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

[Avanya 2,605]

Wohoo! My drop-off center is finished! It ended up at 3562 tris with a 2048x1024 texture (LOD 216 & 128x128). It was alot of work, mainly because I made some larger changes along the way and moved around with the UV mapping to fit in as much as I could. It turned out very nice and I hope you guys like it.   Oh, and I got my signs - they're the street signs from the game, but we won't tell anyone  

Next up is releasing the containers (empty) as props and then the truck(s).

[Macronomicus 128]

Just saw those in the workshop, what a fantastic addition of realism, every good city needs a proper recycling system   <3 this game thanks for sharing

[mati555 2]

Awesome! 

Now I am waiting for new garbage truck!

[Vals Loeder 27]

Awesome!

[Avanya 2,605]

This is based on the scania truck by Onionjack, so modelling didn't take that long. I think I found the colors I'll go with as well, so next up is specular & normal map and the LOD.

[mati555 2]

Just... Thank you!

Will rubbish appear in the container? 

[Avanya 2,605]

Np ^^

Sadly no, not atm at least. I still have no clue how submeshes work, but if I ever figure it out I'll update it. Though you do have a point, it looks a bit strange empty. I think I'll put some general rubbish in there.  

[Macronomicus 128]

oh!  I never thought of submeshes on vehicles too! I suppose thats totally possible, and you can trigger with the full/empty flag, wow that will be epic.  Boformer made it seem simple'ish but ive not attempted it yet myself.  I do have several things that it may be suited for though, especially Rush Hour Event spaces, would be cool to see them go into event mode.  theres also seasonal decorations, etc.

Nice truck by the way!

[boformer 3,169]

16 hours ago, Macronomicus said:

oh!  I never thought of submeshes on vehicles too! I suppose thats totally possible, and you can trigger with the full/empty flag, wow that will be epic.  Boformer made it seem simple'ish but ive not attempted it yet myself.  I do have several things that it may be suited for though, especially Rush Hour Event spaces, would be cool to see them go into event mode.  theres also seasonal decorations, etc.

Nice truck by the way!

sub-meshes are limited to buildings.

[Avanya 2,605]

Vehicles have something similar I guess. Might not be a submesh but a full replacement of a mesh based on a flag (I'm just guessing here as this is way beyond me). When I exported the forestry trailer to turn it into a prop I had to dig to get the full version of it, as the trailer is empty when you load it up in the asset editor. I've underlined the stuff that made me think submesh/similar system.

Pic of where I found the full mesh

Ofc this might not at all be similar to submeshes for buildings, as I don't know programming at all!   I just see 2 versions of the trailer and hope one day our awesome modders like @boformer figure out how to replicate it and describe it simply enough for me to be able to do it.  

[Avanya 2,605]

And the trucks are done   

 

 

In other news I increased the capacity of my drop-off as it filled up a bit too quick. If any of you guys use it please let me know how it feels. It should be a weaker/more expensive alternative to the landfill, but it should also actually work and not be a pain complaining it's full all the time  

[Matthias King 348]

I was actually playing yesterday, and a notification popped up about a landfill being full, which I found odd because I have no landfills. I actually thought the game might have been screwing up. Then I looked and realized the drop-off center fills up like a landfill. I was relieved my save wasn't screwing up.

I'm glad to hear you've increased the capacity. It filled up pretty fast. I wasn't very long after I plopped it that the notification popped.

How do your trucks work? Is there a way to assign them to the recycling center?

[Avanya 2,605]

Yeah, I found the same when using it in a save. It's supposed to be full eventually, but not so you have to keep emptying it all the time.

I use Service Vehicle Selector to assign them to my centers.  

[Avanya 2,605]

I've done some more work on my field project. There's some variation here, but there are some "lines" in them. Making them more varied would mean a larger texture (currently 256x2048) or adding more tris (just over 1k atm). What do you guys think? Atm they don't look that great zoomed out, so this is the pic I've got for you. Got some ideas for how to make them look fine at a distance.

[Smokytoks 8]

Really promising !

[Macronomicus 128]

oooooooh nice!

If you think a bit more tri's would improve go for it!  The density & action on the fields is quite low on these so it shouldnt lag much even with more texture and/or tris right? 

[toxicpiano 125]

i posted some pics of what i was doing with your excellent oils facilities before. i have rebuilt them bigger and better !

[Avanya 2,605]

I'm taking a little break from the fields as they are annoying me.  My plan is to up the texture size and see if that gives me decent variation.

@toxicpiano Nice  Always cool to see what people create with my stuff ^^

 

While on a break from the fields I've played around with sculpting in Blender and made a rock! (Yes, I'm very proud of my rock  ) It's 300 tris with a 76 tris LOD. The texture is smaller than the stones already in the game, which can be seen a bit in the shine of the stone. The larger normal and specular maps on the default ones break it up a bit more. Not sure if I should keep it at this or go higher (mine is at 512x1024, default ones are 2048x2048). My plan is to make a bunch around that size since all the boulders the game comes with look very rectangular (and not that natural) to me.  

[Judazzz 1,936]

Lol, without knowing the context that screenshot is pretty random/funny  
Awesome that you're adding more rocks to the game: the ones available are pretty uniform and unrealistic indeed. Not that there's really something wrong with the first issue, as long as different varieties are available.

Oh, and a 2048x2048 texture for a freaking rock, really?!? 

[OldTurtle 53]

Not sure if you're aware Avanya, but TPB has a fantastic rock collection in the workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=535991576

Tons of variety and no excessive shine or crappy LOD like vanilla rocks.

 

EDIT: Oh just saw your post on the workshop haha. Wasn't aware they used the main model for the LOD!

[Avanya 2,605]

I made a stone with 1024x2048 texture just to compare and the difference on mine at least was barely visible, so I'm going with 512x1024 for them.  

Yeah, it's too bad TPB's rocks don't have proper LODs. Even the auto generated ones would probably have been fine here. We'll see if he updates them, but seems he's very busy with real life (or other games). I have considered making LODs for them (and optimizing the smaller ones - all sizes use the same model  ). For now I'll do a bunch myself though around the boulder size. Making them from scratch doesn't really take me that long (I make a high poly model with tons of detail, and then make Blender do the rest of the work  ).

I've played with the specular alot and even tried without, but I decided to keep a little shine. They look much more dull without any shine and don't look right next to the default ones. Mine are less shiny than the default though (but I'm sure they'll look like plastic in the rain  ).

Before some pics I'll just give you some stats. They're 300-400 tris with 70-90 LODs and 64x128 LOD textures (half the default ones). Atm I have 4 different ones and will prob do a few more. (Last pic is LODs btw)

[Macronomicus 128]

Very nice!!  I love these so far!  Big giant flat ones are useful too since they wrap around the terrain in interesting ways.

I hadn't realized that about TPB's rocks   I suppose ill remove those for now.  One thing I did notice though is that sometimes they do weird things to the water, especially when starting a map, sometimes it shoots a giant spike of water into the air lol

[Avanya 2,605]

A collection of 6 stones/boulders is up! I'll prob make more (flat and smaller ones) later, but it's a start. As they are sculpted and has alot of texture baking they are great to do when I'm bored/frustrated with buildings (and UV maps!). If you have any kinds of stones you feel we're missing, let me know! I've also considered different colors/types like sandy or reddish.  

 

[Avanya 2,605]

In case you haven't noticed I've uploaded some variations of my boulders the last couple of days. I was planning on making a red variation of them too, but it turned out the beautiful themes with red rocks (like Arid Beauty, Red Rock Theme and Not so red Canyon Theme) have pretty different red cliffs!  Since I couldn't create one type that could be shared by several themes like with the arid and dark boulders, I figured I'd share the files and make a guide so everyone else can make rocks fitting their favorite theme (plus this means I can spend the time creating more rock variations and getting back to my other projects).

Got 4 smaller rocks incoming in the next couple of days and then it's either a few flat rocks or some industry stuff.

[Roadman20 601]

Keep up the fantastic quality work you keep publishing, it's great to see what you're working on.

[Macronomicus 128]

yeah these are a great addition I love them, especially after having to remove all those older rocks, I had two pages of them in my assets hahaa!

[Avanya 2,605]

And that's 4 smaller boulders in the different variations up! Time for some stuff that isn't rocks for a while. And when I need a break from that stuff I'll do some more rocks.

[hitzu 139]

Your work is very impressive!

May I request you (or at least inspire you for) hanging out cliffs? Something almost flat to cover slopes so they would look like that:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Avanya 2,605]

2 hours ago, hitzu said:

Your work is very impressive!

May I request you (or at least inspire you for) hanging out cliffs? Something almost flat to cover slopes so they would look like that:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Suggestions are always welcome! You guys might sit on some great ideas I wouldn't think of  This is one of them. Not sure if it's something I can achieve, but I'll definately play around with it. Stuff placed on steep slopes gets stretched (as you'll see with rocks in the game atm). So something that looks best if stretched (and a bit silly compact if not stretched) or simply long rock bits that are placed at the top of the cliff (kinda how sunken wall assets work - just without needing a road ofc). I'm not sure when I'll play around with it. Probably when I do the more flat rock faces as this is something similar.

[Avanya 2,605]

Red variations of my boulders are up! They ended up fitting more themes than I expected.

After playing with the barrier placer mod (lets you place props in a line easily) I decided on my next project. I've got a little teaser for you guys! Placing these will require alot of messing around and I'll prob make some ploppable parks for those without that much patience, but it looks promising! Tris count is reasonable for most parts (the over the road part is at 800).