Default Growable Reviews & Resource Replacer revive

[boformer 3,169]

A long time ago I released the Resource Replacer mod, which was never utilized by anyone (bad documentation is one reason for that).

What you can do with it is replace textures and colour variations of any building asset (vanilla or custom). You can even add lights to pre-AD assets, or add normal maps to assets which did not have one. All these overrides and settings can be bundled in Resource Packs (just like Building Themes, Sound Packs etc.).

Edit: You can start reviewing here:

 

Many of the default assets look like $%&^!, no idea what drugs they took when they textured and imported them. The biggest problem are badly chosen colour variations (many assets just use yellow, green, blue, red...). A few buildings can only be "fixed" by editing their textures (white or pink roofs...).

During the last few months, I started to take a look at all the default growables. I took screenshots of all the details, colour variations and night lights (all with the same LUT, time settings, orientation). I also tried to find better colour variations which can later be used in a Resource Pack. Another thought behind this was the (re-)classification of growables (architecture style, lot size, wealth level, household/workplace count, density and CAM like growth stages) and finding a nice name for every single one. Also a general rating to sort out the really bad assets.

Upcoming mods like Growable Overhaul and a total overhaul mod would heavily benefit from a review of all vanilla growables, and the look of your cities could be improved (color variations alone change a lot).

I want you, the players and asset creators, to take over the rating, naming and classification of the buildings. I thought of a simple questionnaire you can fill out for every single asset (is anything missing?):

Spoiler

 

1) Name this asset:

2) Rating (number between 0 and 10):

• Architecture & Proportions:
• Colour (with vanilla colour variations):
• Colour (improved colour variations):
• Illumination:
• Model & Texture Quality:
• Decoration (props & trees):
• Overall Rating:

3) Stat Classification (you can specify one or multiple values):

• Zone Type (RCIO):
• Wealth Level ($, $$, $$$):
• Density ([1 rural] – [10 megacity]):
• Household & Workplace Count:
• Ideal lot size (with garden/parking, 1x1 – 16x8):

4) Style Classification (you can specify one or multiple values):

• Commonness ([1 rare, unique] – [10 widespread, large accumulations]):
• Construction date (1800 – 2100):
• Continent or Region:
• Architecture Style (if known):

5) Suggestions for improvement:

 

Ideally asset creators would also extract the default textures to improve them (so they can be added to the Resource Pack).

So far I inspected all low-density residential buildings of the game (460 screenshots of 73 buildings), but I never shared my progress.

I'm not completely sure what would be the best way to publish a daily image. A forum thread, or maybe a gallery or city journal? Or some kind of blog? What do you think?
Edit: I went for a city journal

Here is an example set of screenshots (L4 2x2 Villa07):

Spoiler

 

Default color variations, night lights and improved colour variations:

 

 

 

[Matthias King 348]

Sounds pretty interesting. How difficult is it to use for someone who doesn't know how to code or 3d model?

[Feindbold 1,190]

Quote

 

1) Name this asset: Villa "add something mediterranean"

2) Rating (number between 0 and 10):

• Architecture & Proportions: 8
• Colour (with vanilla colour variations): 2
• Colour (improved colour variations): 8
• Illumination: 8
• Model & Texture Quality: 6
• Decoration (props & trees): 6
• Overall Rating: 7

3) Stat Classification (you can specify one or multiple values):

• Zone Type (RCIO): Low residential
• Wealth Level ($$):
• Density (3):
• Household & Workplace Count: 10
• Ideal lot size (with garden/parking, 1x1 – 16x8): 3x3

4) Style Classification (you can specify one or multiple values):

• Commonness (8):
• Construction date (1960-2000):
• Continent or Region: Mediterranean
• Architecture Style (if known):

5) Suggestions for improvement:

Replace the bricks with white plaster to fit the style, the building will then may be end up at $$$

 

You put some great thoughts into this. 

While I think a blog or even a Wiki would be more organized, a forumpost will probably get far more attention. On the other side, if there is a blog with a kind of easy to use formular, one could "curl" people into filling out these daily formulars by placing links on workshopassets

I think you should link the diffuse aswell, uploaded on imgur (you can set imgur to highres mode, so it wont compress the textures)
I am often not at home but with access to Photoshop, im sure I will find the time to do some changes.

EDIT: One thing, I think you should add the trianglecount too, that will help to classify the modelquality

[Avanya 2,605]

This sounds like a really good idea. There's definately some improvements that can be done - especially the color variations. I think a forum post could get messy quickly, a subforum where each picture gets it's own thread could work I guess. I agree with Feindbold that a blog or wiki could also be nice and organized. I guess in some regards it's also up to you (or whoever will put all the data together) how organized you prefer it. I'll pitch in where I can for sure

[boformer 3,169]

1 hour ago, Matthias King said:

Sounds pretty interesting. How difficult is it to use for someone who doesn't know how to code or 3d model?

You need some image editing skills to edit the textures. Changing the color variations with mod tools is quite simple and does not require anything. I made a map that contains every single growable building for a better overview.

59 minutes ago, Avanya said:

This sounds like a really good idea. There's definately some improvements that can be done - especially the color variations. I think a forum post could get messy quickly, a subforum where each picture gets it's own thread could work I guess. I agree with Feindbold that a blog or wiki could also be nice and organized. I guess in some regards it's also up to you (or whoever will put all the data together) how organized you prefer it. I'll pitch in where I can for sure

I think I will create a city journal. The first entry will be about the awesome city called "Resource Replacer Capital" and explain the project, then we will start reviewing buildings  

[Judazzz 1,936]

So in theory proper knowledge of Photoshop (or Fireworks, my weapon of choice) and Mod Tools would be sufficient to change textures of existing assets and then save those assets as new ones? Also to change other things than just color variations, like illumination textures? That sounds really exciting! (and who knows even a stepping stone to actual modelling, one day, eventually, perhaps, possibly...)

[boformer 3,169]

23 minutes ago, Judazzz said:

So in theory proper knowledge of Photoshop (or Fireworks, my weapon of choice) and Mod Tools would be sufficient to change textures of existing assets and then save those assets as new ones? Also to change other things than just color variations, like illumination textures? That sounds really exciting! (and who knows even a stepping stone to actual modelling, one day, eventually, perhaps, possibly...)

No, you don't save them as new ones. It is applied directly to the existing assets.

Here for example I changed the color variations of all assets, and replaced the texture of the house with the wooden roof and the narrow one with the garage:

And here is how they looked before (with the color variation you can only change the wall color, not the ugly roofs):

[Judazzz 1,936]

Ok, so it's being applied to assets on run-time and doesn't alter the original asset - strictly personal so to speak? Still I love the idea: even though I use a number of them (coincidentally the ones in your screenshot are precisely the ones I use in combination with Feindbild's Brooklyn theme), generally speaking I'm not the biggest fan of many of the vanilla assets (and even downright hostile towards some  ), but I can think of quite a few that would really benefit from re-texturing (making them good enough to be used).
Now if only it was possible to re-texture suitable ones and completely disable the rest (so they're not loaded, freeing up some resources).

Great stuff, Boformer - looking forward to your guide!

[Matthias King 348]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The L2 and L3 1x1 houses would ideally go on 3x3 lots with suburban props (white picket fence, driveway, back patio, etc) for middle class (L2 being lower-middle, L3 being upper-middle) rural (1 on a scale from 1-20, 0.5 on a scale from 1-10). However, that would require more growth stages to implement. My asset maker crashed when I tried to take a picture of the 1950s suburban house (L3 1x1 I relotted).

[Turjan 1,048]

This looks like another rather ambitious project. Should be fun though.

[ethansprang 41]

When you get the larger growables done, rescaling default assets to 1:1 would combine VERY well with this.

[Leto 24]

The colour correction changes alone can make the game a lot more elegant. Im particularly against the vanilla low density lvl 5 buildings,  horrid looking with orange dominance.

(I'm Ngon from workshop)

[Ocram's Razr 963]

During the last few months, I started to take a look at all the default growables. I took screenshots of all the details, colour variations and night lights (all with the same LUT, time settings, orientation). I also tried to find better colour variations which can later be used in a Resource Pack. Another thought behind this was the (re-)classification of growables (architecture style, lot size, wealth level, household/workplace count, density and CAM like growth stages) and finding a nice name for every single one. Also a general rating to sort out the really bad assets.

Upcoming mods like Growable Overhaul and a total overhaul mod would heavily benefit from a review of all vanilla growables, and the look of your cities could be improved (color variations alone change a lot).

Stat Classification (you can specify one or multiple values):

Zone Type (RCIO):
Wealth Level ($, $$, $$$, R$$$$):
Density ([1 rural] – [15 megacity]):
Household & Workplace Count:
Ideal lot size (with garden/parking, 1x1 – 16x8):

FYI this is the CAM's growth stage thresholds (minimum residents or workers per tile to reach growth stage), modified for Cities: Skylines (8x8m instead of 16x16m) 

I abbreviated for obvious patterns, expanded for more wealth levels (3 typical wealth levels being middle 3 quintilles, R$$$$ being rare 5th quintille, R¢ being poverty from events, R$$$$$/Elite/Top 1% isn't here because they only live in special unique buildings, 1 household per megamansion)

Stage  R¢     Res$    R$$   R$$$  R$$$  Com$  C$$  C$$$  Ind$  Ind$$  I$$$   Office$$  O$$$ O$$$$

 2         1.7     0.85   0.43   0.21   0.11      4          2      1       1.25     1.58   1.88     1.2               1        0.8  
 3         2.5     1.25   0.63   0.31   0.16     7         3.5    1.75   2.03    2.55   3.05     1.95          1.63     1.3
 4         4         2         1        .5       0.25    10.15                       3.18               4.78     3.15
 5         8.5      4.25                                    13.35                       4.8                 7.23     5.7
 6        22.5    11.25                                   16.75                      7.03             10.53     13.5
 7        51.6     25.8                                    21.18                       9.9               14.85     27
 8        105      52.5                                    26.75                     13.48             20.23    42.5
 9        176      88                                       33.75                     17.73              26.5     59.25
 10      250     125                                      42.25                      22.5              33.75    77.75
 11      N/A    163.5                                   53.5                        N/A     N/A    N/A      98.25
 12                  203.5                                  67.25                                                          122.5
 13                  244.5                                  84.75                                                          151
 14                  287                                     106.75                                                        185.25
 15                  331                                      134.5                                                          22

EDIT: That took waaaaaay too long to write!

  Edited February 23, 2016 by OcramsRzr  
exasperation

[boformer 3,169]

Let's get started: I created the journal and the first 2 entries!

 

Here is the first one:

 

Please rate and comment in the city journal and not here

 

[Homernoid 1]

Hi boformer,

just yesterday I started playing around with your resource replacer and I´m really loving the idea! I use it to change the vanilla assets to my personal taste which is less realistic and a little more comic

I really love the aesthetics of SimCity 2013 and I´m kind of stunned that almost everyone seems to love the more realistic graphics of C:S. So what I´m trying is to get the textures "cleaner" and get rid of most of the bump maps. But the most annoying thing for me are the specular maps of the buildings/vehicles. The first building you chose for your review got a specular on its roof like it is out of metal plates or something. I would love to change that, but I don´t get how I change the specular texture (which is the blue channel of the *.xys file, correct?).

Oh and by the way, what you did with the texture change of the buildings in your first picture in this thread is amazing. So much better than the vanilla ones!

[boformer 3,169]

I think the blue channel is the inverted specular.

If you are using gimp, you can easily check it by displaying only the blue channel.

I would love to see the results

[Homernoid 1]

Hm, as someone with almost zero knowledge about textures, I just dont get how these spec-maps work. Do you think that it should be possible to change the specmap with these textures that the mod-tools extract (normal and specmap in one file)? I dont get it to work.

 

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The Bunga-Bungalow suggested name was funny. I decided that the garage door could become a duplex entrance (retextured) so I decided on Aussie slang fo bothersome 2 (Bunga Duplo) instead of implicitly referencing Italo-Franco-Iberian slang for nudist parties for powerful men with beautiful women.

 

The geometry is versatile enough to be not only a low class duplex but also a middle class suburban home, if the garage door is replaced with a normal wall and a detached garage is added, along with other suburban family props on a large lot.

 

The Hacienda Alto Videtur can go two ways: it can either be a 3x3 middle class triplex (recolored, without solar panels nor flower boxes) or an upper-middle class mini-mansion with a big back yard

[boformer 3,169]

Better comment on the CJ entry

Here are the newest ones:

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

And the next one:

 

It really suffers from the rendering settings of the game, the texture looks ok. I wonder if we would be able to change the settings... that would instantly fix 90% of all assets (except color variations).

 

[boformer 3,169]

And the next one: Not really my favourite, but with a slight recolor it could be used as a generic suburb house.

The default color variations are so nice:

Spoiler

 

[boformer 3,169]

 

 

[inves1 1]

Your buildings looks way better than the default, the default look too cartoonish imo, only thing I think they need is a yard, its weird to see those houses whitout a yard (I only think that this is possible if we get bigger tiles...)

[boformer 3,169]

Here are the newest assets:

 

 

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

Number #9:

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

 

[boformer 3,169]

I just uploaded the content for the next 22 days, and I reached my attachment limit, so the new entries are hosted on Imgur.

Here is the newest entry:

 

[boformer 3,169]

The latest entry: