BoldlyBuilding's Assets (Update & Harold Washington Library)

Tim The Terrible · October 4, 2016

Looks really amazing! The only thing I noticed is the contrast with the rest of your city (bright vs. dark). It might be because of your theme + LUT, but it would be nice if the end result were to be darker.

boldlybuilding · October 11, 2016

The Aon Center is finished!

Get it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=778876495

*RICO compatible. Found under offices.
*Found in Unique Buildings, Level 3.
*9x14 lot.
*Costs $120,000 to build.

*Main Model: 29,957 tris with 2048x2048 textures.
*LOD model: 568 tris with 1024x512 textures.

The main model came in at just under 30k after using simpler tiled window rows with light backing for each floor instead, which saved probably a good 6-7k tris, otherwise this would have been closer to my Empire State Building. It may seem like a lot, but that's just because most buildings aren't as detailed as much and this has a big plaza on it, which is almost as detailed as a whole building. Plus I had to break up a lot of surfaces to texture them a decent resolution. In any case, you can call it standard BoldlyBuilding fare.

There's also an issue with the shader, where it deforms on curvy ground along roads, so the ground has to be flat or flattened. Boformer suggested there was a version of the underground shader that doesn't deform, does anybody know about this? Another issue is that placing roads is problematic, since they turn into elevated roads while dragging road segments adjacent to the tower. No idea how to fix it right now. I also had to make the LOD texture bigger in one direction because it looked terrible from far away in my big city, even though it looks fine in the editor and in new maps. In fact it still didn't fix the issue that well. It must be because of the shader or something. Either way, if anybody knows how to fix any of those things, please let me know.

Now for pictures:

Avanya · October 11, 2016

Absolutely love the plaza! The whole thing is gorgeous (like all your stuff), but the plaza really sticks out to me and takes it to a whole new level!

Jerenable · October 11, 2016

OH BOI, it looks glorious. That shot of the roof really did it for me it almost looks like a real photo. But the comparison of the lod of your building with the standard game one (the greenish building in the back I forgot the name) just makes me a bit sad. It makes your building stand out in a good way I guess.

Ronyx69 · October 12, 2016

Amazing work on the roof.

boldlybuilding · October 15, 2016

Just FYI, I decided to make the OTHER Aon Center as well. The one in Los Angeles.

This one is much simpler and should be done pretty quickly now. It should also be light on polys, maybe around or even under 10k if I can manage. The model also takes into account the very slight angle/slant of the curtain walls, which I never noticed before because it's so subtle.

And here's the real building:

boldlybuilding · October 17, 2016

A quick update:

The building is nearly done, I just have to randomize the windows/lights, do the other texture maps. but of course first finish the roof details, namely some antennas and the window washer machine. Also the LOD.

boldlybuilding · October 19, 2016

My Aon Center L.A. building is finished!

Get it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=783473728

It weighs in at 9,999 tris. I did something new here by using a non-square texture 1024x3072 in size. Saves a couple MB anyway. I'll have to use that method for more future assets.

Now for the pictures:

boformer · October 19, 2016

1 hour ago, boldlybuilding said:

1024x3072

Is 3072 a valid size? I think it will take up 1024x4096 in graphics memory.

boldlybuilding · October 19, 2016

2 minutes ago, boformer said:

Is 3072 a valid size? I think it will take up 1024x4096 in graphics memory.

I wondered about that. I saw an asset on the workshop that had a texture size like that, I figured it must have worked. If it gets counted as 4096 though, maybe I should try reducing it to 2048 and see what happens.

boldlybuilding · October 19, 2016

1 hour ago, boformer said:

Is 3072 a valid size? I think it will take up 1024x4096 in graphics memory.

Actually I think it might make a difference. I imported two more versions to test this. My original 3072 tall CRP file is about 10mb. The 2048 tall version is about 8mb. The 4096 version is about 12mb. So the 3072 version does seem to be right between the 2048 and 4096 ones in terms of file size and does make a difference.

Darf · October 19, 2016

Hmm that's very interesting to know. I always thought it was also dependant on the files used, for example whitespace. This building seems better for regular use. Can pop only so many 30k scrapers in town. Quality and detail are excellent as always!

Cool_Z · October 19, 2016

Stunning !!!! And interesting to know about the 3072 size.

Bolduck91 · October 19, 2016

The level of details on the roof of your assets are astonishing !! Really makes a difference ! Bravo

boldlybuilding · October 19, 2016

Thanks! I think roof details are important. One can argue against putting lots of details at a lower level of the building if they'd like, but even with the default camera you'll always be able to see the roof up close, and you spend a lot of time looking down on roofs. Because of that it always annoys me when people don't bother to put any detail in their roofs. Even if it's fairly plain and flat, a mere decent texture would help. Solid colors are the worst, too. Just the absolute minimal effort. A detailed roof makes all the difference. This one was annoying because of the window washer machine. Many buildings have them stored inside penthouses. That's what was nice about Willis Tower. But this one they just leave it right on the roof, because there's nowhere to store it. Others have a system where the machine is lowered below roof level, like on the former World Trade Center, or those other twin towers in L.A., the City National and Paul Hastings towers.

Also I just had a though: Perhaps I'm confused as to what Boformer means. While the 3072 may have an actual smaller file size after being processed by the editor, what if it still takes up 4096 worth on the video card when being rendered in-game? So 3072 in file size, but 4096 worth of memory to handle? But then even if that's the case, wouldn't it still be worth it for the smaller file size, maybe that would reduce load times and use less RAM still?

blackdragonbird · October 19, 2016

How you got that cartographic/isometric view in the first screenshot?

Cool_Z · October 19, 2016

Roofs are what you see the most in the game... and in any citybuilder game. People making bland rooftops do not get it, and it's even worse when you look at the lods.

boformer · October 19, 2016

6 hours ago, boldlybuilding said:

Also I just had a though: Perhaps I'm confused as to what Boformer means. While the 3072 may have an actual smaller file size after being processed by the editor, what if it still takes up 4096 worth on the video card when being rendered in-game? So 3072 in file size, but 4096 worth of memory to handle? But then even if that's the case, wouldn't it still be worth it for the smaller file size, maybe that would reduce load times and use less RAM still?

Yes, the graphics memory size is still 4096. That's what I heard. There must be a reason why all game assets use these texture sizes.

Apart from that, it might cause other problems. I know that LOD textures must have a power of 2 size, otherwise the LOD system fails.

It also doesn't make such a bit difference, I would just go for the larger texture.

Nevermore2797 · October 23, 2016

I'm wondering if somebody can do a good Burj Khalifa for Cities Skylines.

I'm also wondering if maybe you can do ICC (International Commerce Center) at Hong Kong alongside with The Centre?

icantthinkofaname · November 5, 2016

I love all of your assets, especially the eclectic homes, but I am wondering if you could do a building from Dallas or an edge city like Addison or Richardson. If you could, that would be amazing!

boldlybuilding · May 11, 2017

Well it seems a lot has happened since I last posted here! New developments in the modding community, new expansions, a whole season, the Cubs winning the World Series, the United States' first satirical president... the list goes on and on. Even after I stopped posting here, I went on to build my biggest city yet, and made a whole set of office buildings. I won't bother showing those here, since it's been months and you all must know of them by now. I suppose it was just easier and quicker to post updates on the Skylines Guild Facebook group. Over the last 3 months, I've also been working on Titanic: Honor and Glory. Specifically the new demo that's due out soon (hopefully sooner rather than later ). It's taken up all my time, so I've had no chance to do C:S stuff. But once that's done, I'm going to see about taking a little bit of time to put into C:S, if only because I need a break from Titanic for a bit. Which brings me to an idea I have...

I was thinking of revisiting my biggest asset: The World Trade Center.

I want to revamp it, to use a little of what I've learned about modeling and texturing to improve it visually, and implement the latest stuff from the game's continuing development. A sort of "HD" version. It would have a higher polygon count, but I think it'd be worth it. These are some of the things I'd like to do:

1: Redo the UV maps and textures.

The current models have huge chunks of the texture devoted to large parts of the model. An entire portion of a roof or plaza taking up much of the UV map. I want to change this to a more tiled approach, so details on roofs and plazas look sharper. The same goes for other building elements. I would probably redo the entire facade of 7 WTC. Affected objects would be subdivided more, but it'll look better, sharper, cleaner. The downside is less or almost no Ambient Occlusion. AO's difficult for me to make sense of on things that have tiled and repeating parts. I'd also switch up the column maps a bit. Right now there's a variable lightness/darkness to the aluminium panels on the towers, but it's the same shade across columns on each floor. This was always supposed to be varied. The main reason for redoing these maps and tiling, though, is to make things much sharper...

2: Do away with Sub-Buildings Enabler.

It will still have sub-buildings, but will instead use the game's own system, so no mods will be necessary. On a related note, I may also break the complex down into more sub-buildings. It currently has 11 parts, but since it'll come in "one" asset, and because it was honestly difficult to fit everything into even 11 parts, I need to see what can be either divided up or combined into more or fewer lots.

3: Add metro station.

The WTC's PATH Station was a major feature of the complex, and it should be added.

4: Add a fire station and police station as sub-buildings.

The WTC had its own FDNY fire station. In fact you can see the garage doors for it on my model. This functionality should be added.

5: Correct errors and add or smooth detail.

I want to go back over my references and see if there's anything I missed or that could be added, or which needs fixing. This includes a funky piece of texturing on 7 WTC, which I'll be redoing anyway.

6: Redo LODs.

The current LODs for the towers look weird.

7: Redo night lights.

I've learned a lot since rushing night light edits for the WTC set in the days after AD. They could be much better. Better variation, detailed. More like my Chicago Aon Center.

8: Possibly make the overall shape of the complex more accurate to real life.

I don't know if I'll do this, but I had to trim off some areas to make it fit a square footprint. It'd be nice to make it more accurate. Which would necessitate...

9: Adding roads to the base ploppable asset.

No more building them yourself. You'll have to use the Touch This mod (or whatever it's called) to change them, of course.

10: Implement the transparent glass shader.

This would be most useful for the covered entrance to the North Tower. It would also be useful for my final idea...

11: Adding interior lobbies to the towers.

Yes, you read that right. Why? Because I HATE how the bases of the towers look now. There's nothing but a picture of the lobbies used as a flat plane. It makes the bases look strange, unimpressive, and it doesn't do these towers justice. I want to take advantage of the glass shader to make the large gothic windows of the tower bases transparent and add the lobbies inside them. The lobbies would be sub-buildings, and fairly low detail. How low detail, I'm not sure. I'm debating whether to make them ultra low detail (practically LOD level poly counts), or make them finer detailed so they'd look okay even entering them. That would be, to me, an interesting possibility. If it was any other building, I wouldn't bother. But it's the World Trade Center, how can I not? The only question is how they'd be lit, either with point lights, or the entire models having a subtle glow applied with an illumination texture.

Here are some pictures of the lobbies:

They were relatively simple, bare, wide-open spaces, allowing views straight through the towers. I think it would look impressive, but maybe that's just me.

Those are my main ideas for revamping the set. Let me know if you think I'm crazy, or if you have your own ideas for something you'd like to see with the WTC complex. (Keep in mind I have no plans to touch the new WTC complex.)

(TL:DR - I want to rework my WTC asset/s to be way more amazing with better lights, better textures, better sub-buildings, glass shaders, and more. Read on for specifics.)

DeltaGamer · May 11, 2017

Cool stuff!

But.. How about the New World Trade Center

Darf · May 12, 2017

You are crazy, IMO it's one of the most detailed recreations already. But it's very admirable to get back to your work and improve it. While you can have only one or two of these buildings per game, the WTC complex isn't my cup of tea, so I'd rather you see pick up some art deco skyscraper. But it's your work ofcourse and some of your points are definite improvements. I wouldn't go all out on lobby detail though, just general shapes. You will hardly see it anyways.

Nevermore2797 · May 13, 2017

Hmm.... with the World Financial Center Complex released too, it would be nice what to do to fit it and the World Trade Center??

boldlybuilding · March 31, 2018

Hello all, it's been a while! I'm sure all of you have already seen my stuff on Facebook or directly on Steam, but for the sake of not leaving this thread dead in the water, and to post about my latest work, I wanted to post something here. So...

For the last year, I've been quite busy on the Titanic project and related matters. I had a brief period to work on C:S stuff late last year, but I wasn't really feeling it at the time. For the last few weeks, however, I've had both a tiny bit of free time and the motivation to do some new things. So far, I've made the following assets in the last month:

Fire Station 2

I wanted to start with something small, so I made the fire station that's down the street from me and always catches my eye when I pass by it. It's an understated building and perfect for bland American towns, but just interesting enough to look kind of nice.

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1319185521

SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/models/b47b36fec43b4fb19670ff39d5c12095

Saturn V Rocket

After the Chirp-X update came out and then Armesto released a custom rocket while custom rocket mods were released, I decided to go and rip my old Saturn V model out of my Sagan-Tyson Center, reshuffle the textures so it's just the rocket, and publish that as a launchable rocket.

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1329097226

SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/models/88f68de3b3e9435582560e02a52b325d

Prentice Women's Hospital

After the first couple latest assets, I decided to dip into something bigger. I've been eyeballing various buildings in Chicago for some time, and I wanted to make the Lurie Children's Hospital, a new skyscraper of a hospital built to replace Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where I was treated for leukemia as a child. However, the Lurie Hospital is adjacent to and sort of built to compliment the Prentice Women's Hospital, also built to replace the old Prentice hospital (which I also plan to make at some point). The new Prentice hospital was simpler, or so it seemed, so I went with that. It's hefty on tris, like all my assets (ha ha ha) and has a detailed roof. I still maintain that roofs are important to get right, or else it just looks weird. Eventually, I'll make the Lurie hospital eventually, too.

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331430903

SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/models/c3c0cee257c34db1b8f51b9e81f03c1d

Dari-Dip

After the daunting Prentice hospital, I wanted to do another small asset. So, I made Dari-Dip, a charming little ice cream stand in my town. It's been around for over 50 years and is the only place around here that serves strawberry ice cream cones. Do you know how hard it is to find strawberry ice cream without seeds and fruit bits in it? These people have it, as well as other tasty food. In fact, you can probably almost read the full menu on the side of the building. Like Prentice, this building's planter bed is empty so you can place your own plants.

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1341515634

SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/models/010da5eacd0e4cd9a59fac8947192743

And that brings me to my current little project, which I wanted to start over a year ago but couldn't find the motivation to really get a start on. The...

Harold Washington Library Center

Built to serve as the new central library for the Chicago Public Library, the Harold Washington Library Center was completed in 1991. Opinion has been divided about its appearance, with its somewhat bland, grey interiors subject to criticism. However, it's still, in my opinion, a nice building with some interesting features.

I've already a good way into the process. In fact, it's actually quite a simple building when you get into the details. Lots of repeating areas, tons of tile-able parts...

This asset does promise to be a monster of tris. Nothing too horrifying, certainly (I hope) not like a few of my other assets. But I wanted to keep it at or under 15k tris, since the game now yells at you if you go over, but I simply don't believe that's possible without either using literal magic with the textures (or making features super lo-res), or stripping the detail and "resolution" from the model, none of which I'm a big fan of. So I'm just going to keep working and see where we end up.

There are other questions I've yet to get into to. The entire central section of the roof is a huge skylight over a lovely winter garden:

harold-washington-library-wedding-pictur

...It remains to be determined whether I'll simply make it opaque, or utilize the rotor shader to make it see-through and put a super-low-detail model of the winter garden beneath it. I certainly would not devote any real detail to it, just plain walls and floor with small bits of the texture dedicated to it, or its own sub-building with its own tiny texture if there's no space. Considering the detail in the rest of the model, I don't see why not. At this point, what's a few hundred extra tris?

There's also the biggest question, the literal crown, so to speak...

The acroteria. They weren't installed for a year or two after completion of the building, but they're an important and distinguishing part of its architecture. I could just make flat planes and slap some photos on it and be done, but you know I can't be THAT plain. It needs to be done a little more justice than that. Just how much justice, I'm not yet sure. It'll need to be a nice balance of texture and tris. It'll also be a pain in the bum. We shall see...

On the plus side...

...almost the entire west wall of the building is glass. That should save a good 5k tris or so.

So yeah, that's where I stand at the moment. I don't know how much logner I'll have before things get busy again, and depending on how things go, they could get very busy very soon. But I should be able to finish this library, then we'll see if I can do anything else.

One last note: The World Trade Center. I haven't forgotten, I just didn't want to dig back into it right now, honestly. Perhaps eventually, maybe even later this year, if time permits, but not now.

barcasam7 · March 31, 2018

As always @boldlybuilding your buildings are of such high quality. . The library I didn't even know of and seems Chicago has plenty of hidden gems available. I think it looks a beautiful building. As for tri's I'm at the point where I don't mind them being big for such a building as yours as they really do show the intricacies of the facade. You and Honker are doing Chicago proud! One of my favourite buildings in Chicago is The Wrigley Building - stunning building! Look forward to your future assets.

Darf · March 31, 2018

Really looking forward to the library! That crown seems like a monster to model, especially low poly. Surprised they built that in the 90s - lot's of classic details on it.

boldlybuilding · April 1, 2018

I'm far too tired right now to write anything substantial, so here's a quick mini-update in two pictures:

EDIT:

I just realized a possible way to shave off a bunch of tris. Right now I have those brackets under the walkway/overhang, and each one is its own little model. But instead, I could have one, stretched all the way along the side, with a tiny sliver of the texture tiled with the bracket faces on it. It won't keep it under 15k, but 2-3k less tris can't be bad. I just hope it'll look good...

Edited April 1, 2018 by boldlybuilding

boldlybuilding · April 6, 2018

Another quick update...

It's pretty much done now, except for the roof sculptures, which are next. Also the lamps along the lower walls, which will be part of the model because I don't like the idea of making people subscribe to additional props. I also added the basic interior for the winter garden, which will stay simple and just be the backdrop for the glass roof.

boldlybuilding · April 16, 2018

It is finished!

Get it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1361716493

Inspect it on SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/models/05c0ac39b61f403ba3693a2a8c6498b7

The main building, walls, and roof are the primary building, which is about 30k tris. A sub-building includes the acroteria (sculptures) and winter garden interior, as well as the fancy lamps lower down and a couple other details. That's about 20,000 tris. A third sub-building is just the winter garden glass. In all it comes out to over 50,600 tris. It's definitely a lot, but then between wanting fairly sharp textures and limited texture space and the sheer amount of ornamentation the building has, I don't think a high count could be avoided while making it look good. The acroteria alone eat up tris. But those things are as big as houses, so maybe that's fine. In all it's about 376 tris per tile, taking up 136 tiles. To make myself feel better, I looked at the tris count of that opera house on the Workshop. In all that's over 130k tris.

In any case, it's all there. The acroteria with their owls and variations, the shield and leaf designs along the roof line, the catwalks, ornamental railings, those decorative poles with the "spiral" tips, the stonework on the upper walls, cornstalk designs with heads at the bases, designs on the arched windows, scrollwork along the base, stonework, fancy lamps, arched doorways, west glass wall, glass roof and low-detail winter garden, right down to the dedication plaque near the main door. I also tried to light the acroteria as best I could, and the winter garden has tables in it, though I don't know if cims can use it.

Here's a ton of pictures if you don't feel like going to the links right now, and because something happened with Postimage and right now no other images on this thread can be displayed: