Koesj's Building Woes: Dingbats!

[Matthias King 348]

The building looks good. I'd like to see the taller one too. I like that L-shaped complex you built. I'd like to put one like it in my city.

[ethansprang 41]

Awesome!  I like the w2w aspect as well.

Low hanging fruit:

- How hard would it be to add a 4x4 "L" corner version that lets you make w2w L shaped buildings, for larger corner blocks or office parks?

- Alternate colors, like the pale burgundy shade that seems so popular in corporate parks?

 

[Koesj 659]

@ethansprang both of those are good ideas in general, but maybe not for this particular building haha. These kinds of black slabs were generally built on square or rectangular footprints to maximize rentable floorspace, so I feel like any efforts from my side to provide the lego pieces for a more L-shaped are kind of moot.

Second, colorization would break up the intended uniformity of it all right now, though I'm thinking hard of maybe including it in the pillars and blinds behind those window strips to simulate different kinds of glazing. Thing is though, this particular kind bronzed of glass was pretty important in getting the whole corporate style to take off (there's a great article on these developments), and I wanted to celebrate the history behind it.

Also, to me, the pinkish, copper, gold, etc. sheens that you see in later buildings of this general style IMO go better with different proportions and approaches to verticality; 2m/2m alternating strips of windows and walls (in either direction), even less depth in the facade than I've got going right now, a more massive base to the building instead of the pillar-supported first floor, those kinds of things.

So what I'm saying is that different 'colors' deserve different proportions and probably even materials, like with the concrete columns on my Banhammer Office instead of the full glass anthracite/bronzed combo I've got going on here  

 

[Koesj 659]

What I don't get is that my asset doesn't show up as loadable under the 'new asset' option in-game, now that I've subscribed to it. Anyone else have this problem and/or an explanation for why this is happening?

[Koesj 659]

I keep replying to my own posts, but the second one's up and running.

 

[Simulanten 681]

A pair of them will be happily living on Copley Square in Boston... Thanks!

[Feindbold 1,190]

18 hours ago, Koesj said:

What I don't get is that my asset doesn't show up as loadable under the 'new asset' option in-game, now that I've subscribed to it. Anyone else have this problem and/or an explanation for why this is happening?

Mh, this is weird, but other workshop assets are visible?

[Koesj 659]

39 minutes ago, Feindbold said:

Mh, this is weird, but other workshop assets are visible?

Yeah they are. Dunno what's going on.

[Koesj 659]

Some much needed maintenance work: I'm redoing parts of my Banhammer Regional Office for better visuals, realism, and nightlights.

Instead of 15x3 vertically tiling window strips the facade's now made up of 25x5 horizontal rectangles, mapped out on 9 discrete 8x3m 16ppm texture blocks. A little bit less variation, but more of the same horizontally-focused nightlighting that I've done on my last three buildings.

Also, wayyy more subdued colors on the diffuse, some specular tweaks where I made the mistake not to add enough padding (this tends to show up at night, and only with Rush Hour+Time Warp have I really started to pay enough attention to nighttime again ).

Then there's the change in mechanical floors: no longer do they totally break up the clean lines of the facade! It's all been consolidated at the top and bottom. I had foolishly forgotten the whole two bunker-like bottom floors that'd be used as service areas in real life, so scratch (at least) one superfluous mechanical level up top. Makes for a better balance to the building IMO.

Aaaanyway, still lots of tweaking to be done methings.

Finally, the LOD's still on my to-do, but hopefully everything can be done and dusted before the end of the weekend.

 

So how about that RICO integration eh?  

[Shroomblaze 320]

So the left one is the new one right? If so, good job.

[Turjan 1,048]

2 hours ago, Koesj said:

Then there's the change in mechanical floors: no longer do they totally break up the clean lines of the facade! It's all been consolidated at the top and bottom.

And here I thought you had gotten your inspiration from a different building .

Spoiler

I must admit that I like the mechanical floors. They give the facade structure. However, the new solution looks also good, especially because of the larger top floor segment.

And try not to get too close to this one:

Spoiler

 

[Koesj 659]

2 hours ago, Turjan said:

And here I thought you had gotten your inspiration from a different building .

  Hide contents

I must admit that I like the mechanical floors. They give the facade structure. However, the new solution looks also good, especially because of the larger top floor segment.

And try not to get too close to this one:

  Hide contents

 

Aieeee what's that last one?! It might look too much of the same yeah...

[Feindbold 1,190]

I really like the changes, also it thems like you reduced the blue/turquoise window colors. Colors looking way better now (but thats maybe just my personal preference, I think turquoise/orange and golden colored windows are some of the worst design choises known to humankind )

[Turjan 1,048]

7 hours ago, Koesj said:

Aieeee what's that last one?! It might look too much of the same yeah...

No worries, there's not much similarity during the day. It's the side view of this one. A building exactly according to Feindbold's tastes, if I see that correctly .

I was just reminded of this specific view when I saw your new version.

[Koesj 659]

Ah yeah, CEMIG, luckily I was already aware of its existence and the large enough difference in proportions between it and BRO haha. I updated that sucker btw so go check it out in your cities if you've already got it and tell me what you think. If you haven't got it yet, shame on you, and head here  

Contrast and compare both my own and hqsouza's interpretation of the 'concrete international style'. I think they fit well with each other (though maybe not side-by-side): 

[Turjan 1,048]

Yup, they work well together:

Spoiler

Looking good.

[Ryno917 102]

Great stuff! Loved the original, but this is even better!

[Koesj 659]

Btw, someone tell me I'm a complete moron for wanting to re-do my first asset 

 

 

That Tri count is off, 446 with the new geometry vs 362 on the old model.

Parapets on the balconies though! Symmetry modifiers so I only need to re-UV the discrete elements once! Wayyy better texture resolution because I now actually know how to lay-out an atlas! 

 

Eurrrgh who am I kidding. The windows will be a gigantic pile of work if I want to get them as nice as with my last couple of buildings. Also thousands of extra tris.

[Koesj 659]

At the very least I'm going to unass the roofs, nightlights, and hopefully as many normals as I can get to 

[Darf 1,439]

What's that tool you are using?

[Koesj 659]

5 minutes ago, Darf said:

What's that tool you are using?

TexTools, really useful for quick tight packing and cropping. Also instant wireframe dumps of *all* your different objects to the clipboard (great in photoshop as a reference layer in the Subtract blend mode).

Also to 'fix' 1k DLG I want to redo everything. No ifs and buts. It's a good exercise in Max modeling though, and if I get sick of it I can just let it lie around since the building's already out there and seemingly well-liked.

I've already eliminated decent parts of the texturemap through horizontal and vertical tiling. Hopefully with instantiation and the symmetry modifier there's going to be zero artifacts on my spec and normal maps.

 

[Matthias King 348]

11 hours ago, Koesj said:

TexTools, really useful for quick tight packing and cropping. Also instant wireframe dumps of *all* your different objects to the clipboard (great in photoshop as a reference layer in the Subtract blend mode).

Also to 'fix' 1k DLG I want to redo everything. No ifs and buts. It's a good exercise in Max modeling though, and if I get sick of it I can just let it lie around since the building's already out there and seemingly well-liked.

I've already eliminated decent parts of the texturemap through horizontal and vertical tiling. Hopefully with instantiation and the symmetry modifier there's going to be zero artifacts on my spec and normal maps.

 

Know that it's very well-liked. It's one of the best buildings on the workshop, period. It looks incredible even close up, and the file size is stunningly small. You've done great work.

[Koesj 659]

Small update: I've gotten my normal map facing issues out of the way by being really careful about mirroring stuff. C:S' Unity fork doesn't handle it well, but if I manually flip UV shells in Max I can get everything pointed the right way.

Compare and contrast the original asset with a solid color test of how the 'alpha-masked partial specularity windows' (ampsw?) look in:

 

 

 

Whoa, It's exactly the kind of upgraded sharpness I was aiming for and knew was possible!

What I've now found out is that the added geometry isn't that heavy. I'm at around 5200 tris right now compared to 4575 on the original version, and with another couple of hundred extra tris I'd be back at the same level of geometric detail. However... some extra texture space has opened up, and I might as well sacrifice another 1-2k extra tris on roof/base detailing.

How would you guys feel about eventually updating the whole asset, and going from 4.5k to 6-7k tris in the process, but with the same LOD model, map sizes (1024 on the main), and wayy more detail & sharpness? Is that fair towards current subscribers?

[Judazzz 1,936]

I don't know the building's footprint, but 6-7k tris doesn't sound unreasonable to me when it comes to (what I assume is) a large ploppable. Either way, the size-to-tris ratio is probably a whole lot better than the average Workshop asset.

[Koesj 659]

10x10 footprint, so let's say ~70 tris per square  

[Judazzz 1,936]

I think that number puts a whole lot of assets (custom and vanilla) to shame  

[Avanya 2,605]

I'd say that would be a fine update. Going up let's say 2.5k tris shouldn't be that much of an issue for a building like this, and if some people can feel that change, then they should prob go through their assets and clean some out. And to have the building look sharper and more detailed would definately be worth it.  

[Prosper Merime 128]

You do beautiful buildings in the international style. In the Workshop there is a building http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=552245533 , but very black. Very not enough thin large buildings

[Koesj 659]

Thanks! I talked to templeofdoom about that Norton building of his for a bit when he commented on my 11-floor Corporate Modernist Office, and I'd say that among the international style buildings on the workshop it's pretty decent.

Of course Zed's pint-sized Chase Manhattan is beyond comparison, but first with my Banhammer Bank and later with Chirpigroup Center and the two CMO assets I've tried to emulate the modeling and texturing style. Worked out pretty well, right? The trick is all in the alpha masking of the partial spec windows and laying out the latter along horizontal strips for realistic nightlights (had to eliminate the vertical tiling on BRO to get that right with my recent update, lotsa extra work).

If the model doesn't support those two techniques, the quality just isn't going to be there. I'd like to see some stuff that incorporates the sharpness and lighting details of my approach in a totally different manner, but even naskko26's super-clean style only gets there through high tri counts, sometimes very big texture maps, and lots of repeating textures with zero normal mapping or ambient occlusion baking. 

Not to toot my own horn too much, but all those different elements - alpha masking for partial specularity/diffused windows, horizontal window strips for nightlights, normal maps, and AO bakes - have to come together if you want the perfect modern skyscraper asset. I cringe when I look at the current 1k de la Gauchetière (or even 2 Pru) and there's elemental mistakes with how I approached the asset conceptually, leading to all those elements not being there    

[Prosper Merime 128]

Oh as I dont know much. I never modeled (since October), but good work in Photoshop. I think I understand this technique. I'll try it. Btw I never baked texture or used AO maps. Should I try it?