Koesj's Building Woes: Dingbats!

[Koesj 659]

Here, have a very preliminary night-time shot to tide you over  

[Darf 1,439]

I like the level of detail and it truely shows in the results. Just hope you will add a decent LoD to this, it will be visible from afar.

[Koesj 659]

Ja I know but I'm already seeing stupid stuff again from the in-game baking process 

[Koesj 659]

Custom bake... success! The diffuse comes out a bit too bright, and I'm not going to bother with a normal map. but all in all it looks to be a lot better than what the in-game thingy can cook up:

 

 

Some eye-candy. I'm pretty happy with my quick 'n dirty diffuse and especially the high spec/deep normals on the grating:

 

 

Bit of a problem area, what to do with the balcony/indent floors here. I'm out of texture space for the former, and the latter looks kinda stupid right now:

 

Asset Size: 4447KB, with hella unoptimized textures.

 

I'll continue tinkering with the LOD, as well as those last few texturing issues, but I feel like I'm pretty close to release  

 

 

 

 

[Koesj 659]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=534117358 Go go go! Also please tell me what's wrong and right  

[Darf 1,439]

I think there's not much you can improve to be honest. It's pretty much perfect. Even the LoD is very good.
only thing I can imagine is the windowlighting, not sure if that'll add something, I could take a crack on it if you post you're diffuse, but with all the repetition it might be as you say.

[Koesj 659]

Welll here's the diffuse:

 

Those three 32x~64 windows on the left are the only ones that can be used on the tower's shaft  I'd hate to have to go and work on adding more geometry, an alpha map, and redoing my lod for what I feel is only a marginal addition...

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

This is such a beautiful building! Great job!

[boformer 3,169]

You can also use Blender for LOD texture creation, if the ingame baking does not work.

[Koesj 659]

You can also use Blender for LOD texture creation, if the ingame baking does not work.

I messed around with it a lot in 3ds Max, download and see 

[dedgren 830]

Wow!

 

David

[Skypaul 26]

Amazing works guy.

What will be the new project?

 

(good luck for having a job by the way)

[Koesj 659]

Well... I need to cool it on the overambitious projects, but the one thing that I feel is missing from the workshop is downtown 'filler' buildings: 1960s/70s midrise blocks, buildings about as high as basegame highest level ones, but at a much larger footprint, etc.

So I did a quick test to see how fast I could churn those things out:

 

Took me about an hour to model and texture, re-using parts of the 2 Pru diffuse, only adding a window specular, and not bothering with the roof and ground level as of yet. The building,s on an 8x4 footprint, 76 meters high, and with an asset size of about 1.5 MBs right now (512*512 texture map, auto LOD).

 

This is want I want to do: churn out these babies as fast as I can while keeping them clean and nice-looking. Provide for different footprints/base sizes that are often used in C:S cities - 8x4, 8x8, that kind of thing - and do quick iterations/variations to start it all off. Say 3-5 buildings as a test. Then we'll see whether or not this works out as a project  

  Edited October 14, 2015 by Koesj  

[Judazzz 1,936]

Fillers are one of the things that C:SL is sorely lacking, so great to see you create some!
But would it be possible to create a couple of growables as well? Personally I try to keep the number of unique buildings to a minimum (apart from the looks department they hardly serve any useful purpose compared to growables, so are pretty much waste of space), and growables can be re-used all over my city.

  Edited October 14, 2015 by Judazzz  

[Koesj 659]

Footprint, footprint, footprint my man, 32x32 meters is nothing  

 

e: now this is the kind of stuff I'd like to see more of, killer blocks from outer space, messing up yo' town 

So growables are out for the moment  

  Edited October 14, 2015 by Koesj  

[Judazzz 1,936]

Aight, too bad

I agree 32x32m isn't much to work with, but to be honest, to me a building like the one you're working on looks pretty out of scale compared to pretty much every growable available for C:SL. That's another reason I don't use that many 1:1 scale unique buildings: they are simply too big compared to about 99% of all assets available. Bigger footprint buildings on a 1:1 scale are more realistic on paper, but in-game often just look weird on a grander scale of things (again, imho). My downtown CBD is entirely made up of growables, with AJ3D's insanely gorgeous LaSalle-Wacker Building unique building being the only exception, as it scales well with the surrounding growables.

Having said all that, since my self-control usually goes down the drain as soon as I open the Workshop page, there's a good chance I won't be able to resist subbing to your upcoming buildings anyways, despite my reservations   (if your latest towers - which way too big/tall for my city - are anything to go by, the ones you're currently working on will be real stunners as well)

  Edited October 14, 2015 by Judazzz  

[ethansprang 41]

I prefer the look of the 1:1.5 scale stuff, but quite a few modders only make 1:1.  And, sadly, it seems some of the best early 1.5 modders are gone and may not return to update their stuff to AD.  So if I want a good looking night skyline, it's gotta be 1:1 for now.

[Koesj 659]

Buildings like these 'being out of scale' is pretty much the entire point of me wanting to add them to the game! If you look at pictures of 1970s North American downtown areas, the lack of midrise blocks in C:S becomes pretty egregious. These things were parachuted into functioning neighborhoods, needed a ton of surface parking, and IMO in the end killed off livability in those districts.

 

Exactly the kind of thing I want to do to my own cities in the game  

 

 

  Edited October 14, 2015 by Koesj  
spelling

[boldlybuilding 873]

I agree with Koesj.

I know it's largely a matter of opinion, and in that respect, I've made my opinion clear before, and to add to it:

• I hate 1:1.5 or reduced-scale buildings. Most of all when their features and windows/floors are not redone to fit the lower scale. You can't just reimport the same 1:1 scale building and scale it down, that would look stupid.
• Just because the default buildings are so small, that doesn't mean the rest has to be. It doesn't hurt to think and build outside the box, and frankly the game could use more of that vis-a-vis its scale.
• I'm a stickler for accuracy, and when it comes to making real-life buildings, a large part of that is doing it 1:1, like my World Trade Center.
• If you have one huge tower, that could look weird, yes, but the more big buildings like these we have, including taller 4x4 structures, the less odd it looks. With enough good 1:1 assets, things will look just fine.
• And for a game with "Skylines" in the title, it seems pointless if you only have tiny little things that barely rise above the rest of the buildings. What's the point of skylines if you can't make real SKYLINES? I mean with the vanilla assets only, you really don't get anything that looks good in terms of skylines. That's why we could use more 1:1 buildings of many and heights.

[boldlybuilding 873]

To add to my last comments, here's what I think when I hear "skylines":

And I don't mean specifically that it should look like that. I'd have a lot more buildings there, but I'm only subscribed to assets updated for After Dark.

A skyline should be distinctive, and have features that are themselves distinctive, things that stand out, things that rise above everything else, things that can be seen from the other side of the city.

The game isn't inherently small-scale, it's just that due to the limited lot sizes, it's severely stunted. But this can be remedied with good 1:1 landmarks. The only downside is that they serve no real purpose. I think Skylines should adopt a system similar to Cities XL, where you'd have your zones (or zoned lots) to plop, but then you'd have specific building you could plop that fit within those zones. You should be able to make large buildings, ploppable, that work as residential, commercial, industry, etc.

As for weird scale, it's really just do to the aforementioned lots sizes. If you took any bit Skyscraper from NYC or Chicago and put it down in ,say, the middle of my town, it would dwarf even some of the biggest local buildings, like city hall, which probably takes up a space comparable to the 4x4 lots. The World Trade Center's primary original complex consisted of 5 buildings and huge plazas (later the Marriott and 7 WTC were built), but before it was built, on that same site, was practically a whole small community of blocks with tons of old buildings. Before 9/11, there was even still a tiny little church right next to the south tower, left over from the old days no doubt. It was dwarfed by everything around it, and thus was easily obliterated when the tower (which was across the street) fell on it.

The point is, yes, it can look odd having 1:1 buildings, but only if you build just one or two, and if they're built in weird places, like outside the city next to farms or an airport. Build enough of them, and build them right, and you'll have a great city with a true skyline.

Even then, not everyone would agree, but that's my two cents.

[Koesj 659]

To add to the discussion a bit, take a gander at how a 8x4 modernist tower can look totally different from the growable ones we have right now. It's 'just' 129m high this Sandstone monstrosity, I dub this style Texas Brutalism, but IMO buildings like these totally breaks up the monotony of C:S' level system.

[Darf 1,439]

While I agree with that a lot of diversity in sizes and shapes makes a skyline and C:S doesn't allow you to make those as a growable, especially if you want to do 1:1, IMO fillers should be growables, because frankly said, you can't have a whole city out of unique buildings.

On the other hand there's a ton of 4x4 glass box fillers already on the workshop. Reapers buildings are the best example, Too many of these buildings make the game look really unrealistic. IMO if you want to do fillers find buildings that you can break up in 4x4. For example the last building you showed could easily be made 3x4. If you have 2 of them next to eachother you wouldn't visually notice if you made that W2W.

Anyways, i'm sure we get larger plotsizes at some point. Either through modders work or through an expansion. For me what's really missing is a lot of art deco or nouveau art buildings and brick fillers. Sc4 really did a better job then C:S at that point.

[Koesj 659]

Umm, break them up as growables? Why? Wouldn't people need to use the eyedropper or something similar?  All this to avoid having to scroll through your unique building list a bit?

I mean there's filler and then there's filler. North American downtowns are full of relatively mid-height buildings on massive footprints; 8x8 or 10x10 in game terms, that kind of thing. I'd consider this Skyline filler, but not exactly just another 3x4/4x4 midrise like they exist right now. 

They don't look particularly unique since it's the maximum floorspace at optimum pricepoint-type of architecture, but there's still a definite need for these kinds of buildings IMO. Again, it breaks up the 4x4 monotony as it exists right now, and when using, say, 6 mid-size buildings together with 3 or 4 true skyscrapers, I think you're set to have a very good-looking downtown.

Heck, if you want to keep it smaller scale, just use the mid-sized buildings as your scrapers and enact the highrise ban for the rest of your city! Which is pretty realistic anyway, from a land-use economics point of view.

[Darf 1,439]

Well, you can hardly make a city full of uniques can you? The last building you linked would look good as both 4x4 and as 8x4. If the game randomly decides there's two next to eachother it won't make a big deal, since it'll look like one building. I've made a lot of growables based on buildings which are in fact much larger than the 32m2 footprint and cut them up, but they still look good when two of them grow next to each other.

[Koesj 659]

Nope, don't agree. First of all, no-one is saying anything about making entire cities of uniques, that's a strawman argument. Second, I'd contest the notion that loading up on landmark buildings is a bad and/or weird idea for run-of-the-mill downtown areas. How many blocks should it be anyway to make it look good? 10 by 10 or something? Because that's a pretty good value proposition to me: reserve some space for taller skyscrapers (maybe 4 or 5 like I said), add >10 Midrise buildings, plop some parking garages, full squares of surface parking, service buildings, vanilla uniques, etc. There you are, downtown's more than half filled. 

All this can be done pretty quickly, without fooling around with the eyedropper or what have you. This way, adding relatively mid-rise buildings with distinct, historically accurate architectural styles to the current tall/supertall landmark glut is a very attractive proposition to me, especially in the 'let's make a cookie-cutter North American city'-context. We can debate the relative merits of growables vs. ploppables some more, but the fact is that at a superbly manageable <1.5 MB (right now), these 50-150 large footprint uniques can add a much-needed extra variety to the existing palette of workshop ploppables. All you'll have to do is scroll through some icons, and start playing this game like bonsai for even bigger nerds  

Also, take a look at this 4x4 vs 4x8 test:

 

The bigger one on the left is as of right now 258 KB larger, so from a performance POV there's no need to go for ploppables if you want a handful of these kinds of towers in your city IMO. I also think that the vertical elements on this building's facade come out way better with more repetition. They're boring buildings either way, but the pure blandness of yet another 4x4 tower in this game just gets to me somehow. And then there's the issue of managing this building in whatever growable system you've got going

 

[Skypaul 26]

Just came here to say that i would be really happy to hav these unique building fillers as unique building and my opinion is more or less the same than you Koesj

[Koesj 659]

Yes please! That sounds really interesting.

[Attercap 123]

1 / Actual cities with 4x4 plot size are boring.

2 / Ploppable buildings are fantastic. But they are useless.

3 / So : we need mods. (I dont think CO will do something about this)

4 / AJ3D you broke my heart why did you stop ? We need something like this. (Can't do it by myself !)

[Judazzz 1,936]

To add to my last comments, here's what I think when I hear "skylines":

And I don't mean specifically that it should look like that. I'd have a lot more buildings there, but I'm only subscribed to assets updated for After Dark.

A skyline should be distinctive, and have features that are themselves distinctive, things that stand out, things that rise above everything else, things that can be seen from the other side of the city.

The game isn't inherently small-scale, it's just that due to the limited lot sizes, it's severely stunted. But this can be remedied with good 1:1 landmarks. The only downside is that they serve no real purpose. I think Skylines should adopt a system similar to Cities XL, where you'd have your zones (or zoned lots) to plop, but then you'd have specific building you could plop that fit within those zones. You should be able to make large buildings, ploppable, that work as residential, commercial, industry, etc.

As for weird scale, it's really just do to the aforementioned lots sizes. If you took any bit Skyscraper from NYC or Chicago and put it down in ,say, the middle of my town, it would dwarf even some of the biggest local buildings, like city hall, which probably takes up a space comparable to the 4x4 lots. The World Trade Center's primary original complex consisted of 5 buildings and huge plazas (later the Marriott and 7 WTC were built), but before it was built, on that same site, was practically a whole small community of blocks with tons of old buildings. Before 9/11, there was even still a tiny little church right next to the south tower, left over from the old days no doubt. It was dwarfed by everything around it, and thus was easily obliterated when the tower (which was across the street) fell on it.

The point is, yes, it can look odd having 1:1 buildings, but only if you build just one or two, and if they're built in weird places, like outside the city next to farms or an airport. Build enough of them, and build them right, and you'll have a great city with a true skyline.

Even then, not everyone would agree, but that's my two cents.

First of all apologies for the mess of quotes I created - love this forum software, but the quote functionality is seriously bugged.

Anywho, I just wanted to counter that you need unique buildings to create a realistic-looking skylines. In the city that I'm working on, the CBD is exclusively made up of growable buildings (the one exception being AJ3D's superb LaSalle Wacker), and I don't think it it looks any less realistic than the (seriously beautiful) screenshots you posted. Granted, the towers in my screenshot aren't quite as tall, but most US skylines have buildings in the 100-250m. range anyways - super-talls are still a bit of an oddity in the vast majority of American cities with a prominent skyline.
The big difference compared to using lots of unique buildings is that my CBD is actually a fully functional district where Cims live, work, shop and find leisure, instead of a modern-day version of a Potemkin Village, consisting mostly of empty husks that serve hardly any other purpose than looking good.

Having said that, I'm not trying to convince people that one approach is better than the other (I've read solid arguments for both sides of the coin) - I'm just trying to show that even when strictly sticking to 4x4 growable buildings, you can create a downtown district that contains both fillers and eye-catchers, looks realistic ánd scales well with the rest of the game.

  Edited October 15, 2015 by Judazzz  

[Koesj 659]

Already saw your gorgeous shot on Reddit  

Have you got any closer pics of the downtown area? It might just give me an idea of what to aim for with producing a largeish number of 1960s/70s potemkin village buildings (strange, how realistic this is both in game and irl haha).