Koesj's Building Woes: Dingbats!

[Koesj 659]

In general, baking is probably most useful with Cities: Skylines for making custom LOD textures. Which you often should! o get to baking

I suspect there are a couple of modelers out there who give all their different objects separate materials and bake them into UV channel one on a copied & collapsed exportable model. I still want to try this myself sometime btw.

Ambient occlusion... ehhh. You'll probably need (a lot of) extra space on your texture maps to make it work, and that isn't always a nice thing to have to do. Here's the diffuse of my current project, both with and without AO (plus my mostly temporary UV shell locations on the second pic):

 

Shadows!

Messy!

 

Without wanting to bake AO, all those pillars on the bottom could share a single ~30 by 320 pixel strip of diffuse texture. Before, I actually had these laid out on a vertical tiling one like the windows and alpha masks to the left, leading to a 60% higher resolution. However, it's just concrete so you don't need that sharp a texture for it to look decent, so my thinking was "hey? Why not try out a maximum amount of AO detail on this test?" A decision-making process which has led to almost two weeks of messing around with it with no end in sight 

Here it is in game, I've circled a couple of problem areas:

As you can see, AO can add some subtle (or not so subtle, in this pic) depth to an otherwise flat-colored texture. Also note the '1% monochrome noise' normal map on the roofs, too bad they don't mirror correctly in this game! I think that if all the textures were fully done - with paneling like on my original asset in the back - it could look really great. Problem is that, again, I feel severely constrained by C:S apparent issues with normal maps on symmetrical geometry. I can't add as much depth as I'd want to with the texture space I'm using.

Also, when you enter the rabbit hole of baking AO, especially on a complex model like mine, problems like the ones I've circled are super irritating to have to correct: UV map, bake, look around, find problem, re-UV, bake, look around... ad nauseam.

Anyway, I'm still not sure how I feel about this re-do. I'm learning a lot about Max, but in the end it's a 'perfect is the enemy of good enough'-type situation.

 

[Prosper Merime 128]

Hmm, I "paint" shadows in Photoshop, using blending option/inner shadow, for example. There is a possibility to add noise.

It seems that it works well. Also, if I understand correctly, for baking AO need to be set the light in Max. I haven't studied it.

In any case, this is all interesting, should all try and grow up.

For the LOD textures I use a Max`s render pictures. Only dont laugh.

[Koesj 659]

I personally just use the mental ray daylighting or global illumination renderer with a big fat 2d plane on the ground level, wouldn't know how lighting works in Max either  

Also, your texturing skills are a bit beyond mine, so keep doing what you do with shadows since I'm sure it's more than good enough!

[Matthias King 348]

You two are two my all-time favorite content creators.

[Koesj 659]

Okay imma keep boring you folks to death with my stupid, time-eating endeavor, but I think I officially like my new version better than the old one now

Still very much a WIP.

[Prosper Merime 128]

I think the "seams" are very thick on the facade of the old model. On the new it will not?

[Koesj 659]

Nope, what you see on the right is 90% of how it will turn out, texture-wise. The seams on the original was me being all fancy back when I didn't really know how PS worked, gaussian blur all over the textured edges of the concrete panels 

What I'm doing now is fully relying on the AO bake for shadowing. Problematic, because I'm getting a lot of noise on the bakes from my full model, but eh I could always 'invest' another half a day in getting separate bakes for all ~25 or so objects that my building'll be made of haha. Color-wise, I've sampled the concrete paneling on the real building from photo's and it turns out that at ten pixels per meter it looks pretty much the same as .6% non-monochromatic noise in Photoshop. I'm messing around with the brightness on the concrete textures because C:S can be a bit funky, but ~40% black looks to be alright. 

Also I've doubled the pixel width on the window masks from 1 to 2; the mipmapping was making the really thin borders disappear which made the specular distortions show up again. I'll post some screens later if I get better results, though I should actually be working on assignment stuff and preparing history classes for 16 year-olds 

 

e: I shouldn't be a moron and try to bake AO with all materials active

[Darf 1,439]

If I'm being honest, I think the old model looks a lot more detailed. While the Original panels looked a bit over done, I think the new one misses the vertical detail on the facade. I also think the windowcolor matches a lot more with the real thing on the Original.

[Koesj 659]

Well technically the new model is a lot more detailed because I'm already an extra 1200 tris in, and only the shaft is really done.

But I hear what you're saying about verticality and details having to 'pop' out some more on the textures. Some of my newer buildings actually lack the contrasts that my earlier ones had! (I'm looking at you, Chirpigroup Center and Banhammer update. Not so much the modernist offices haha.) Still, since I've locked the geometry down on the tower part I'm now treading water with texturing and the trick is to get that part right.

Conceptually I don't agree about the window colors though! They're still off color-wise, sure, but I made mistakes in the setup on the original: the non-reflective windows actually look a bit greener and lighter than the reflective ones because of the blinds and the stuff you can see through them. Also now there's blinds? That's a huge difference to me.

I'm still tweaking a lot of stuff because, again, I feel like I'm finally getting to proper texturing. Got my fatter alpha borders set up and added the first normal maps to the brown paneling at the top. Here's a screenshot straight from the -noWorkshop Asset Editor:

[Shroomblaze 320]

I have to agree with Darf, So far I like the old model better.

[Avanya 2,605]

I'm torn. Some things about the new one I like better, some things I like better on the old one. I think a main thing for me is the windows. They look a bit darker/less saturated on the old one, which I really like. They also seem a bit more reflective (or it might be the angle). I have no idea how the reference building looks, but the windows on the old looks more real to me. And I totally get the wanting to go back and apply what you've learned. I think I'll do the same in the near future with some of my stuff.

[boldlybuilding 873]

I have to agree, the old model's textures look better. There's more pop and detail to them. Now they could probably stand to be reduced a little bit, but not nearly as subtle as the new one. Specifically, on the old model, I like the more visible "seams" in the facade paneling and roof, the textures on the flat roofs, and most of all the reflectivity of the windows. It stands out more. But at the same time, its colors are more subtle.

If there's a way to combine the best of both, that would be interesting.

[Koesj 659]

I hear y'all! Gonna check out what I can do to make the textures come out much more strongly 

 

e: yeah okayyy I wasn't a total idiot when I textured the original, plus you guys are right (as usual!)

Took me 10 mins (it's a test, A TEST haha):

 

Gonna step back from texturing for a bit and figure out how much detail I can and want to cram into the base. 7k tris might be too low if I go and add all the stuff the real building has, wanna keep it below 9 though since that'd mean doubling the original count.

[Koesj 659]

Hmm, 8 tris for the sidewalls on the base like in the original, or 844 when I want to do detailwork? You (don't) decide, in what is now becoming a (non-)interactive assetbuilding experience  

(honestly, I'm probably going with it, haha)

Wait I see I can shave a couple more tris off of that sucker.

I also deleted four meters of vertical space off the base. Already knew that the building was skewed to one side because it's on a sloping plot, but it'd be stupid to stretch out all that entrance texturespace again (like in the original) when that side is most deserving of truer proportions. People'll probably be looking at the front from street-level most of the time, not the back, and in the original the backside was just 2 polys with 64m worth of texturemap (no thanks!).

[merc187 46]

On ‎2‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 11:26 AM, Prosper Merime said:

Hmm, I "paint" shadows in Photoshop, using blending option/inner shadow, for example. There is a possibility to add noise.

It seems that it works well. Also, if I understand correctly, for baking AO need to be set the light in Max. I haven't studied it.

In any case, this is all interesting, should all try and grow up.

For the LOD textures I use a Max`s render pictures. Only dont laugh.

Hmm - that's really really good stuff.  When you talk about using your blend modes - are you talking about the shadowing showing up on the briks and other features?  Would you care to quickly (in a nutshell) how you go about figuring out and actually manipulating your textures so that those shadows appear like that?  I have been studying your diffuse for the past 10 minutes and am mind-boggled at how you were able to do that procedurally.  Are you handpainting them on a separate layer and then blending that to the basic/raw (non-shadowed) diffuse below it?

[Koesj 659]

2 hours ago, merc187 said:

Hmm - that's really really good stuff.  When you talk about using your blend modes - are you talking about the shadowing showing up on the briks and other features?  Would you care to quickly (in a nutshell) how you go about figuring out and actually manipulating your textures so that those shadows appear like that?  I have been studying your diffuse for the past 10 minutes and am mind-boggled at how you were able to do that procedurally.  Are you handpainting them on a separate layer and then blending that to the basic/raw (non-shadowed) diffuse below it?

What you'd want to do is select the areas where you want the (corner of a) shadow to fall on, copy and paste as a new layer, and give that layer a certain inner shadow 'style' (FX button on the bottom of PS' layer pane/right click on the layer: blending options). 

Anyway, I'm done for the day and possibly the week since I've got a ton of stuff coming up. 7464 tris right now, but the end of my modeling woes is in sight:

Yes I'll apply smoothing groups at the end.

 

PS: how can I get a decent render going in Max with shadows & all? I forgot 

[Prosper Merime 128]

Koesj already answered. This is the easiest and fastest way to add shadow. Play with the settings.

Spoiler

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

18 hours ago, Koesj said:

 

The new one clearly looks better with the full reflection. I would add some grungle to the flat roofs, and I suppose that some of the window frames are still missing in your test.

You can still play with the contrast of the fascade. The old is a little bit too strong, the new contrast is too light IMO.

[Koesj 659]

Hah, a proper (WIP) Montreal building!

I got a great response from Colossal Order's HenkkaArt about Cities: Skylines and the symmetry modifier in 3ds Max, here's the full quote:

Quote

I've done symmetrical models without problems in 3ds Max and at least for me they have worked out well "out-of-the-box", not needing anything special in export settings or in Unity. And for those I've used the same UV coordinates for both "sides", just flipped the mirrored side's UVs and laid them on top of the non-mirrored, to get more optimal texture space. I don't know for sure why it does what it does for your models. However, I'd avoid the use of Max's symmetry modifier since it tends to break things and cause a lot of random unwanted problems.
If you want to create such a building as in your example, the more sure way to do so is to slice the building in half, then delete the other half. Then you simply drag a copy of the entire object (with the other half intact) and make an instance out of it. Then in the upper tool palette use the Mirror function and mirror it on X-axis (or whatever axis you feel like) and place the mirrored instance next to the original half so that they create the entire building. From there you just model the other half and since it's an instance, all the modifications will transfer into the other half. You can even UV map the other half and it will automatically do it for the other half as well. This way you don't even need to flip any UVs or use the symmetry modifier to create the mirrored half.
In general, what I've heard is that the symmetry tool is more work than what you gain from using it.

 

Sooo, manual UV flipping is still needed to get correct normals, not so hard with xView's select 'flipped UVs', but it'll mess me up on requisite texture space with AO bakes I'm afraid. I like his workflow tip though.

[Koesj 659]

I'll just keep updating my assetbuilding scrapbook since I'm too spooked to try and play the game right now because of Snowfall 

I've done my first high to low poly bake for a normal map (discounting my LOD efforts of course) and... yikes! 

Gotta play around with the way it's set up: I'll probably need a bottom plane to remedy the rendering errors on the bottom (also good for AO), the high poly mesh is a bit too smooth, I'm not sure how well a geosphere works out for getting the detailing right, only mapping out a quarter of the dome leads to asymmetry at the very top, etc.

 

e: yeah it's unseamly right now! Still way better than my hand-painted shenanigans earlier:

[Prosper Merime 128]

With convex forms the eternal problem, as low-poly object looks badly.

[Koesj 659]

I've basically put my re-do on ice since I've become way too frustrated with it. Instead, I was kind looking for something new to do with the luxurious amount of free time I enjoyed today. Unfortunately @Matthias King I'm just not any good with quick assetbuilding except for mid-century onward office towers, so no fast-food joints to be had here  

What I've come up with in a hurry is a 90% imitation of uptown Houston's Four Oaks Place, one out of a boring 'ol set of office towers done by thread favorite Cesar Pelli. 

This quick and dirty job is basically another version of my 'horizontal window strips with alpha'd vertical facade elements on top'-approach. Chirpigroup and my Modernist Offices were done in the exact same way.

Here I've again used 4 meter high floors with 2 meter wide curtain wall framing and roughly similar horizontal variation as the real-life buildings.

What's a bit different than my previous three assets is that this building's pretty much all glass, spec stands at 85% for the windowpanes and 65% on the infill at the moment. Basically a glass box, which isn't too weird since we're talking about ultra-late modernist (revival) architecture.

Sooo, there's all kinds of things I'd need to do to finish this sucker: a 6 meter high base/entrance inset with pillars in front, top and bottom caps for the colored glass on the shaft, railings alongside the lower roofs, top roof detailing and possibly a helipad, an _i map, and last but not least ~color variations~ 

Oh yeah, I really think this tower could come in both this tealish shine as well as... something green I guess? Some kind of garish rust or bronze, for maximum mid-eighties design sensibilities? Something pink-like, which is another one of those overused PoMo color types? Someone please correct me here or it's going to be fugly!

The asset's shaping up to be hella easy though. Instead of a 45-45-90 triangular cutout at the corners I've gone for a 3:4:5 Pythagorean triple, which means that there's zero complications on the texture map (everything's multiples of 2m wide). Also, since I'm coming from a way too complicated helltower this straightforward box is a blast to work with. UV-map a single quad, clone to element, repeat, rotate 90 degrees, and two minutes later the thing's all set up haha. Maybe tomorrow can be beta-phase on this thing? Who knows, it's refreshing to be working so fast to say the least.

Here's the diffuse map. Look at all that intricate detailing 

[Matthias King 348]

That's cool. I understand.

This building is looking good.

[Koesj 659]

So much for my Pythagorean pretensions!

Turns out doing a near 1-to-1 copy of the building eats less texture space than me trying to be clever with the corners. 45 degrees it is!

Mostly it's the railings and capping the shaft's top and bottom that are way more straightforward both in geometry and UV maps now.

This goes for the building's base as well - only 4 different textures needed really: entrance, windows, and an alpha overlay for both.

Notice the six-sided pillars? Yeah, me too  Might want to spend some more tris to make 'em look rounder...

 

Stats to date: 1933 tris / 1266 verts (not counting the UV map being all cut up) / 1024x512 / 2115 KB (!) 

 

Gotta start working on those roofs though.

[boformer 3,169]

The pillars are perfect! You can be proud of that level of optimization.

[Avanya 2,605]

I agree with boformer, the pillars are great! You have to look for it to see they're not perfectly round, and you have to be zoomed in alot.   Looks really cool! I love window frames - they look great  

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Looks good to me too! You're doing just fine

[wallacet 336]

2 hours ago, Koesj said:

Notice the six-sided pillars? Yeah, me too  Might want to spend some more tris to make 'em look rounder...

People will only notice the pillars are 6 sided when using the first person camera. Hell...I could first person around half the buildings on the workshop (mine included) and nitpick anyone of them to death. Anyone who complains about 6 sided pillars when the rest of the building is spectacular is trolling.

[Koesj 659]

Mmm I hear y'all!

[Matthias King 348]

Looking good. I'm anxious to see it on the workshop. My downtown is full, on my current city at least, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll find a spot for it. It's too nice not to. Then if I build a new city it will be one of my centerpieces.