit, at least until I've got my next big step out of the way: finishing my texture atlas, doing the top/crown/whatever.

 

e: 4448 tris now by the way, with an asset size of 2375 KB 

e2: jeez what the hell is wrong with the image uploading feature here, I post some stuff in another topic and then when I edit my own posts everything gets jumbled around 

 

  Edited October 7, 2015 by Koesj  

[Koesj 659]

Yeahhh that's the Koesj we know, messing up those measurements and having to redo the entire top of the building! Anyway, since going from 1:1.375 to 1:1.333 all of the diagonals in the model over the last two days, things have really started to come together, geometry-wise. I'd even say I'm done with my model, totally discounting the chance that I messed up somewhere else of course  Texture atlas is 80% done as well, and seeing as how I've instanced the $%&^! out of this thing, UVing it isn't going to be much of a problem either.

That tri count though, 9460 

[Bolduck91 54]

Yesterday I plop down the 1000 de la Gauchetière and it felt good ! Can't wait for the other ! I'm having sadly a bit of a problem when it come to save my city tho... I think it's all those seawall 32m I plop down which according to the mesh info mod are really heavy. Once in every two or three time I want to save whether by clicking on the save button, making a quick save with a shortcut or with the autosave, my game crash hardly. But... But !! The save that I made with your building plopped and the surrounding worked, so a least I've got that going for me which is nice

[Koesj 659]

True, I'm starting to come round to the idea that the complexity of the geometry is sufficiently offset by the skintness in my texturing. 

 

In other news, I'm done with the solid color texturing of the building's base, outside of the ceiling plates that'll get some rest-space in my atlas:

 

 

To me, this is genuine progress, because I'd held off on doing anything with this area before the rest of my model was done  

[Koesj 659]

Boom boom! Texturing time!

 

[Skypaul 26]

I'm waiting to have this one for start my CBD

I want it so baad