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

[pauliaxz 195]

Haha yeah, while playing the game I start to think - I need that.. and that... Want to mod more, more and more but have free-time less, less and less.

[Avanya 2,605]

Time is scarce for modelling atm, but my modular distribution center is taking shape. It consists of 4 parts, which will fit together in many different ways - the colors indicate the different bits. I've got a plan for the look of the textures as well, but you'll all have to wait a bit to see that.  My plan is to have at least one of the buildings be lvl 1 office (green and/or yellow) and the rest lvl 2 or 3 industry. It would make sense to include a cargo train station integrated into this, but I haven't found any good reference pics for how that's usually done (hint: if you know of any on google maps or got pics let me know! )

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Most places seem to just have a railyard beside it but I found this pretty cool:

https://www.google.lv/maps/@37.7486448,-122.3882353,268a,20y,33.56h,56.96t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

[bsquiklehausen 190]

@Ronyx69 - that looks like the Muni maintenance facility rather than a distribution center. I think rail stations connected to warehouses are usually just a set of warehouse doors that are designed to line up with boxcars so that forklifts can drive in and out. 

[Tim The Terrible 586]

Spoiler

All I could find real quick

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty for the help guys! I think I'll do one with a loading bay next to the rails or something like that. (which reminds me I still wanna do one for Miyagi Motors) Not sure how it will integrate into the whole thing yet. I've gotta figure out if I can change the paths the trucks take in and out. Hopefully it will be good looking AND functionel.

Looking for some I also found a few train maintenance facilities, which I saved for later. We really need some of those too - ideally they could work like depots for trains, but even just decorative would be great.

Now I'm off to work on the models af I've finally got some free time for it - might pop in with another wip pic tonight. ^^

[Matthias King 348]

I'm excited for this. Things like logistics centers and distribution centers are an excellent dose of realism every city needs to feel real.

Your work is incredibly appreciated.

Any possibility of an estimate on where your soda bottling plant is in the pipeline? I apologize, I'm just really excited for that one for some reason. And don't forget, my offer to help is on the table. I can't model or texture, but I'm a master prop placer!

[Avanya 2,605]

Just a little quick update. It's taking form - the roofs need way more detail ofc, which will come. It took me longer than expected to figure out how I wanted the design of the office buildings, but I'm pretty happy with them. Hopefully I can share a pic with some wip textures in the coming week

@Matthias King No ETA sorry. But it's in the pool of large industrial RICO buildings I want to do - just gotta get to them. Currently my plan is to finish this distribution center (including a cargo train station for it), add a cargo train station or harbor to the Miyagi Motors set and then move on to more industry. Hopefully I'll get to it this within this year, but I'm not sure.

[Matthias King 348]

Take your time. You're doing amazing work and everything you put out is welcome. I'm anxious to see this distribution center when it's finished.

[Avanya 2,605]

I released another little rooftop prop - nothing fancy, just another vent from one of the default industry buildings. Distribution center is getting there slowly and I can't wait to start texturing (almost ready for that now).

 

[Matthias King 348]

Ooh, it's looking better and better!

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

On 9/23/2016 at 2:19 PM, Avanya said:

Ty for the help guys! I think I'll do one with a loading bay next to the rails or something like that. (which reminds me I still wanna do one for Miyagi Motors) Not sure how it will integrate into the whole thing yet. I've gotta figure out if I can change the paths the trucks take in and out. Hopefully it will be good looking AND functionel.

Looking for some I also found a few train maintenance facilities, which I saved for later. We really need some of those too - ideally they could work like depots for trains, but even just decorative would be great.

Now I'm off to work on the models af I've finally got some free time for it - might pop in with another wip pic tonight. ^^

With your Miyagi Motors plant I used better bulldozer to delete the roads from a couple of your assets and replaced them with rail. Ended up with a instant rail connection inside the plant. I then used the blank terminal template rail yard inside your building. Worked very well. 

As for changing the paths it should be fairly simple with modtools. I was increasing the size of my station length for my elevated station with them and accidentally used the ID of one of the truck paths. Should be able to move them to any position. @Tim The Terrible helped me out with the code for that.

[Avanya 2,605]

@squirrelarmyuk Yeah, I recently found the proper paths to use, so should be able to pop things around. I'm still not sure how I want the one for Miyagi Motors to look - gotta do some testing of a look to see if it works with the traffic or just becomes horrible.  But I'll get there eventually (I hope)

As you guys might have guessed I've had less time to work on stuff than I had hoped. I've managed to do some rough texturing though and I like the look so far. Texture map is 1024x2048 (otherwise I wouldn't be able to dirty it up a bit without it looking very repetitive), but they're on the larger end (the one in the pic sitting on a 5x9 plot) so I think it'll be okay. I won't be able to do any work on these in the next few days, so I prob won't have an update until the end of the week.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

13 hours ago, Avanya said:

@squirrelarmyuk Yeah, I recently found the proper paths to use, so should be able to pop things around. I'm still not sure how I want the one for Miyagi Motors to look - gotta do some testing of a look to see if it works with the traffic or just becomes horrible.  But I'll get there eventually (I hope)

 

Did you find the actual paths within the editor or did you have to change other paths using modtools?

[Avanya 2,605]

I had to use ModTools as I couldn't find the right paths anywhere

[GC_Vos 714]

This looks great, love your modular stuff

For the cargo station I might suggest looking at loading docks:

Spoiler

Here's two I found on maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Port+of+Tucson/@32.1205645,-110.8480541,462a,20y,41.38t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86d66464e826244d:0xf0a206c6b1a35ceb!8m2!3d32.1239553!4d-110.8463896?hl=nl-US

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Governor+Nicholls+Street+Wharf/@29.9605482,-90.0553336,1525a,20y,180h/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8620a616e94089e7:0xe8560b7f3b70ce53!8m2!3d29.9585883!4d-90.0592681?hl=nl-US

Hope this helps

[Avanya 2,605]

@GC_Vos Ooohh, those are great for inspiration  

I'm home again and got time to work on CS stuff again (yay!). Today I've got a few quick decals to share (just normal sized ones for those old and worn roads), but tomorrow I'm back to texturing the distribution centers.

Cracks - Darker cracks - Patched asphalt

[Strechnitz 12]

Ooh, these look great, very realistic. Nice.

[Matthias King 348]

Very nice. All the new decals coming out really help to add some of those little details. Awesome work.

[Avanya 2,605]

In case you didn't notice I released some rectangular asphalt patches today.

I'm also finally making some nice progress with the distribution center! Got 2 parts almost done (might need to do custom LODs - auto generated ones look ok, but gotta have a proper look). They're sharing textures, but the two with offices won't share (hopefully with each other, but we'll see). I can reuse alot of the texture map though, so they shouldn't take too long. Props should help randomize the roofs so they don't look exactly the same.

[Robban040 1,091]

Keep em comin!

Love your work!

[Matthias King 348]

Looking nice! I can't wait to see this done.

[Avanya 2,605]

3 out of 4 buildings textured. The last one (will be pure office) will need it's own texture, but on the up side it should fit on a 1024x1024. Still got to model the cargo station part of it, but I figure it's a good idea to play around with the other bits first and see where it would make sense and adjust the size to that. Tris counts are looking very good, the highest sitting at 2.3k for a 6x16 plot.

[Matthias King 348]

Holy crap that looks awesome. You outdo yourself with every outing, though I'm sure at this point, that surprises no one.

Excellent work. I can't wait for this to be done.

[Avanya 2,605]

I had hoped to finish the current buildings today, but a bunch of texture tweeking and messing around with illuminations (trying some more detailed ones for the offices) took longer than planned. Tomorrow I'll set the props up to randomize, so the roofs won't be so boring.  And then it's time to do the cargo station (I think I know how I want to do it ). I'll release all bits at the same time, so it'll be a little while longer before you guys get your hands on them  

[Avanya 2,605]

Just a quick little picture today as the day became much more chaotic than I had hoped.   Got a non-real company logo in the works too, but it's a surprise until it's done  

Not sure how I'll do it with these. Should I do different versions of the corner building with the logo? (Could give the light areas different color schemes for the different companies) I considered putting them all on top of each other, so you'd sub to the logo you'd want, but that doesn't work if you'll want both UPS and DPD in your city.   I could also make them props with a set height, so they'd be placed in game like GCVos' LED Billboard, but that could be alot of fiddling and make it less useful for other assets.

What would you guys prefer?

[boformer 3,169]

It's possible to randomize props

[bsquiklehausen 190]

I'd prefer individual props - I'd rather not have to constantly re-roll the randomize prop placement to get the fictional or blank versiont.

[Matthias King 348]

I'm not sure. I'm not a big fan of randomized simply because you have to place and re-place to get what you want, but the alternative would be to publish multiple versions of the office just to represent the different logos.

And not everyone has Prop Anarchy to place the floating logo. I do, but not everyone does.

Something you might add is a parking lot sign. Most all distribution centers like this that I've seen have some kind of sign out by the entrance to the lot with the company logo, along with direction markers for parking, drop-offs, etc... It would just be a nice extra detail. But then, you would again be faced with making multiple versions of the parking lot sign with each individual logo.

I'm not sure what the ideal solution would be.

It might be to link to all the logo props, and leave it up to the user to place them manually in the asset editor. That's probably what I'll end up doing.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

Separate logo props would suit me as well. Not only would I be able to choose the one I want for the distribution centre but I can then add the same sign to other industrial buildings around the city.