Ronyx

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Started work on breakwater assets - planning 3 variations:

 

 

In other news, was listening to a podcast (Cortex) and found out about mind maps, so looked into some tools for that with @Tim The Terrible and decided to use MindMeister.

You can create mind maps, customize them, add notes, links, emoji (for color coding), it has instant sharing, realtime collaboration, collapse/expand branch feature.

It has everything I want for free, here's a small preview image:

View my mind map.

It has a bunch of stuff in there already with notes and links.

You could even catch me editing it, since it updates in real time.

Hoping this will make it easier to keep track of what I'm doing and planning.

[Lost Gecko 481]

This mindmap idea could be so useful! It would help tackle my annoying tendency to write super-long texts not to say much. Also the number of projects I've begun or just thought about and immediately posted on my forum topic then put on hold is quite ridiculous... Then as you said there is this awesome potential for the increasing number of collaborative projects that we've been seing lately in the game...

Oh, and unlike me you actually produce content when you talk about it, and at such a fast pace!   I'm curious to see how these breakwaters develop.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

15 hours ago, Lost_gecko said:

Oh, and unlike me you actually produce content when you talk about it, and at such a fast pace!   I'm curious to see how these breakwaters develop.

Eh? I'm so lazy, a bunch of unfinished assets have been sitting for weeks, I rarely release anything.

 

 

Anyway I'm gonna stream on Twitch now to work on the breakwaters.

EDIT: I thought it would be pretty boring but I actually think it looks pretty cool now:

 

  Edited December 16, 2016 by Ronyx69  

[Badi_Dea 476]

I'm never going to stop being impressed by your texturing work

[Sparks44 92]

Hey Ronyx, When I dump prefab and textures with mod tools now, they appear in my import folder instead of cities skylines folder.

I really don't want them there. Is there a way to set the dump location?

[Ronyx69 2,413]

9 hours ago, Badi_Dea said:

I'm never going to stop being impressed by your texturing work

Thanks

The archived stream is there so you can always see exactly what I did. Gonna make the streams in a timelapse video for youtube as well, not gonna be as fast as the bridge video so you will be able to actually see what's going on better, yt player can slow down to 0.25x as well.

2 minutes ago, Sparks44 said:

Hey Ronyx, When I dump prefab and textures with mod tools now, they appear in my import folder instead of cities skylines folder.

I really don't want them there. Is there a way to set the dump location?

Yeah I know, no idea if it can be changed.

The dumping doesn't work at all for me now, throws unsupported format in the console and then it just creates an empty/broken texture in the import folder.

[Sparks44 92]

Sounds like you need someone to dump textures for you in the mean time. Possibly something to do with recent updates?

I guess I'll just move them out once Iv'e dumped them. Thanks

[accapulco 132]

Looking very nice. Are you planning the variations to be of the same model? I'd love to see one with the concrete falling off from places and patches where you can see the metal beams inside.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

On 12/17/2016 at 5:54 PM, accapulco said:

Looking very nice. Are you planning the variations to be of the same model? I'd love to see one with the concrete falling off from places and patches where you can see the metal beams inside.

All the planned variations are in the mind map and have links in the notes to google maps where they are.

I doubt I'll create a variation like that, too many variations already.

 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Progress with the breakwaters: 3 variations done, added lods and subtle color variation stains

plain:

 

raised edge:

 

an example of a thing:

 

It's a bit finnicky to get them all to be the same height since the water waves around and stuff, it's not like they get misaligned by meters, but just enough to be annoying for me.
So you have to let the waves move around while you use move it to constantly move it around until they are the same height.
And of course if you terraform around them or something, they might move again, just like any on water buildings.

[SamsamTS 93]

Can't you just move them up and down with move it? What if you disable Follow terrain?

Just curious, I don't know if it will work.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

17 minutes ago, SamsamTS said:

Can't you just move them up and down with move it? What if you disable Follow terrain?

Just curious, I don't know if it will work.

It was the first thing I tried, also disabling the follow terrain thingy, unfortunately it does nothing. I'm not sure how exactly move it decides if a building can change height, for example pillars are buildings and you can change their height..., you can change the height of props as well, haven't tested what other buildings it can raise or lower though.

[gfvsims 169]

That looks so good!

[Ronyx69 2,413]

On 12/19/2016 at 2:35 AM, gfv1974 said:

That looks so good!

Thanks

 

 

Progress: made a patterned tetrapod cluster, there will also be a random cluster, and probably singular ploppable tetrapods as props

Very hard to optimize those, 4500 tris main model and 460 for the lod.

  Edited December 20, 2016 by Ronyx69  

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Smaller random cluster:

 

Singular props, 3 variations:

 

Also @SamsamTS contacted me and figured out that m_fixedHeight needs to be true and then move it can adjust the height of those breakwater and tetrapod buildings.

 

I need to learn lod texture baking properly, i kinda succeeded at trying it but it was pretty messy and kinda inconvenient.
It would cut down tris on my lods even more, and make a more seamless transition from main to lod.

  Edited December 20, 2016 by Ronyx69  

[Badi_Dea 476]

looks really good to me!

The mossy, gooey, stained bits that are submerged is a really nice touch (amazing really, other modelers might not even bother), but it's so subtle it might go unnoticed. I've never seen anything like this in real life, so I'm not the one to provide advice... but I think it would look better stylistically to have the submerged portion even darker and maybe some water staining half way up to the top to give it better overall contrast.

 

I've had a rash of questions about LOD texturing recently, so I decided to write a guide (not that I'm any good at it).

I'm sure it's all old hat to you, but I did cover AO baking, might prove helpful.

 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

8 hours ago, Badi_Dea said:

The mossy, gooey, stained bits that are submerged is a really nice touch (amazing really, other modelers might not even bother), but it's so subtle it might go unnoticed. I've never seen anything like this in real life, so I'm not the one to provide advice... but I think it would look better stylistically to have the submerged portion even darker and maybe some water staining half way up to the top to give it better overall contrast.

I've had a rash of questions about LOD texturing recently, so I decided to write a guide (not that I'm any good at it).

I'm sure it's all old hat to you, but I did cover AO baking, might prove helpful.

 

There's the same wet texture like on the breakwaters but it's not that noticeable for some reason, maybe I'll adjust it a bit more.

 

I did pretty much the same thing you showed for the lod, except that skylight stuff, because I'm not using AO on the main model and want the lod to match. If you want the lod to match the lighting should be the same as the main model.  There seemed to be some lighting even though I had no lights and didn't see any lighting being enabled, so I just put the material to 100% self illumination and then it's all the same brightness as the main texture. Too bad it's restricted to the render elements, so I just switch out the diffuse for _c _a _s and so on to get all the needed textures.

Because of the way I texture I can't even use automatic AO, I use a lot of overlapping, I do put in some fake AO (which is like double fakery) manually when working on the texture, and then UV map in a way where the darkening is in reasonable places.

 

Anyway streaming now to do the lods of the breakwaters, finish the tetrapods and maybe make the ramp+stairs props for the breakwaters.

[Avanya 2,605]

Looking great!  Gotta love the algae on the texture - really something the quays and canals in game are missing. 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

7 hours ago, Avanya said:

Looking great!  Gotta love the algae on the texture - really something the quays and canals in game are missing. 

Thanks  I actually increased the wet and algae textures a bit, but haven't imported it yet.

 

Anyway all the stuff is pretty much done, just need to reimport the tetrapods and make sure about the AI and UI category and whatever properties there are.

Unfortunately m_fixedHeight=true doesn't get saved in the asset editor, but move it might get updated to force it on once you try to raise/lower any building, so adjusting height might be possible. Edit: Move it has been updated to allow force changing the height of buildings.

 

I was testing all the stuff on stream today and then this happened: https://www.twitch.tv/ronyx69/v/108955993

  Edited December 21, 2016 by Ronyx69  

[Avanya 2,605]

Sounds even better!  Would be lovely if it'll be possible to move them up and down. I really should check if props have fixed height too - might let my overpass things move more (they just don't want to go into the ground ) 

Hmm, I wonder if there isn't a setting somewhere preventing buildings from being destroyed by water. Ofc the question if where and if it saves/works properly.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

1 minute ago, Avanya said:

Sounds even better!  Would be lovely if it'll be possible to move them up and down. I really should check if props have fixed height too - might let my overpass things move more (they just don't want to go into the ground ) 

Hmm, I wonder if there isn't a setting somewhere preventing buildings from being destroyed by water. Ofc the question if where and if it saves/works properly.

Literally just now edited the post saying it's possible to adjust the height of any building right now with the new move it update.  

Moving a building so that the pivot is lower than the terrain will start flattening the terrain downwards, even if the building is a non-terrain-flattening building, raising it is fine.

 

Prop height is handled by the prop snapping mod afaik, not move it. I'm guessing it calculates the position relative to the ground, so that's why it can't go inside the ground.

If you want to dip a prop into the ground, just raise the pivot point above the prop, and then raise it up as necessary with move it, people could get confused by a sunken below ground prop though.

[SamsamTS 93]

5 minutes ago, Ronyx69 said:

Prop height is handled by the prop snapping mod afaik, not move it

Correct. Move it sets the position and update the prop. The update code (vanilla) calculate what the Y (elevation) should be and so put the prop back on the ground. Prop Snapping change the update code so the Y can have higher elevations, because it's needed to put them on top of buildings. It just unintentionally happened that this change allowed Move It to raise props (happy accident). Also Prop Snapping is saving the props elevation and restoring them on load.

[Avanya 2,605]

I had a feeling they wouldn't go into the terrain with the pivot point at the bottom. Oh well, guess people will just have to wait for some lower/in ground versions.  Great to hear your water breakers will be able to move up and down. Then we can allign them perfectly

[Ronyx69 2,413]

 

Download

 

I'm so pissed, once I was done I found out the lods have some kind of edge glow, makes no sense since there is no illumination but whatever.

[Robban040 1,091]

Freaking awesome!

Thank you!

[dreesedatalink 15]

what robban040 said!

[Prosper Merime 128]

Ah, that would be the same but with railing. 

[Strechnitz 12]

I love the breakwaters! I have subbed and rated them. Thank you!

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Thanks!

On 12/24/2016 at 9:36 AM, Prosper Merime said:

Ah, that would be the same but with railing. 

Not sure what you mean?

 

 

Anyway I made a script which replaces textures in realtime and made it as simple as possible to use.

Thanks @SamsamTS for explaining how to make custom functions, I couldn't make it so simple for the user otherwise.

From the viewpoint of the user it's as simple as putting textures in the correct folder and then using a single line with the type and name of each asset like this:

building("816656919.Gran Casino_Data"); 
prop("Crate 01");
vehicle("Bus");
tree("754129192.Norfolk Island Pine_Data");

You can replace multiple textures at once just by adding more of these lines.

Unfortunately no LOD :/ I can replace the lod textures but don't know how to trigger the lod texture atlas (big combined lod texture) to rebuild.
If anybody has any info would be cool. My uneducated optimistic guess is there is a function that just needs to be triggered.
Trees have the LOD working automatically because it works differently.

This could be very useful for asset creators who are testing their asset
and want to do a quick brightness change or any kind of simple adjustment to their texture and see it ingame instantly!

Everything is explained in the comments of the script.

Get the script

 

[merc187 46]

21 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

Thanks!

Not sure what you mean?

 

 

Anyway I made a script which replaces textures in realtime and made it as simple as possible to use.

Thanks @SamsamTS for explaining how to make custom functions, I couldn't make it so simple for the user otherwise.

From the viewpoint of the user it's as simple as putting textures in the correct folder and then using a single line with the type and name of each asset like this:

building("816656919.Gran Casino_Data"); 
prop("Crate 01");
vehicle("Bus");
tree("754129192.Norfolk Island Pine_Data");

You can replace multiple textures at once just by adding more of these lines.

Unfortunately no LOD :/ I can replace the lod textures but don't know how to trigger the lod texture atlas (big combined lod texture) to rebuild.
If anybody has any info would be cool. My uneducated optimistic guess is there is a function that just needs to be triggered.
Trees have the LOD working automatically because it works differently.

This could be very useful for asset creators who are testing their asset
and want to do a quick brightness change or any kind of simple adjustment to their texture and see it ingame instantly!

Everything is explained in the comments of the script.

Get the script

 

......whooooooa.........

 

This is simply amazing.  How much time have I wasted loading the game, changing textures, re-importing....too much time.  Going to definitely give this script a whirl.  Amazing stuff Ronyx & SamSamTS - this is incredible for asset creators.