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

[Strechnitz 12]

Great MM station! My MM-plant needs an complete overhaull now, nut it will be worth it.

That powerplant is a great project. I loo forward to it. good luck with it. Seeing all the great work of you guys, makes me want to try moddeling assets as well. Who knows. lets look at some tutorials first. 

[Avanya 2,605]

I got caught up playing the game for the last few days. So much to detail!   Power plant is coming along nicely. Gotta put in more details like doors and stuff on the roofs, but not it's not just boxes with a smokestack

I also messed around with my old bus depot to convert it into a tram depot (the building it's modelled after was built as a tram depot, then turned into a bus depot) and I got it all working - but ofc the cables on the tram depot roads are extra wide and stick out through the sides of the building... -_-  I haven't decided how to fix it - I could leave tracks for the doors on the edges, but then what would those doors be for?  I could also scale the whole thing up a bit or add a bit more to the sides, so the poles and wires are inside the building.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

Have you got pics of the Tram depot so far? Might be able to suggest something. Extra doors shouldn't really be an issue on a depot though.

[Avanya 2,605]

@squirrelarmyuk Here's how it looks with just 2 doors in use. It really bothers me how the poles are wider on the depot tracks compared to the normal tracks - if they weren't that wide they'd stay inside the building. Having only 2 doors with tracks also bothers me, though having them in all 4 doors kinda messes with the placement of the poles even more.  Any tips on how to make this look proper would be great.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

Just because you have four doors it doesn't mean they have to be in use, place some boxes or other props in front of them to give the impression that they were used but now no longer needed

[Tim The Terrible 586]

Hmm, strange, and bad job from CO. Maybe only use the 2 center doors?

[Avanya 2,605]

I'd really rather block the doors off or completely remove them. I know it'll annoy me if there's doors without tracks leading into them!  I could also also add another section or two and avoid using the doors on the ends. Tbh I'm really considering changing the whole look up - I'd like to keep the doors and the brick look, but I've got a feeling I just won't be happy with minor tweeks to this one.  For now I think I'll leave it and work on my power plant. Maybe one of you guys will give me a great idea for the tram depot or I'll get one myself.

I got some stuff done on my power plant again, but it's mostly just changing the faces to proper sizes for when I unwrap it, so not much to see. Added some doors and a bit more details and did some testing with the subbuildings. I grabbed a quick shot of the size compared to the default ones - they so tiny! I'm not even sure small power plants like that exist (even here in tiny Denmark I have yet to spot one that small).  I hope to get the last model details done soon and then it's time for texturing!

[Strechnitz 12]

Looking very promissing!

[barcasam7 185]

It's interesting watching your work and I'm already learning. I never considered putting the building into the game before textures. But I can see how beneficial it would be for scaling as it means you can see if your textures are getting distorted. Thanks for the tip!

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

4 hours ago, barcasam7 said:

It's interesting watching your work and I'm already learning. I never considered putting the building into the game before textures. But I can see how beneficial it would be for scaling as it means you can see if your textures are getting distorted. Thanks for the tip!

I always test my model first, especially if it's a functioning building like a train station. Have to make sure it's going to do what you think it is before spending the time UV Mapping and creating textures. 

@Avanya As for your power station even though it looks to be made using realistic sizes it seems to be far too big for the game when placed alongside the vanilla assets.

However, power stations are meant to be big, I can see my "local" power station easily and that's 30 miles away. Try placing Jerenables new cooling tower asset next to your model and see how it compares. I can imagine your building at the edge of the map, surrounded by cooling towers dominating the distant landscape.

[R3V0 909]

@squirrelarmyuk

Off topic: Do we have enough assets/mod to achieve something like that photo in CS ? 

[droidhacker 2]

I agree, the power plants in the base game are too small and simplistic, I like to build a bunch next to each other with some props to make a large power station complex

[Avanya 2,605]

Honestly I'd rather make properly scaled buildings than reduce them in size like the default ones. For those you'd prefer the default ones, this one prob won't be interesting, but for those wanting a realistic power plant it creates an option. I'll see what kind of response it gets, when it's done and published, but I'd like to do a large one which won't need sub buildings. It's based on this one from the VW plant - doing the Miyagi Motors I kept seeing it in the distance and decided it was a good place to start.

@R3V0 We're getting there. I think the cooling towers on the workshop migth be a bit smaller than those in the picture. There aren't many actual power plant assets which aren't bad (there are some though), but with a smokestack and my factory halls something looking like that can be achieved. It's my plan to expand on our power plant options though - this wip being the start. Something that works in modules would also be great, but I'm getting ahead of my self  

[Tim The Terrible 586]

@Avanya Big buildings are the way to go! They do look huge next to vanilla assets, but only until there are more big buildings on the workshop and no one uses vanilla industry anymore  Making big buildings like these might inspire other asset makers to follow in you footsteps, and before we know it the workshop will be flooded with huge buildings. I will be on of those! (Thinking about bulk industry linked to rail transport e.g. Oil, Coal, Ore, Cement, Containers)

[R3V0 909]

Hell yeah, go big or go home 

ALL HAIL LARGE ASSETS

ALL HAIL 2K TEXTURES

MAKE CITIES SKYLINES GREAT AGAIN 

[gfvsims 169]

Do you ever stream when you're working, Avanya? I'd love to see how you mesh and texture your models.

[Avanya 2,605]

Nope, but I have considered doing some timelapse of modelling. I'm pretty new to the whole recording/streaming and only just did a few short ones for my cargo train stations. I keep forgetting to record while modelling though. Might just start in the middle of a project, since I always seem to forget when I start a new one

[Avanya 2,605]

Just released a 5x6 piece for my modular distribution center - now you can make it a big square!  I found I was missing a smaller piece when plopping the center in my cities. Hopefully this one will turn out to be flexible enough to fill most of those situations.

On another note my power plant is ready to get some textures, so I'll soon have something to show for it.

[eufl 133]

I didn´t play for a while (patches can be so annoying), so when I came back to try it again, you´ve made a huge lot of new assets, especially Miyagi and this distribution center, that I had to download immediatly. And cause they are as nice and useful as usual, I want to say thank You!

A suggestion for your tram depot: Would it be possible to cut out the parts of the catenaries, you don´t need, and work only with the wires alone?

[R3V0 909]

On 02/11/2016 at 8:36 PM, Avanya said:

@squirrelarmyuk Here's how it looks with just 2 doors in use. It really bothers me how the poles are wider on the depot tracks compared to the normal tracks - if they weren't that wide they'd stay inside the building. Having only 2 doors with tracks also bothers me, though having them in all 4 doors kinda messes with the placement of the poles even more.  Any tips on how to make this look proper would be great.

I have a trolleybus depot near my house, do you want some pictures ? 

[Avanya 2,605]

@eufl Thank you very much for the kind words ^^ Getting rid of the catenaries and just having the wires would be perfect, though that sort of thing is beyond my skills.   So seems I'll just have to model my way out of it.

@R3V0 If you get a chance to grab some pictures that'd be awesome! Always good for inspiration

[Tim The Terrible 586]

You can anlge the depot tracks inward, instead of leaving them 90 degrees. So as soon as the track goes in the door, make them cross like an X. I hope you know what I mean  

[Avanya 2,605]

Hmm, I'll have to try that!

I've got a little progress on my power plant. Some very rough texturing and added a bit more detail. Nothing really final yet, but it looks a bit more interesting than a grey blob now.

[Jerenable 266]

I updated my cooling tower, for them smooth shading while I was doing that I also did some research on the towers themselves. Cooling tower sizes mostly range from 30-130m with really tall ones topping out on 200m (that's really uncommon and not really useful or you need to have a real big base). As the cooling is done by spraying water on a copper grid of pipes with hot fluids inside. The tower relies on natural convection for the movement of air. As hot air rises it lowers the pressure inside sucking cold air in from the open bottom. This means cooling is a surface process so capacity can be increased by upping surface area. so that means widening the tower is more useful, (that is why you see a lot of stumpy ones) not making it taller or just build multiple ones. Making it taller only increases airflow by convection (there is a limit to increasing that is why 200m is stupid in most cases) you can also use forced air like a huge fan (that's for the less tall stumpy ones). This means that if you want to make a big tower and not a mid tower like mine (mines is 75m tall) it should be around 120-180m tall with a base diameter from 90-120m. I spend to much time on this hope you like it ;3.

[Avanya 2,605]

@Jerenable Cool, ty for sharing your research with me!  Seems like the one in Wolfsburg is in the larger end. About 100m tall with a 70m base diameter. I haven't compared, but seems like your cooling tower and this power plant will look right together (not like those small cooling towers on the default nuclear plant).  Btw your tower doesn't seem to update with the smooth shading for me.  

[Jerenable 266]

1 minute ago, Avanya said:

@Jerenable Cool, ty for sharing your research with me!  Seems like the one in Wolfsburg is in the larger end. About 100m tall with a 70m base diameter. I haven't compared, but seems like your cooling tower and this power plant will look right together (not like those small cooling towers on the default nuclear plant).  Btw your tower doesn't seem to update with the smooth shading for me.  

hmm, Ill look into it, It does for me btw 

[Avanya 2,605]

Seems like it's on my end then. Hmm... Gonna fight with Steam and see if I can get it to properly update.

[Jerenable 266]

1 minute ago, Avanya said:

Seems like it's on my end then. Hmm... Gonna fight with Steam and see if I can get it to properly update.

I'll repush the update anyways to force an update, ill also change the name of the file to see if it updated. 

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty! I'll keep an eye on it.

[Avanya 2,605]

I did a little color test today to see how it looks ingame - no visual mods or LUT. The red pipes definately need to change - not sure if I'll go for another color, white or metal/silver. As you can see AO has been baked into the texture. I finished modelling the walkways, but they don't have proper texture yet. Nothing pretty much final yet, but it's starting to look more and more interesting. Currently working with a 2048x1024 texture and hoping to fit everything on there with a good amount of detail. It's a bit of a challenge making these large uniform surfaces look interesting and realistic (and not fall for the trap of too small a texture for the area), which along with real life is slowing down my work.   Tris count is lower than I would have expected - this half is still around 3k and the whole thing is below 5k atm. So doesn't look like they'll be heavy on tris.