BoldlyBuilding's Assets (Update & Harold Washington Library)

[boldlybuilding 873]

Just now, Koesj said:

Did you try painting them yourself?

That would be literal insanity.

Plus I have no idea how to manually paint normals. Even if I did, I wouldn't do it.

A closer look at the 1024 version:

[Koesj 659]

1 minute ago, boldlybuilding said:

That would be literal insanity.

Just for those windows I mean. It's only four lines per 

But you yourself know the texture map best haha.

 

BTW I figured out what's going on with your ESB: it has the 'Use template milestone' selection ticked in the asset properties, and somehow it reverts both itself and the High Interest Tower (I think) back to unbuildable because of some ungodly combo of mods me and those other complainers on the Workshop are running. I think if you untick the selection everything should be swell.

[boldlybuilding 873]

8 minutes ago, Koesj said:

Just for those windows I mean. It's only four lines per 

But you yourself know the texture map best haha.

 

BTW I figured out what's going on with your ESB: it has the 'Use template milestone' selection ticked in the asset properties, and somehow it reverts both itself and the High Interest Tower (I think) back to unbuildable because of some ungodly combo of mods me and those other complainers on the Workshop are running. I think if you untick the selection everything should be swell.

Well manual painting is right out, because there's quite a lot of stuff actually that I'd need to do there, and it's not worth it in my opinion. I still don't like 1024. We'll see, but don't expect it too much. It makes me physically uncomfortable looking at 1024...

As for the ESB, I just updated it. Please let me know if that fixes it.

[boldlybuilding 873]

I just looked at the base game buildings, and a ridiculous number of them use 2048x2048 textures. A few big buildings that are still much smaller and far less detailed than this one, a number of service buildings, and quite a few growables. A few use 2048x1024. And remember, none of these are quite as big or nearly as detailed as Willis Tower will be. I do try to do things by a standard that's not unreasonable. Usually that means a combination of finding a balance between detail, variation, tris, resolution, and whatever else, and "if the devs did it, it's probably okay for me to do it, too." (Especially, I might add, if they did it for smaller and less detail buildings.) Ideally all buildings would use smaller textures. I know it takes more RAM. But if this does end up using 2048x2048, it's not the end of the world  It's a gigantic super-detailed probably rarely-used ploppable that's bigger than most other assets, so I don't think it's unreasonable. I know I've used that size a lot, most of my buildings have been, well, BIG. Maybe the time has come to do some smaller ones soon... And ones of my own design, so I don't have to worry about lots of unique details to stuff into the texture or getting headaches figuring out how to divide something up.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

You NEED bigger textures for bigger buildings, it's a fact.

If you build with texture sizes according to the size of your asset, people complaining can chose to not subscibe

[boldlybuilding 873]

I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out for all this. Maybe it'd be best if I just left all this on the back burner. I have other things to do, anyway, especially Willis. I'm just incapable of doing things on a small scale.

It's a habit that's just hard to break, which is why I say I'm probably not cut out for this. I once had an engineering class. We all had to make marble-sorting robots. The catch was that we had to use as few parts as possible, the lowest "budget". It was some deal similar to K'Nex with motors and stuff. In the end, I ended up using an absurd number of parts. There were better ways to do it, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out. But, hey, it was sturdy. It worked better than everybody else's machines. My problem is that I don't know how to do things conservatively. I waste food, drink, time (oh, do I waste time), money, electricity, hard drive space, texture space, triangles, and who knows what else, and I do it all in excess. Every time I attempt to not do it, I do it anyway.

But at the same time, maybe I should just finish it as planned. Yes, even the stupid plaza that everyone hates. Yeah, it all adds up to a ridiculous amount. The WTC alone is enough to melt anybody's PC. I can't really justify that beyond "anything less wouldn't look great," and is probably best explicable with "I just don't know how to do better." The same applies here. Even without the extra plaza bit, this would still be 2048x2048. The plaza on the side will be a sub-building. That one I do plan to have a lower-resolution. Or maybe an alternate version still isn't a bad idea, like what I was contemplating for the WTC. One that is just the tower, no plazas, smaller texture. I just don't want my workshop to become a confusing mess of alternate versions of things. It'd be nice if there were options for different versions of things when subscribing.

And 512x512, even for this in a basic form. Haha. Hah.

I pine for the day when technology is advanced enough that this won't even be an issue. I can just imagine the first time some poor sod first decided to use a 64x64 texture instead of 16x16 in a game. People all over probably suffered from that one.

[Koesj 659]

7 minutes ago, AJ3D said:

I think Koesj has shown you can make huge detailed towers without 20+MB filesize.

Well... I did make  a tower about a quarter Willis' size and which used 1024x1024 textures 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I never said that you had to use bigger textures, but that you needed them.

 

Of course when you can manage to use a smaller size it will always be better... but if you want quality and if you go big, your textures will go big.

[boldlybuilding 873]

Just now, Koesj said:

Well... I did make  a tower about a quarter Willis' size and which used 1024x1024 textures 

I think it's partly, or largely, down to how detailed and accurate you want it. I could do it much smaller, too, if I only accounted for one type of window and had nothing at the base and little of anything else. Basic tower. Basic windows. Only enough variation for night lights. No plaza or anything else, even for the main tower. Very few details elsewhere. But that's just not the kind of asset I want to create. If I was making this like that, or along the lines of what Koesj makes, and still had a 2048x2048 texture, then you'd have every reason, good reason, to say "hey, why so big?"

[Koesj 659]

Just don't feel down man, your tower's going to be awesome and around the same filesize as tons of lesser, way $%&^!tier assets on the Workshop. We're just picking on you because our assets are smaller in physical size! 

[boldlybuilding 873]

Just now, Cool_Z said:

I never said that you had to use bigger textures, but that you needed them.

 

Of course when you can manage to use a smaller size it will always be better... but if you want quality and if you got big, your textures will go big.

Remember, though, it's not just about sharpness and actual asset size. It depends on how many unique details there are. The WTC was so big because there are lots of unique details. This one is big because there are so many unique details. I want to capture the nuance of these buildings. That's impossible to do if you only give yourself 512x512 to work with. It's fine for a basic tower, or if I wanted this to be a basic somewhat approximate representation of the real thing, but like I said, that's not what I'm aiming for. Sometimes you CAN capture that with smaller textures. Depends on the building and style, and I suppose how you model it. But sometimes... not really.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I think people can choose to sub or not sub to assets with large file sizes. I learned to accept Boldlybuilding as the "Macy's" of buildings

I would usually NEVER sub to monstrosities that have such huge tri counts but I'm delighted to look at the Empire Stae Building in my city. I consider it a splurge I will do every now and then. I would hate to see you stop Boldly! Keep going.

 

Can things be optimized better...that can be true for all of us. Some creators are better with tools than others. I know I'm still learning and plan to optimize some of my assets. The only things I would complain about is bad nightlighting and bad LODs....I just skip them and move on. However, I do recognize that my heavier assets get less subscriptions.

[boldlybuilding 873]

To be honest, another issue is that I'm use to making models for engines that can handle more.

I started out modeling in 2008. My first models were basic experiments in rendering. Before that, I had a few bits of modeling in high school, but nothing like the stuff I do now. Through 2009-2010, I made a model of the Titanic and a few other ships for an old game called Virtual Sailor. That Titanic model was terrible. If I knew then what I know now, it would have been 984859x more optimal, 47844598x better looking, and 8748894x better on performance. But similar to what I do now, I set out to make the most accurate and complete recreation of Titanic I could, even for a terrible engine. But over time, I got a bit better.

Since 2012, I've been part of a project called Titanic: Honor and Glory. Before that in 2011-2012, I was working on an earlier incarnation called Titanic: Lost in the Darkness. Maybe you've even heard about it. We were briefly featured on The View some time back. Some of my modeling work and in-game footage was shown. That was surreal. But also bad, because they inaccurately represented what our project is about and damaged our reputation. In any case, the project's primary goal is to recreate the RMS Titanic. The entire ship. Every room, every deck, every piece of furniture, every interior style, every nuance. Even if it's something literally nobody will look at, even some Titanic experts, we'll still make it. It's meant to be the definitive recreation of the Titanic. To do that, it takes extraordinary attention to detail. And that's the mindset I've been in, even when not working on the game. We even have Ken Marschall on the project, a maritime painter and someone who has such an eye for detail, not to mention so assertive about including such details, if he were making this building instead of me, it'd be a million tris with 16k textures. So I actually end up having to do less detail and going "sorry we can't do that." For C:S, what I've made so far is considerably far less than what I'm used to making, even with all the detail it does have. The Titanic project started out on CryENGINE 2, then 3, and is now on Unreal Engine 4. UE4 is much more straightforward - normals work the way they're supposed to, 2048 textures are fine, though like all cases, it's best for file size if it's lower, and it just has better quality, of course - and I have a much higher budget for detail. As we complete more of the ship, it's clear that it'll eat up quite a bit of space and probably melt some GPUs. We have unique carpet patterns  based on real patterns. Unique wood carvings. You know those capitals on top of columns? Normal people would just make one kind and use it all over. Not us. We have like 3-4 different variations of capitals just in the Grand Staircases alone. There's no reason to other than to make it accurate. And oh, how I wish we could use just one. But the point is to represent as much as we can, where we can.

Over time, I've learned much more about modeling. Even in making stuff for C:S, I've learned new things that could then be applicable to the Titanic project. I'm still learning. I'll never be perfect, and I'll always be bad at being conservative, but I'm aware of that. I also know C:S is ultimately just a city-builder game. Almost nobody will care about many of these details, or any of them. Not many will see it up close. But I want to provide the best, most complete, most detailed, most accurate thing I can, regardless of the platform. It's what I do. Within reasonable limits, of course, limits I don't think I've violated. Yet, anyway.

By the way, you can see a tiny bit of that Titanic project and the level of detail we put inti it yourself, if you care to. We released a small demo a while back, you can download it here for PC or Mac: http://www.titanichg.com/demo/

I originally started modeling the exterior of the ship, and someone else does the interior models. But he makes them in Sketchup, so they need a LOT of work in Maya to be optimized. Ironically, that's where I come in. Sometimes I just UV and texture the models and make small changes to make them more accurate, and sometimes I totally re-make the models. What you see in the demo is mainly his work as a base, with my texture, UV, and model polishing, optimizing, and accuray-izing work done on them, with some models, like various pieces of furniture and light fixtures, primarily mine.

Also, if you think my buildings in C:S will melt your GPU, beware that demo.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Coming from an archviz background and fine art myself, I know how it is to want to make details that I know is there that many will probably not notice. To me, those kind of details can be interesting discoveries over the life of the model and the observer who discovers new things over time they didn't notice at first....plus it's very rewarding. Getting into modeling for this game was a shock to my system as I was also used to making ultra realistic models. You should see the original models of my trains. Every rivet and screw is modeled. Though I drastically brought down the poly count of them for the game, there's still a lot more improvement I know I could do as I learned new things since then. It's funny that many in the Archviz world kinda look down on game development models but to me, game development models are a lot more challenging to make because we have to squeeze one texture map onto something that we would have many many textures applied to it in archviz and make it look good plus think about performance when modeling.

But I also learned how this game averages pixels so sometimes there's really no respect for some aspects of your quality texture....gotta work with the game.

[Avanya 2,605]

I totally agree that for large and unique buildings a larger texture makes sense. I figured I'd mention the rectangluar texture sizes as I know I keep forgetting that option until I'm half way done with texturing.   I have a bad habit of doing 1024x1024 textures for things that could use smaller ones simply because that's the default size blender gives me (but I'm getting better at remembering to pick a size!). I'd also say there's a difference making an actual real life building and something inspired by real life - especially iconic buildings like WTC and ESB have details you can't skip because they wouldn't look right.   Like AJ3D my comment about details barely visible was mostly with the burn out concern. It would be sad to miss out on these very unique buildings you create.   Plus you mention in the description when it's a heavy building so we all can see if our pcs can handle it - I hate when nothing is stated and it turns out to have a very high tris count and/or textures way larger than needed.

I love these topics as I get a peak at how others model. I'm still very new to it myself, so there's lots for me to learn. I find it a challenge to pick how much detail to keep and when to optimize and seeing various methods and levels of detail is very nice and helpful to me.

 

[Darf 1,439]

Imo getting some repetition ain't half bad, if you can manage,  you will hardly notice this on nighlighting if you make your uv's have different starting points. That said the quality of your work is astounding Boldly. Still I'm wondering why for tall buildings people prefer the 1:1 textures instead of 2:1 or 4:1.

[OldTurtle 53]

It would be nice to see a finished comparison shot between a 10MB version and a 20MB version of the building. However I personally don't mind the filesize considering the building's significance and the time boldybuilding spends on perfecting them. Just like detail work on land using tons of tiny assets, props, plants and bushes, detail work on buildings also look nice.

Also computers will only get faster and faster. This game IMO should always aspire to push the boundaries of graphics technology. 

[boldlybuilding 873]

Well, I'll of course continue Willis Tower, but it is still a bit tiring with these big landmarks. I'm thinking of two possibilities: Either I finish Willis Tower right away, and start my next possible project after, or I start my next project now and occasionally jump back to Willis now and then. That brings me to what I think my next project should be...

Remember those neo-eclectic homes? The ones that aren't around anymore? I want to do something similar. I want to model them on homes found in a development (ironically called Landmark Acres) near me. I often ride my bike through there and kind of like the look of a few of them. I don't actually know what style they are (New American?), but I'd like to have a nice collection of them for the game. I already made a collection of images (from google and bing maps) for 36 of these houses, and I'll just select homes from that (or if I'm insane enough, all of them, plus more with extra variation). They're small, simple, lots of reusable parts, and I can make them however I want.

If you want to have a look yourself, you can find the development here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5903436,-87.1491805,17z

[boldlybuilding 873]

[Avanya 2,605]

Sounds like a great plan and awesome to see that kind of style in the game.   I also find it to be refreshing to do a simple project here and there as a break - mostly I've done prop vehicles or recolors of existing stuff. That little break can really bring back the energy to finish off a larger project  

[Judazzz 1,936]

Oh, that is great! I loved those - very similar in style - Neo-Eclectic homes, but unfortunately they had some unresolved issues, like a lacking extendable backyard, but especially the weird texturing during the night (almost solid in color). Not to mention they have vanished from the Workshop... (luckily I still had the .crp's backed up locally - @boldlybuilding, if you need them for reference or whatever purpose, just let me know!)

[boldlybuilding 873]

The first house is done! Get it here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645378705

The basics: 

*Low Residential growable 
*Level 1 
*4x4 lot 

Model: 

Main model - 1,823 tris, 1024x1024 textures 
LOD model - 124 tris, 128x128 textures 

The screenshots:

[Cool_Z 1,547]

That was just the most unexpected thing.

[Judazzz 1,936]

The 'originals' were already pretty good, but holy smokes, this is such an improvement!!
I suspect my bulldozer squad will be quite busy once this set gets bigger  

[boformer 3,169]

Nice work, though  think that it needs more grunge. It looks too clean compared to the default assets.

[boldlybuilding 873]

7 hours ago, boformer said:

Nice work, though  think that it needs more grunge. It looks too clean compared to the default assets.

Hmm, that might be tricky given the way I textured it:

Lots of potential for obvious repeating patterns of grunge. Something at the base of the brick and maybe subtly dirtying it up and adding slight more variety to the brick and roofing might work, and doing something with the siding...

[boldlybuilding 873]

Though, I also am not sure about grunge beyond some extremely subtle bits, say, at the bese of the bricks, or a bit more wear on the roof.

These houses have been getting build in that particular subdivision since I think the 90s, and are still being built. There's a new house popping up every time I ride through there. Even the older ones are very well kept. There's hardly a spot of grunge to be seen. Here's the house this one was based on:

Not a spot of dirt to be seen.

[boldlybuilding 873]

Question:

I'm not actually sure how to do the leveling of these houses.

I'm making them with the possibility in mind of using styles to make it so only these houses are built in an area. I'm not sure what the levels need to be for that.

The old Neo Eclectic homes were all mostly level 2, like a couple level 1s. I made this one level 1. They don't really have any discernible features for levels, these houses are all about the same size. And I don't want a billion versions of each house on the WS to account for all 5 levels. What's the best way to do that?

[boformer 3,169]

Just release them as L2 or L3, and tell people to use the Building Themes mod to make clones for the other levels. That whole leveling is a joke, I will try to get rid of it soon.

[OldTurtle 53]

From my observation, it's usually mid-upper class families that purchase these type of big houses - nicknamed McMansions. For this reason I'd put them as L3-L4 (maybe L3 for 3x4 houses with double garage and L4 for 4x4 with triple garage) or even all L3. L5 houses should be reserved for unique architectural designed homes and for ?larger plots in future.