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

[Avanya 2,605]

A bit more work done on the textures. Ofc immediately after posting yesterday I started debating with myself if the texture resolution was too small. When zooming in it's more fuzzy than I like - even when done without zoom mods. So part of today I spent just staring at the UV map trying to figure out where I could do more overlapping without taking away too much detail, so I could dedicate more space to other parts of the model. In the end I did a quick test to compare the 2048x1024 with a 4096x2048 texture, which gives the crisper textures I wanted. It's a large texture, even for a 8x16 building - 2MB vs almost 7MB. I'm not sure if I'll stick to that size - for now I'll work with the larger texture (so much easier to scale down than up). At least the other half consist of fewer areas that are very different, so it should fit a much smaller texture (hoping 1024x1024, but at the most 2048x1024).  

Any feedback you guys might have on this is very welcome! Is it worth the larger texture for something that you'll likely only have 1 or 2 of? Or will we be so zoomed out most of the time it's not worth it? 

[bsquiklehausen 190]

Have you thought about reducing the AO effects in some places - skipping AO on the large grey walls and chimney could help you tile a smaller texture to save space - even having 3 tile types - a shadowed, transition, and fully-lit could give you a lot of room on the map.

This great article from one of the former KSP devs has a great section on how me modeled and textured the space center buildings with barely any texture space. I know we don't get decal shaders for buildings, but with a smart atlas, you should be able to fake it pretty convincingly.

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

It looks quite impressive so far! Regarding textures it's probably worth it to have sharp textures as people interested in your asset are the ones looking for something more beautiful than the vanilla power plants... Or you could compromise and go for 2048x2048 but it's a pain to rearrange everything once a format is chosen...

At the end of the day I wouldn't mind if the texture was very large for the reasons you mentioned, do what you feel best

[Badi_Dea 476]

It's starting to shape up, looks great!

+1 to @bsquiklehausen's comment, that's exactly what I was thinking. Btw, that KSP article was a great and very interesting read, thanks for posting it

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty guys! I've had a little look at it today, but I'll prob have to do some more experimenting. I could prob overlap some more stuff (with or without ao) - just gotta see how much/little it allows me to dirty up the whole thing. While it might not look repetitive with the current texture, it might show very clearly with grunge.  I'd be happy with a 2048x2048 texture, but I'd hate to do all the work for it and then realize it's too fuzzy for my taste.  I'll prob make a copy of the model and experiment with, so I'd at least not have to redo the UV again! Might also have a little break and work on the other half - If I can't fit that on 1024x1024 then this half will for sure need to be 2048x2048 or smaller.

[Avanya 2,605]

A little update today. Redid the UV map and did a test with a 2048x2048 texture. Compared to the 2048x4096 it's more fuzzy ofc, but I think it's prob a better place overall. And when comparing to screenshots of the 1024x2048 it's much better. 2048x4096 looks nice and crisp, but it just feels too large for the game. Time to do a bit of tweeking of the UV map to use the texture space as best as possible and get the crispest textures I can. And applying some more detail and grunge to the whole thing.  Tyvm for your inputs guys - it's so helpful having others to bounce thoughts of

[Ronyx69 2,413]

I don't know how your texture looks, but I guess there may not be enough reuse of the textures.

There may be some wasted texture space on having multiple instances of the same thing.

For example the big columns on that gray piece with the ladder/door on it, you could make only one or two of them and then reuse the same texture for the others.

Also looks like the entire rusty vent is done without repetition, you could probably make like 4 rusty panels and then reuse them with different rotations.

The gray cylinders could be the same in terms of texture, I don't know if they are seperate right now.

I guess this is still WIP but I would suggest adding more texture detail in general, so the surfaces don't look so flat, fake bevels on the edges, panels, rivets, seams, some sort of vents, openings, or little wires on the texture may add some detail. 

[Avanya 2,605]

I intentionally didn't overlap everything using the same texture as this is a building which will have large flat areas without much detail, so grunge and ao is really all I have to spice it up with. The building is so large that panels, rivets, seams and the like just can't provide enough life to the texture (they'll ofc be where appropriate, just haven't gotten to that part yet). Also rotating and mirroring faces really messes up the normal maps, which I'll need for making it look interesting. That said I have done a bit more overlapping since that screenshot - mostly with the large grey thing you mentioned (the columns already did some overlapping, but now do a bit more). It added a few more faces, but it'll save me some space and still keep the nice variation. Now I've settled on a texture size I can really get started on those details, which makes the whole thing come alive. But I gotta say large boring surfaces like this building has are more of a challenge than I had expected!  

[Avanya 2,605]

Progress! There's still areas which need more detail/grunge and the walkway on the back needs ends (haven't decided if I want an escape ladder down or not ), but it's finally starting to look more like a structure than some blops of different colors.  Atm I'm doing the tedious work of aligning the walkway floors and railing, so I can do alpha map for them. I'm also looking forward to getting normal and specular done too - those always bring more life to buildings.  

[Matthias King 348]

It's looking good. What texture size did you settle on?

[Avanya 2,605]

I settled on 2048x2048, which I'm pretty happy with. Sorry for the late answer, but I wanted to have something to show you guys before posting again, so I don't just spam my own topic.  

Texturing on this half is more or less done - at least for now. Generally happy with how it looks (and mostly happy all the fiddling with UVs for the alpha map is done!), now the other half needs some texture too! Screenshots are with Daylight Classic on, but no LUT or other lighting tweeks. I'm not 100% sure on the streaks/grunge on the large white concrete - at first it was alot less, but in game it barely showed, so I turned it up. And I've gotta tweek the distance between the two as they're a bit too close atm.  

[Matthias King 348]

Is it as complicated to texture as it looks?

[Avanya 2,605]

This one was a pain to do, mostly because I needed more texture space than I had planned for in the beginning. And then getting the large plain surfaces to look interesting was a challenge.

[Matthias King 348]

Is this place based on any real-world facility?

[Ronyx69 2,413]

52 minutes ago, Avanya said:

This one was a pain to do, mostly because I needed more texture space than I had planned for in the beginning. And then getting the large plain surfaces to look interesting was a challenge.

Looking much better! I'd suggest adding at least something to the big gray part and the smokestack, maybe just some wires (tiny stretched faces) or pipes (tri-cylinder), the texture on them doesn't matter, but it would take just a few tris and break up the big empty space. Or you could do some props I guess.

 

23 minutes ago, Matthias King said:

Is this place based on any real-world facility?

Yes:

On 11/3/2016 at 8:42 PM, Avanya said:

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.

 

[Matthias King 348]

10 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

Looking much better! I'd suggest adding at least something to the big gray part and the smokestack, maybe just some wires (tiny stretched faces) or pipes (tri-cylinder), the texture on them doesn't matter, but it would take just a few tris and break up the big empty space. Or you could do some props I guess.

 

Yes:

 

Oh, nice. Are you going to be doing the rest as separate pieces? Will they be sub-buildings?

[Avanya 2,605]

I plan on adding some ladder props to the smokestack. I totally get where you're coming from Ronyx, but adding any more stuff to the big white building just doesn't make sense. I had some pipes on the back for a while, but it just didn't look right. The building this is modelled after has a grey line near the top, but that's pretty much it. Same with my local power plant actually. It has a large boring grey/white cube containing most of the plant. Nothing on the outside besides a ladder if I remember correctly.

I'll release it as one asset using Sub-buildings. Most likely I'll delay until we get Natural Disasters, since the update comes with integrated sub-buildings, so the mod won't be needed anymore. Not sure if I'll even finish it before anyways, but there's no point uploading it and then having to update it a few days later.

Texture on the other half is coming along nicely. Lots of overlapping on this one, but with the grunge I've planned and how I've divided the faces it shouldn't end up be that visible.  It all fits in a 1024x1024 texture, so I'm happy.  Almost ready to dirty it up and add detail  

[Matthias King 348]

It's coming along.

I heard about that thing with sub-buildings being integrated in Natural Disasters. I looked for more info and couldn't find it. All I found was basic info on the actual natural disasters.

Where are the other features being added?

[Avanya 2,605]

There's the usual bug fixes and quality of life updates. We'll prob see a list soon, though it might not have all the small stuff. It's just great to see some love for the asset editor and creators. More tools for us means more cool stuff for everyone.

Diffuse texture is mostly done - and it's still 1024x1024. Gotta do a little bit of color tweeking (the roof of the two white towers is too dark for one), but the overall look is there and I'm happy with it. I might add some windows to the elevator shafts on the sides of the two white. They do have that on the real thing. Gonna have to add faces to do it - I'll have to experiment with it tomorrow and see if it looks good. And then comes specular, normal and illumination ofc. Plus at some point I should figure out what sort of stats this should have.  

[Badi_Dea 476]

I really like the color scheme, it conveys a sense that the building was designed to not be a scar on the landscape and still fulfill its function; you portrayed that perfectly. nice going :-)

[Avanya 2,605]

Tyvm! ^^

It's getting closer and closer to finished - LODs and stats are pretty much what's left. I added some windows and doors to the stairwell/elevator shaft bits, but ofc I didn't grab a pic where you can see it well. xD Hopefully it won't take me too long to figure out the subbuildings in the update and test the stats, so I can release it before the end of the week.

In other news I've finally figured out what to do with the tram depot! Turned it around and made a smoother connection - ofc it's acting up when placing it now!  It places fine on corners or in intersections, but on a straight road it won't without anarchy. Redid the connecting road in several ways and even tried moving it tiny bits with Move It, but it just won't play. I've got it to connect to both small and large roads now, so it might just have to be annoying like this. 

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Your ginormous coal power plant looks awesome! Throw some full-scale cooling towers next to it and you'll have a great complex in any major industrialized city!

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty ^^

It's pretty much finished with proper LODs and works without needing mods. BUT - atm subbuildings don't seem to support custom props, so no ladder on the smokestack atm.   Not sure if I should release it and update it if/when subbuildings support custom props, if I should delay it until a fix (could be far in the future) or if I should use boformer's sub-buildings mod with it for now. What do you guys think?

In the mean time it's on Sketchfab for the curious.

[Avanya 2,605]

Released! Atm it still needs the sub-buildings mod. It just wouldn't play nice with the built in and custom props at least at the moment.

[_Beardmonkey 449]

That looks amazing! Excellent work! I need to get the sub-buildings mod now I think!

[boformer 3,169]

16 hours ago, Avanya said:

Atm it still needs the sub-buildings mod. It just wouldn't play nice with the built in and custom props at least at the moment.

I recommend you to switch to the native format as soon as possible.

[Avanya 2,605]

5 hours ago, boformer said:

I recommend you to switch to the native format as soon as possible.

That's totally my plan, but it just looks boring and unfinished without custom props. So as long as the native format doesn't save those I'll stick to the mod - my other option was to delay it until a fix.

[Judazzz 1,936]

That new power plant is a beast of a facility Avanya, and that's the way we like it! Amazing model!

[Avanya 2,605]

Ty very much! ^^ 

As seen in the screenshots the shaft is pretty much finished, but it kinda needs a companion otherwise it just ends funny in the air  Working on my version of bulk storage, which won't just have normal little cranes. No no, gotta have the real thing, even if I'm not even sure how they work. xD Got a fair amount of reference pictures though, so the end result should be good - just gotta find the right amount of detail to add so it doesn't go too high in tris count.   My plan is to have another without the building with somewhat different piles, so it can be extended. Plus ofc an empty one and in the future it can be expanded to iron and bauxite ore too.

[Judazzz 1,936]

Ooh, I'm looking forward to the extension - I've managed to create a similar construction using separate assets, but it's way too small, plus it doesn't look nearly as good as your creation looks even when still WIP.

I have one question about the power plant: when I plopped it in my city last night (just to see what it looks like, I still need to find a final place for it), I noticed the asset didn't have that huge chimney. Is that the way you set it up (chimney as a separate asset), or might something be off with the sub-buildings system?