Avanya's buildings (Update 7/1: Cargo rail stations released)

[Avanya 2,605]

So I figured I might as well make a topic here, as this is most likely not gonna be the last time I ask for you guys' oppinion.  If I remember, I'll post WIP and releases of my buildings here.

My current project is a bus depot that fits the european theme and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - but I've ended up with two sizes of it and I just can't decide which I like the best and could see myself using both. So I'd love some feedback - which you prefer or if it makes sense to upload both of them.

The small one is about the same size as the default one and has the same stats. The large one has slightly higher stats, but as depots can spawn infinite busses there's no benefit to the bigger one. I purely made it this large as the ones I took inspiration from were this size or bigger.

Picture time!  

[Feindbold 1,190]

Looking good! I prefer the bigger one, bus depos should be big I guess,.. but jeah why not release them both.

[Vals Loeder 27]

Looking great! And I agree with Feinbold, why not release the both

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty for the compliments! Both have been released now. I wasn't sure if it made sense to do that or if there would only be interest in one of them. Time to see which one gets most subscribers.

I haven't settled on my next project. Might finish off some smaller requests and leave the bigger plans for after the holidays.

[Avanya 2,605]

I just released a small water pumping station as the first of a few pumping stations I have planned. I plan on doing two larger ones that pump alot more water, so we won't need 10+ water pumps for large cities.  

[Vals Loeder 27]

I like this ... a lot!

[Avanya 2,605]

Glad to hear that.  I was kinda surprised no one had done something like this. We have lots of good looking water towers on the workshop and some pumps to place along the coast, but not really this.

As mentioned I plan on making some more of these pumping stations and the medium sized one is coming along nicely. Texture isn't done at all yet, but I thought I'd give you a peak at the building itself.

[Judazzz 1,936]

Nice, I really like these small service assets. Not every city or village has major complexes for water-, garbage- or power-related infrastructure, so these assets are perfect for keeping it a bit more local and to scale.
One bit of (constructive) criticism: maybe you could weather the textures a bit more, to give them a slightly more grimy look?

[Vals Loeder 27]

Looking good already. Yesterday I acquired your water purification set. I like it a lot and I am sure it will be used in a lot of my cities. Thank you for sharing your work.

[Avanya 2,605]

I was almost done with the medium water pumping station. Just finishing off the LOD when my power supply died. Sadly most parts went with it, but luckily my hard drive was alright, so I have all my work (and a backup just in case). But as my laptop is in no way capable of running CS it'll be a while before I can finish off my things.   Right now I'm just happy I didn't lose all my models and texture files.

[Matthias King 348]

I'm sorry to hear that. I've been there. It's good that your HDD survived at least. I hope you can get back in business soon.

[GC_Vos 714]

Wow seems like power supplies are really killing our systems. :/ MrMaison had a similar issue a while back. Good to see your drives okay...

[ethansprang 41]

Sorry to hear that.  

Good thing about the HDD and backups. Dead power supplies scare me cause they can fry so much other stuff depending on how they fail.

[Turjan 1,048]

Oh no! Power supplies are really a difficult topic. Good luck with getting everything up and running again.

Which reminds me that I have to make a backup, as I plan to move my system to a new SSD. If you don't hear anything from me anymore, you know what happened.

[Ryno917 102]

Damn, sorry to hear that. My power supply went a few months back and took my MB and CPU with it - luckily my brand new GTX970 wasn't affected. Wound up spending $1100 on new parts so the rebuild became a substantial upgrade over my old machine - silver linings, and all that.

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty for the kind words guys. My new parts are on their way, but I doubt I'll have them before New Year. It turns out my laptop can run blender - it just takes 5-10 sec to save.  But at least I can model a bit while waiting. Texturing will have to wait though, but I'm not bored crazy and can still make some progress with my models.  

LOD for the medium pumping station is done, so that is pretty much done. I've started work on the large one, which is coming along nicely.

Same for me @Ryno917 - might as well upgrade it now I'm buying parts. At least I won't have to worry about upgrades again for a while. Can't wait to see how much faster Skylines will load.

[Avanya 2,605]

The large pumping station is getting there. I think I'm more or less finished with the model - though I usually make tweaks when I start texturing.   I've got a little screenshot from Blender for you guys. Any feedback for it is welcome. Oh, and it's about 4x5 squares in CS.

[jesper107 113]

Looking forward for that pumping station for my nuclear plant!

[Matthias King 348]

Looking good. I'm anxious to see how it turns out. I like really nice looking utility buildings. I know they're technically 'boring' but I like basic infrastructure. it's part of what adds realism and character to a city, and variety in the infrastructure can only add to that.

[Avanya 2,605]

Looks like a least a couple more days before I have a good pc again.   Today I am gonna try and see if I can get some texturing done even if my laptop doesn't have all the tools I usually do. I really want to see my large pumping station with some textures.  I also got to steal my bf's pc today and test some things in game and grabbed a few shots of the medium pumping station with texture on. I'll have to tweak the illumination/specular texture as the pipes look like they shine a bit at night, but otherwise it's close to done.

It will function much like a water tower (but much more efficient), but it will need road access and a few workers. Same with the large one.

Also, when these pumping stations are done I'll most likely go back to some industry - forestry or farming. I've played around with some ideas for both, so I have yet to decide which one I'll do first.

[Vals Loeder 27]

Looking good!

[jesper107 113]

Great model, great textures!

[Avanya 2,605]

The medium pumping station model is done. Now I need to put it in the game, decorate, tweek stats and then test it out. If everything goes as it should I'll have my new pc next week, so not long to go anymore (yay!). In the mean time I've done some texturing of the large pumping station - it still needs a bit of grunge, but I don't have my good files for that atm. The normal map and LOD textures aren't done yet, but I'll prob have them done before I get my pc anyways.  So hopefully next week I'll have two pumping stations done ^^

[Matthias King 348]

That's looking pretty great. I'm all set for water assets, but I think I'll sub it just to have it on the map somewhere. It just looks too good not to. I really like basic infrastructure buildings that look like real buildings of that type, especially if they look 'lived in' so to speak.

Great job.

[jesper107 113]

Excellent model! And about "lived in" - It's just great!

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Looking really good!. Great modeling and I like your texture work. Just wondering about the light leaks under the eves of the pumping stations.  I will subscribe when they go live.

[Avanya 2,605]

Tyvm ^^

About the light leaks I can't seem to find what causes it. There's no hole in the model, so it shouldn't be there at all. It's barely visible outside of the asset editor and only happens at some angles, so I have left it. If anyone has any ideas as to how to fix it I'd love to know

[merc187 46]

@Avanya - you may have some flipped normals on the mesh.  Have you checked to make sure all the normals are facing the correct way (outwards)?

[Avanya 2,605]

Yep, they're all flipped the right way. Checked that and if there were holes when I first noticed it.

[Avanya 2,605]

Woop I'm finally back on a real pc.  And with that I've released my medium water pumping station - hope you enjoy! Also any feedback on the stats would be lovely. I've roughly just given it the water tower stats x2.5, but I'm not sure if it's too expensive/pumps too little water.

 

The large one is coming along nicely. I'm pretty much done with the main model (no pic today though) and just need to sort the LOD textures for it. So it shouldn't be too long before you'll see it released. Unless I get carried away with actually playing the game.