Lost Gecko's projects

[Lost Gecko 481]

I've just released my first assets and I decided to create a post not because there is much to see, but rather because as an inexperienced modeler it will be a good place to collect feedback and ask for advice. (I would like to keep the forum clean from my numerous questions!)

So my project is a modular medieval wall that is currently made out of 7 parts of a 6m high set. This is the short version, which is suitable for town walls, but a 12m set is planned. I might also do a 9m version but don't quote me on that.

The wall parts are based on the great "stone wall" template of Sparks, so they can be placed freely and conform to terrain. I tried to make their stats balanced in terms of entertainment value. I wanted the towers to avoid flattening the terrain and as I'm not good with playing with building's properties, I went with a water tower template without stats. It's not the most convenient but it works. It's also worth noting that the assets only really work well with an anarchy mod (especially the gates that I made without roads for more freedom).

Here is the link to the collection: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=718095394

New short pieces and the tall set are on the way, but probably not before the end of July. You can leave suggestions or feedback so that I can improve my future assets!

 

 

 

[Judazzz 1,936]

Congrats on your first releases, LG! 
I'm not a modeler myself, so I may not be the best judge, but it's hard to believe that these are actually your first models: they look great, have lovely, crisp texture work with minimal tiling and are light on weight. Pretty much ticked all the boxes that define a quality asset!

[Lost Gecko 481]

1 minute ago, Judazzz said:

Congrats on your first releases, LG! 
I'm not a modeler myself, so I may not be the best judge, but it's hard to believe that these are actually your first models: they look great, have lovely, crisp texture work with minimal tiling and are light on weight. Pretty much ticked all the boxes that define a quality asset!

Thank you! It has been made possible because of all the existing tutorials and guides, it is easier when others experiment with it and tell you how to proceed! and Also my assets are not too complex and use a very simple texture so I was able to take advantage of it...

[bap 4]

Lost_gecko, if you pull your basis wall model down by some 5m you may alternatively create a nice seawall prop (instead of a building) which you could plop with the PropLineTool mod with whatever shape suits you.

[Bolduck91 54]

Liking it a lot ! Tho may suggest maybe for a next similar project to put them on a stronger foundation so they really look like they are sitting on the grade. A bit like so : 

http://www.castlewales.com/dolforn5.jpg

and see my beautiful talent in MS paint :

 

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

@bap I've indeed thought about foundations but wouldn't props straight out dissappear at some distance? Thank you for the suggestion, I'll experience with it a bit anyway!

@Bolduck91 I've thought about it too actually! And I really thank you for making me think more about it because, erm, in my head if it was on a slope it wouldn't work with the adjacent walls... but that is if they didn't conform to terrain, and they do... So I feel stupid now and I'll experiment with this as well! Although now that I'm thinking about it, it would cause a problem when placed at an angle, as the foundations wouldn't intersect (I don't have time to make a beautiful drawing so I hote I'm clear enough). I'm just saying that now but I'll definately try!

I wish I could combine both ideas so that towers too have foundations like that but I've already tried and the underground part is just made out of the vanilla concrete texture... But the slope is there, so I'll see what I can do (basically both great ideas but not implemented yet because of my lack of modeling knowledge!)

I won't be able to work on this for the two upcoming weeks because I'm going on holidays though, you'll have to be patient... Thanks for the feedback!

[Lost Gecko 481]

I'm back and working on improving the overall quality of the project before attacking the interesting stuff: the tall set of wall (because of course with what is currently available you can't built impressive cities, let alone castles...)!

I have reworked the texture to desaturate it a bit more and make the seam a bit less visible (it still is but the reduced contrast makes the pattern less obvious).

I have also figured out a (not difficult after all) way to make the towers as parks, so that's very good news!

However I haven't been able to apply a texture to the underground foundations of the towers, which would be visible if they sit on a slope (why not for moats!). I've read this thread but I still couldn't do it... I guess I'll do like others did and make the underground part a prop... but the gradient, although textureless, is there.

@bap After thinking a lot about it I'm sorry but if I ever make a prop version it won't be too soon: the PropLineTool advantage would only be useful for straight lines because any angle would disjoint the wall. I want at least as much as you to have an underground part but the amount of terraforming that it would require to have the wall straight is a bit daunting to me, not to mention the fact that the wall is a lot narrower than the existing seawall props, so it wouldn't hide the slope (except if I modify them or, again, with heavy terraforming).Overall I find it too impractical.

@Bolduck91 Because the walls follow the terrain, I will have to make the gradient above the ground, and therefore for the towers as well. The problem is that usually, the inside part is higher than the outside, so the tower's door can be on ground level (see the pictures). I'm not sure yet how I'll do because I don't like how it would look if I put the doors into the slope, and putting the above would look odd as well. I'll see.

(and yes that's the Lugo's roman walls in the background, reminding me that my set is very simple and generic. I'll go for a bit more complexity in the future to make it a bit more interesting though. The roman wall is done a bit differently but it's great)

 

 

 

 

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

My lack of modeling knowledge strikes again!

I am experiencing issues with the texturing of a new asset: black lines appear at the edge of the seamless textures on the model. I tried to extend the seamless textures a bit, I converted the texture file to PNG (I'm using JPG) but it is still there. I'm pretty sure I proceeded the same way as I did with the circular tower, which worked. It is more visible in-game and gets worse with distance. Any idea on what might be causing this?

On the bright side, the asset in question is more detailed than my previous ones (for which I really went for minimal geometry so I have room for extra tris). I will update them with the improved texture when I upload the tall set.

(the last pic is only there to show the geometry, the problem is not visible there of course)

Thanks for your help and for passing by!

 

 

 

[Feindbold 1,190]

Mh, have you tried to import, are these lines still there? At least the 3rd pic looks like wireframelines to me.

[Lost Gecko 481]

@Feindbold When I import they are way more visible, and the last pic is indeed the wireframes, I might not have been clear enough... I showed it to have an idea of how I make the textures if ever it is relevant to the problem...

[Avanya 2,605]

How close are your UVs to the edges of the texture? I've had something similar happen when I had the UVs really close to the edges of the texture.

[Lost Gecko 481]

@Avanya They are at the very edge of it, but I did it the same way as I already had, and no problems had occured then... I also tried to move them from the edge but it didn't change... I will still retry it.

Thank you very much for your answers!

EDIT: after retrying it seems like that was the problem indeed! I really don't know why it happens only now though... Anyway, yet a dumb and easlily fixed problem... I guess I'm learning...

  Edited July 31, 2016 by Lost_gecko  

[Lost Gecko 481]

The tall set is released!

Here is the collection.

As the textures are different, I will soon update the short set and also publish new park versions of the short towers that are now water & sewage (as I've heard the Workshop page doesn't update the asset type). If you are subscribed to these towers make sure to subscribe to the park ones because I will not update the old ones!

The tall towers benefit from a foundation prop that allow to create nice-looking moats (for neat edges I needed to built pedestrian roads around it, then hide them with ruined texture with the Surface Painter Tool, then use Anarchy to place the wall on top of the Inside road so it requires a lot of mods unfortunately). I will add the same feature to the new short towers.

I have noticed that the tall circular tower suffers from a slight texture problem at the front left and the prop collides with the door, so this will have to be fixed as well.

Other than that I'm glad with how it turned out, I will complete it over time but right now I want to try something new because I've had enough of UV mapping the same seamless stone texture everywhere! So next could be some growables or unique buildings.

Thank you everyone for your support, suggestions and feedback!

 

[Judazzz 1,936]

That looks fantastic, great job!

[Avanya 2,605]

Love the size of these as well as the rock texture! Good work 

[Lost Gecko 481]

Thank you very much guys! Yeah, the first set is only really usable for small towns, this one is indeed more interesting! And I am also more satisfied with the texture, which is the original one reworked... The short set is being updated with this texture as well as other minor improvements!

By the way, I can't quite figure out how to edit the title of this post, does anyone have an idea?

[Avanya 2,605]

Edit the first post - that'll let you edit the title too

[Lost Gecko 481]

My new project is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (London)! I really like the building but the fact that it is open makes it quite complex (no regrets though!)...

I'm not sure about the level of detail that I should put into the seats. Would the stair-shape make the tris count skyrocket too much? Because I'm afraid that the sloped one is a bit too simple.

The model is still far from finished but it shoud be a couple of thousands tris heavy, so within reason but the building isn't big (30m diameter)... Knowing that I'll try to make the texture 1024x1024 and that I'm only modeling what is visible from the outside.

And lastly, the light colourblind that I am would like to be sure that the stage's columns are red (I mean, maybe brownish or so but not, say, green)...?

[Darf 1,439]

Nice project!

Stairs typically aren't to bad tris wise. Per stair it's only 22 tris extra. Overall that's a few 100, but that's upto you. The flatter they are the less you will notice the geometry, but it also takes texturespace if you don't model them. It's a bit of a balance question.

[Lost Gecko 481]

Thank you @Darf! I think it would reach 1500-2000 extra tris (3 storeys and adapted shape) but I'm convinced, as it is normally still reasonable and it would look very flat without...

[Lost Gecko 481]

Halp plz!

I have been reported an issue with the props attached to my tower assets. I attached the local versions to the towers before publishing them, and apparently it made the props private, I don't know if those who tried them have had the same issue. So I updated them with the workshop prop version but for some reason I thought it would be faster to just override the workshop save (my game crashes everytime I want to load an imported model). FATAL MISTAKE! Now I have duplicates that subscribe together and I have no idea how to get rid of it. I also have no idea if my update worked: do the towers have the foundation prop now? Because otherwise that's false advertising...

Thank you for checking and helping me to solve this!

EDIT: problem is normally solved thanks to Darf, thanks!

  Edited August 9, 2016 by Lost_gecko  

[Darf 1,439]

Delete the whole thing in C:S from your subscribed assets. Than go to you your assets folder and delete the asset there as well.

Now resubscribe and import the updated version by saving a second version and than replacing it in the map when you click the update button.

[Lost Gecko 481]

Yesterday I remembered about a simple Sketchup model I did some months ago went I first thought about creating my own C:S assets and so here it is: the Medieval market hall!

I thought about making it a level 2 unique building but I wasn't sure if it would have been directly available depending on the template. Finally I went for a simple park. I once again made use of seamless textures in (probably too) small tiles, but I'm slowly adding more and more details. I also used png files and I'll probably stick to it.

The problem with the tiles outline is more visible than ever and really affects the roof as it is quite large and I went a bit crazy with the tile size. It is visible from most angles except from straight on. I still don't know where it comes from, but I don't have that problem when my texture is only made of 1 seamless square like for my medieval walls. As the roof is the most visible part of the building it's quite an issue, sorry about that...

I'm getting back to the Globe Theatre but I'll probably alternate with smaller projects.

[Lost Gecko 481]

Little update!

After some props I've started making growables. There are two styles that I want to do: medieval (what did you expect?) and old belgian buildings (low density urban/rural as found in my hometown and in Wallonia in general). The latter are easier to make texturewise (brick/plaster vs. timberframe) but medieval houses have a bit more character... This will be my first encounter with illumination maps, I'm expecting some fun (why would it go right at first try?)...

And as usual here is the question of the day. I want to make a residential version for each commercial building as it is an easy way to make an extra house, but I would like to have a proper ground floor for them. It would be great if both versions could keep the same mesh so that it would be optimized for the Loading Screen mod and only change the texture slightly, but this ideally require a bit of UV mapping tweaks. Are two asset meshes still considered the same if the UV mapping differs?

[boformer 3,169]

50 minutes ago, Lost_gecko said:

Are two asset meshes still considered the same if the UV mapping differs?

no

[Lost Gecko 481]

Ok thank you @boformer, I'll probably change the mesh when required then.

[boformer 3,169]

Sharing textures is much more effective than sharing meshes. If only 10% of the texture differs, just put all the ground floors into the same texture.

[Lost Gecko 481]

I'm having an issue with my new asset: the LOD is fully illuminated, even though the regular version works fine. I thought I had already seen that somewhere but I couldn't find it, so I'm asking it here: what did I do wrong? I first thought it was a problem with my custom LOD, so I removed it but the issue is still there on the generated one...

[Darf 1,439]

The generated one usually has that issue. That's why a customlod is always required. What does your illum map of your lod look like?

[Lost Gecko 481]

@Darf Up to now I was only creating custom LOD meshes and always left the textures autogenerated (only my two growables use illumination)... Well, I know what I have to do now... I want to say that my previous building didn't have this problem but I don't recall actually checking it... It's a shame because it makes the whole auto-generated LOD useless, but oh well, at least the LOD will look better. Thank you!