REV0's Train Stuff

[R3V0 909]

Progress Update: 

I finished the work on bothWings (east needs architect names added on the front). Some stats on both sections: 

West: *4,437Vertices, *8,182Edges, *7,885Triss. East: *7,300Triss approx

I will model rooftop windows indivually as assets. I don't have many pictures regarding to East Wing, or how it will look like when the renovation is done, the picture above is the closest I could get in terms of fidelity.

PS: Railway Offices on West Wing is moved, it's the same as East Wing now. 

RoadMap for Toronto Union: 

*Transportation wise, there are some issues which I can't address due to the limitations; AFAIK, MOM doesn't have 1 lane stops yet, therefore I can't add MOM support for platform 20 (I think it was 20) right out of the box. 

*There will be, however metro support in front ot the station, (1 stop) and 1 on each side (so the station will cover all directions in terms of metro), since I can't add underground tram. Since I don't live in Toronto, I trust your judgement on this idea.

I might halt working on the project for two weeks, since I have university to deal with, will keep you posted about the development.

(This thing is taking too much time, lol, it's been a month straight)

 

 

[Jamonbread 222]

Nice! I don't think that's an issue UP is more of a train service anyways still. I'm going to have to create a new train based city solely to use this massive station.  On a side note, you're lucky you don't have to use the station, its been a mess inside for years.

[Distanced 114]

On 1/8/2017 at 2:45 PM, Jamonbread said:

Nice! I don't think that's an issue UP is more of a train service anyways still. I'm going to have to create a new train based city solely to use this massive station.  On a side note, you're lucky you don't have to use the station, its been a mess inside for years.

I don't disagree with you; the renovation hasn't exactly been the most clean one out there. And its funny that you want to create a new city just for this because that is exactly what I'm planning on doing! I don't think that you can really plop this into any city and make it work.

[R3V0 909]

I will bump this tread one last time; before the relase. 

I decided to test sub buildings fonctionality and how it behave multiple buildings (like a lot), so far it works fine. I only loaded main complex (wings, great hall and atrium that is), I'm happy with what I have. Lights are penetrating (that's what she said !) subbuildings, causing the illumination of places which I don't want, but meh, it's not a perfect world. 

Now, if I can pop assets outside editing area it would be nice, I think it was Anarchy mod thing. 

I will still make other maps such as normal, illumination, spec and alpha, so ignore minor details. Need to fix the brightness as well, i liked the color palette except the roof. 

Blender shots below is showing what the final asset will look like. 

(For now, at least; wink wink expansion pack in the future wink wink)

[Ronyx69 2,413]

The color is weird still, it's a bit too red in most parts, but some parts with dirt, the ground tiles and the upper edges of columns look green.

Obviously you can't see this but you could try hue shifting the entire texture just to preview it, you should be able to see the inconsistency then.

I guess the easiest way would be just to fill in all of the texture (except the roof and windows and such) with the same beige color and set it to color blending mode, that way it will all be the same hue.

 

I assume the windows/doors are wip? Because they are all sorts of weird colors as well - green, cyan, yellow.

 

The roof might be too saturated as well.

[R3V0 909]

25 minutes ago, Ronyx69 said:

The color is weird still, it's a bit too red in most parts, but some parts with dirt, the ground tiles and the upper edges of columns look green.

Obviously you can't see this but you could try hue shifting the entire texture just to preview it, you should be able to see the inconsistency then.

I guess the easiest way would be just to fill in all of the texture (except the roof and windows and such) with the same beige color and set it to color blending mode, that way it will all be the same hue.

 

I assume the windows/doors are wip? Because they are all sorts of weird colors as well - green, cyan, yellow.

 

The roof might be too saturated as well.

I need to find a way to distinct red from green, since I can't myself

What do you use to determine which part is red and green on pictures, Photoshop or Lightroom ? 

[donoteat 478]

I did a bit of research on this today, might help:

According to that reliably factual website, Wikipedia, Union Station's facade is primarily made of limestone quarried from Bedford, Indiana, and Queenston, Ontario.

The Queenston quarry is no longer in operation, so we can't get good material sample images, so we'll ignore that one. The Bedford quarry still exists, so we can go to a number of suppliers to find some color matches. I think you're looking for something in the "buff" category -- I'm partial to this one from Indiana Cut Stone: 

What I'd do at that point is open the file in Photoshop and do a "match color" with whichever limestone sample is the closest and you should be able to get a reasonable approximation with little to no effort. (hell, even steal the sample image and add a bit more of a grain into your stone texture)

 

[R3V0 909]

Used color match, saturation -36, lightness -16, no hue adjustment, is it better now ?

 

 

[donoteat 478]

Looks dead-on, IMO.

[bsquiklehausen 190]

Looks great to me, but as always with exact colors in C:S - too bright. I usually darken all my textures by 20% or so with a simple adjustment layer in Photoshop.

[R3V0 909]

Normals and fixed window color (dark gray basically, with %80 spec)
Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, Night

Is the color still looks fine ? 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Way too bright, but the hue could be fine.

And will the doors and windows really stay in those random colors?

[R3V0 909]

1 hour ago, Ronyx69 said:

Way too bright, but the hue could be fine.

And will the doors and windows really stay in those random colors?

Windows and doors have one same color, they all have same color as layer style, I don't get how they have different colors. They're all located under the adjustment layer which has satuarion etc. 

 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

25 minutes ago, R3V0 said:

Windows and doors have one same color, they all have same color as layer style, I don't get how they have different colors. They're all located under the adjustment layer which has satuarion etc. 

 

The doors are green/yellow, the windows and frames around the doors are green, the upper part of the arch is brighter green, and the rectangular window frames are blue.

I'm not making this up.

Also the "postal station" text is more red than the rest, not sure if it's supposed be like that.

In the end I can readjust all the colors for you if you want, but I also understand if you want to do it yourself.

[Jamonbread 222]

1 hour ago, Ronyx69 said:

The doors are green/yellow, the windows and frames around the doors are green, the upper part of the arch is brighter green, and the rectangular window frames are blue.

I'm not making this up.

Also the "postal station" text is more red than the rest, not sure if it's supposed be like that.

In the end I can readjust all the colors for you if you want, but I also understand if you want to do it yourself.

 

 

The random colours to me are just bright versions of what actually exist. Union has green window frames and gold doors in real life. So maybe the confusion is in the saturation ect? 

For me, the part that really needs to be adjusted is the roof. In reality, a flat roof will always be gravel grey or black tar paper depending on assembly. The copper roof green is unnaturally bright (maybe I've just been using LUTs that dim the crap out of everything too long haha). Also, they recently replaced the copper so its back to its original more subtle fresh copper look which is absolutely personal preference here but I like more. Regardless I think most important is the green copper which at the very least should be toned down. I know copper can become quite bright green in real life but I think its texture and lower reflectivity mitigate its brightness, which cannot be replicated in a game texture like this. 

Edit: I wrote something nice about how impressive the detail and accuracy of the textures were beyond the saturation issues but it got deleted lol so short version kudos 

[Distanced 114]

I think it's perfect! The doors are a bit too bright IMO. Otherwise - great! Can't wait to start a new city with this, I'm getting a collection ready!

[R3V0 909]

**PICTURE HEAVY**

Just built some railroads through it to see how it fits, it fits nicely. I'm sorry guys, it's 05:30AM here and I've wasted my entire day to fix color issue, this is the closest I can get, that it doesn't look like ridicolous in most of the LUTs. The one I've used was Temperate, it looks more vibrant in European theme. 

Now i have two issues: 

1. Two subbuildings have different illumination color, despite the fact that they were fine in asset editor, so it's not illumination map issue. 

2. Any way to pack props in a pack for workshop ? I don't want to add 15 different props in the listing. So far, Shroom and Avanya's HVAC were used. Glass tops and additional two buildings on top are actually props. 

To do List: 

1. - Add gates to the back side
2. Moat covers
3. A small asset pack (flags and stuff)
4. Union Station logo for the side entrances 
5. Adding rails 
6. Ped paths 

Building uses 37mw of electricity, is it ok ? Also it requires like 400 workers approx, is it too much ? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Badi_Dea 476]

Hey, that looks excellent! It's so hard to get colors looking right, but remember that the default LUTs are way over saturated. It might be worth a test with some of the more popular LUTs on the workshop to make sure it doesn't look grayscale with a more desaturated palette.

54 minutes ago, R3V0 said:

Now i have two issues: 

1. Two subbuildings have different illumination color, despite the fact that they were fine in asset editor, so it's not illumination map issue. 

2. Any way to pack props in a pack for workshop ? I don't want to add 15 different props in the listing. So far, Shroom and Avanya's HVAC were used. Glass tops and additional two buildings on top are actually props. 

1. I just had this exact same issue! I hope someone provides you an answer, I need it too!

2. Yes, but if you're using assets that are already available on the workshop, I really, really, don't recommend it.

When uploading an asset to the workshop, there is a little folder icon in the bottom right of the picture, that will open up the working folder and you can add your local .CRPs there, they will be added to the asset package.
However, this is where it gets tricky. The props you created and added to the building before you uploaded it are still using the local asset ID, not the workshop one. You need to subscribe to your asset, and re-place your props with the ones from the asset package so they aren't missing on the asset.
BUT, If you don't remove the local props/assets first you'll get a duplicate prefab naming conflict error. This is the same reason you really shouldn't upload workshop available assets along with your asset, if someone is already subscribed to those HVAC props, and you include them in your asset, they will have two copies of the same thing and get duplicate prefab errors.

[Avanya 2,605]

As for packaging props I'd suggest you only make a pack with your props and list the ones already on the workshop as dependencies. That should cause the least headache for you.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Illumination color for window nightlights?

The illumination color is chosen by sampling a pixel randomly from the light palette of the map theme you're using.
I assume the seed for the random generator is the building instance ID (not sure what it's actually called), it's the same idea for color variations.

Since they are sub buildings, they are not the same building, so they have different IDs. 
I don't think there is a way to force sub buildings to use the same color as the main building.

[Distanced 114]

Damn, that looks great! I want it already! If I were you, I'd just make a collection in the workshop of the props that you're using so people could download them all at once.
From what I know, every building gets a random illumination colour, and since you have sub-buildings each one would get a random colour.

BTW, I love the way the building looks at night; you did a great job of placing the lights!

 

[R3V0 909]

14 minutes ago, TransitAuthority said:

Damn, that looks great! I want it already! If I were you, I'd just make a collection in the workshop of the props that you're using so people could download them all at once.
From what I know, every building gets a random illumination colour, and since you have sub-buildings each one would get a random colour.

BTW, I love the way the building looks at night; you did a great job of placing the lights!

 

Yep, done that. 

You can sub the prop pack on Steam, you know for advance. 

Progress update: 

*Moatcovers are finished, I set them as parks, so it might have a positive effect, although I need to remove that road request. They also bring tourists. 
* Great Hall has a bug of requesting roads, I will fix that as well. 
* Added 4 metro stops, 2 under main hall, 1 for each wing that have -18 and -24m depth respectively. 
* I also hit a snag, seems CS has vertice limit, can do anything more than 65K per asset, which kills the idea of sub building things. 

There will be minor issues with the final product; 

* You will need a flat terrain and anarchy mod enabled to place it, since wings have their own ground tiles. 
* You will have to rotate the camera to the atrium from either wings in order to place a stop. That is not my fault but a game limitation, which I explained below. 

I need to say that I hate subbuildings mechanics; 

1. You can't lock buildings on their positions, so when you drag your mouse on it and accidentaly click (I am a FPS gamer so I have high sensibility mouse) you're doomed, you need load the entire asset and lose progress if you move the thing. Especially if you elevate the ground after placing subbuildings.
2. You can't work underground, if you want to delete a sub asset or ped path, you can't click on them, game forces you to clean the ground first.
3. If you place a station stop under your subbuilding you're doomed as well, you can't click on stop and draw a path, this is the most annoying crap I've encountered so far; if I'm gonna make a station next time, I need to include train tracks on the main asset. If i'm gonna model a station which its tracks are away from the entrance... I'm doomed. 

If anyone has solutions for the above, I'd like to hear you out. 

That being said, I'm gonna grow a city and test those tracks and how the station functions. In order to make everything authentic, I built ped paths in the station as a maze ! 

(And no, Arnold nor Dolores will help you)

[Distanced 114]

Awesome! The whole stop-issue-thing seems to be a problem with all big stations, like the modular grand central. 

[R3V0 909]

Stupid game strikes again: 

Since the stupid AI and how it handles one lane tracks and the fact that's been years since that 200m max lenght wasn't enough, apparently the game doesn't support one lane station stops.

Once the stop is added, stop starts to flicker between nearby platforms; basically the game can't understand the difference between the platform on which the stop is associated and other platforms. For the game, there's no difference between platform 1 and 2, because of that you can't actually finish the line; the stop is flickering between 2 platforms. So the mystery of why no one bothers with 1lane tracks is solved now. It's OK for medians where there's a station, but not for platforms.

I will disable half of the tracks, meaning there will be platform 1 then 3, then 5 etc. 

Update: Disabling half of the tracks actually worked, the total number of working platforms is now 17. (Yes 17 different trains can use the station at the same time if you're mad enough.)
 

[Epic Lurker 108]

Having just finished a large station of my own I feel your pain. The asset editor is a glitchy mess for complicated buildings. With regard to question 3 above, I thought all networks (tracks, pedestrian paths etc.) should always be associated with the main building? Anyway it is certainly possible to place train tracks outside the plot of main building.

[R3V0 909]

8 hours ago, Epic Lurker said:

Having just finished a large station of my own I feel your pain. The asset editor is a glitchy mess for complicated buildings. With regard to question 3 above, I thought all networks (tracks, pedestrian paths etc.) should always be associated with the main building? Anyway it is certainly possible to place train tracks outside the plot of main building.

AFAIK, Tracks has to be associated with the building mainly because of the stats. It is indeed possible to put tracks outside the main building, as the example here and many others, the main issue is if the roof located above those tracks is a sub building, you can't snap stop on that track, since the game doesn't read. 

Fortunately Toronto Union still has exhaust clearance for diesel trains, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to snap tracks. 

Station is technically ready to release at its state. 

 

 

[Distanced 114]

I wouldn't mind!

[jmdude1 20]

Nice work on this station. I was just wondering if all the windows will be lit up at night? Would you be able to make this more randomized perhaps? Either way, it looks excellent.

[R3V0 909]

Well I actually released it, lol. 

I actually did that in the interior of the West Wing, for the front section I decided to light them all up. I noticed that in the reality, very few of them are on during the night. But both wings, roof, facade, back side and moatcovers are sub buildings so they don't light up at the same time. 
RELEASED (F. YEAH) 

After 2 months of works sleeples nights it's finally done woooooo 

@TransitAuthority Lemme know if you still need my paypal 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=842965326 and get South Extension: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=842967334

@All 

Don't forget to read description, it's important. 

[R3V0 909]

#Buildthattower

#MakeTorontoGreatAgain