Ronyx

Ronyx69 · November 19, 2017

Some of you might remember me messing with lighting settings a long time ago... I am now working on a lighting rebalance mod which has a bunch of settings the user will be able to adjust with sliders. (hopefully)

If you want to try it, you can run it as a script here: https://gist.github.com/ronyx69/57d1f303d01d32c798e4f112d6f4cf47
All of the user inputs (that will become sliders) are on the top labeled user input and go from -1 to 1.

Here's a very neutral LUT that will go along with it: https://i.imgur.com/cPi9ZJd.png
I will probably make a little pack of LUTs for it.
But since it has so many adjustments, you should be able to make any LUT work...

It's balanced for sun intensity 5 and ambient light 1. (middle of sliders for ultimate eyecandy)

It also enabled the sky tonemapping, which is disabled by default for some reason... It makes the sky look much better, but that will become an optional toggle, as it makes fog almost invisible and some players might not want that.

It will conflict with softer shadows, some of the daylight classic settings and shadow strength adjuster (balanced so that shadows need to be max on that mod).

Ronyx69 · November 21, 2017

Released some Zen Garden stuff: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1207596823

Ronyx69 · November 24, 2017

Relight released: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1209581656

UI / saving & preset system by @SimonRyr

Includes 7 LUTs:

DaEgi · November 25, 2017

do you have some optimal settings?
I am interested in a more realistic and less artsy look.
but I have no idea what the optimal values for such would be.
I have followed your advice regarding the settings for ultimate eyecandy and daylight classic.
without a lut and in relight everything set to 0 it look as if my city has some smog issues ....
which is maybe more realistic than I'd like it to be
.relightaverage and .relightneutral look much better, although everything seems to dark for a sunny day at noon.

Ronyx69 · November 27, 2017

On 11/25/2017 at 2:51 PM, DaEgi said:

do you have some optimal settings?
I am interested in a more realistic and less artsy look.
but I have no idea what the optimal values for such would be.
I have followed your advice regarding the settings for ultimate eyecandy and daylight classic.
without a lut and in relight everything set to 0 it look as if my city has some smog issues ....
which is maybe more realistic than I'd like it to be
.relightaverage and .relightneutral look much better, although everything seems to dark for a sunny day at noon.

I balanced everything to look what I thought was natural at 0 and neutral lut. Anything else is user preference.

Did some experiments with roads today, inspired by japanese urban expressways.

It's very messy, and it would need more work for seperate nodes or even seperate networks just for the onramp and other stuff.

The basic idea for the different roads: simple 2 laner, 2to3 / 3to2 lane transitions, offset 3 laner(third lane overhangs to one side), offset 1 lane ramp.

As you can see the node is a big mess (which would be hidden by being all asphalt, and I could put decals on top) and the ramp curve connecting to that node needs to be extremely specific, otherwise it looks completely wavy all over the place. Maybe I would bundle that ramp split as an intersection...

Also looks like nodes don't flip based on left/right side driving map so I would need to create seperate releases for each.

Surprisingly the cars use the lanes flawlessly, I expected them to completely freak out because of how bad that ramp segment curve is.

The scale might seem ridiculous, but it's scaled based on the tokyo expressways, it's just that vanilla highways (and cars) are oversized, so this is how it looks.
It's literally less than half in width and thiccness.

reasonably1 · November 28, 2017

This would be great to have, I have always been bothered by the fact that the vanilla highways are so oversized. Highways with less shoulder and less obtrusive elevated parts would be wonderful. Looking at your example, I think you can make them just a tad wider than you have them now, though.

Bad Peanut · November 28, 2017

9 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

I balanced everything to look what I thought was natural at 0 and neutral lut. Anything else is user preference.

Did some experiments with roads today, inspired by japanese urban expressways.

It's very messy, and it would need more work for seperate nodes or even seperate networks just for the onramp and other stuff.

The basic idea for the different roads: simple 2 laner, 2to3 / 3to2 lane transitions, offset 3 laner(third lane overhangs to one side), offset 1 lane ramp.

As you can see the node is a big mess (which would be hidden by being all asphalt, and I could put decals on top) and the ramp curve connecting to that node needs to be extremely specific, otherwise it looks completely wavy all over the place. Maybe I would bundle that ramp split as an intersection...

Also looks like nodes don't flip based on left/right side driving map so I would need to create seperate releases for each.

Surprisingly the cars use the lanes flawlessly, I expected them to completely freak out because of how bad that ramp segment curve is.

The scale might seem ridiculous, but it's scaled based on the tokyo expressways, it's just that vanilla highways (and cars) are oversized, so this is how it looks.
It's literally less than half in width and thiccness.

are you needing to use a mod to get the alignment at the nodes right? or are you playing around with the flags?

Ronyx69 · November 28, 2017

1 hour ago, Bad Peanut said:

are you needing to use a mod to get the alignment at the nodes right? or are you playing around with the flags?

The only mods needed to get what you see there is anarchy for the tight ramp and move it to adjust the ramp segment curve.

The nodes work based on flags yeah, but I don't think i can make the offramp and/or it all behaving as I want on a left side traffic map without making more networks.

Bad Peanut · November 28, 2017

30 minutes ago, Ronyx69 said:

The only mods needed to get what you see there is anarchy for the tight ramp and move it to adjust the ramp segment curve.

The nodes work based on flags yeah, but I don't think i can make the offramp and/or it all behaving as I want on a left side traffic map without making more networks.

Yeah that's right. But you should be able to get in compatible for LHD if you use inverted tags too.

Ronyx69 · November 28, 2017

2 minutes ago, Bad Peanut said:

Yeah that's right. But you should be able to get in compatible for LHD if you use inverted tags too.

The segments work yeah, but the nodes don't flip around...

These are all the possible node flags:

None 
Created 
Deleted 
Original 
Disabled 
End 
Middle 
Bend 
Junction 
Moveable 
Untouchable 
Outside 
Temporary 
Double 
Fixed 
OnGround 
Ambiguous 
Water 
Sewage 
ForbidLaneConnection 
Underground 
Transition 
LevelCrossing 
OneWayOut 
TrafficLights 
OneWayIn 
Heating 
Electricity 
Collapsed 
DisableOnlyMiddle 
AsymForward 
AsymBackward 
CustomTrafficLights 
OneWayOutTrafficLights 
UndergroundTransition

Doesn't seem like there are any that would be like invert.

Ronyx69 · November 28, 2017

Progress on the expressway, seems like I nailed the ramp node, but it's completely screwed up if you move it in any way. Will definitely bundle that as an intersection, also with a decal for covering the node with some of the same wear and markings, and a little prop on the sharp corner between 2L and ramp.

wojtason · November 28, 2017

Just WOW! Great work! Looking forward to it. Will you be able to add chevrons on the split? Will it be possible to curve on the transitions?

EDIT: Are you talking about intersections like I did? https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198259720263/myworkshopfiles/

Ronyx69 · November 28, 2017

12 minutes ago, wojtason said:

Just WOW! Great work! Looking forward to it. Will you be able to add chevrons on the split? Will it be possible to curve on the transitions?

I'm not sure what type of chevron exactly, but i will add some kind of markings and whatever that crash safety thingy is as a prop.

The ramp/2L split no, but the 2L to 3L transitions yeah.

Watch this for a few minutes to see some examples. (should start at 1:34:25) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/204950473?t=01h34m25s

wojtason · November 29, 2017

Interesting video. Very inspiring. So the 2L/ramp split will be prebuilt intersection? How it behaves on steep terrain?

Ronyx69 · November 29, 2017

8 hours ago, wojtason said:

Interesting video. Very inspiring. So the 2L/ramp split will be prebuilt intersection? How it behaves on steep terrain?

I think I will include it as an intersection yeah. Terrain doesn't matter because it's elevated.

More progress:

The underside node middle part is actually just the pavement texture, it's either that or I make it a solid color, because anything put there will stretch all over the place. Also notice there is already stretching on the nodes anyway, can't really get around that, just what nodes do when you have crazy curved intersections.

wojtason · November 29, 2017

I can't wait! This is soooo cool. Are you planing to do different intersections like ground, 12m etc?

Ronyx69 · November 30, 2017

On 11/29/2017 at 6:18 PM, wojtason said:

I can't wait! This is soooo cool. Are you planing to do different intersections like ground, 12m etc?

No, you can just move it up/down.

I actually think I won't include it as an intersection because it's easy enough to place to just show it in a video, also doesn't seem like you can raise props in an intersection asset.

It's definitely not gonna be a normie player asset, it already includes 18 networks (21.7 MB) and I also want to do 4 laners, so I think it will end up being like 23 networks.
There are specific uses for the networks and they will screw up if you connect it to the wrong thing or bend it etc.
The problem is that you can't have specific nodes for transitioning only from one specific network to another specific network, it's just the flags that are pretty much useless for what I want.
Although having specific transition segments may actually end up being better...

More screenshots:

Bad Peanut · December 1, 2017

3 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

It's definitely not gonna be a normie player asset, it already includes 18 networks (21.7 MB) and I also want to do 4 laners, so I think it will end up being like 23 networks.

would you consider making a UI mod to release alongside this? something that would only place the basic expressway but would allow you to upgrade to each other network? - that way it won't clutter the normal road network menus with all 23 variations. You might be able to look through the code for the MOM track selector/ hook into the upgrade tool etc. that way all but the two basic 3 lane and 4 lane expressway prefabs would be hidden in the UI and not a bigger giant mess for everyone to sort through (one of the reasons why i decided against doing a project similar to this is because i don't know enough to set up a similar UI mod)

EDIT: also just for your info, if you have elevated meshes to each prefab you will have to upload them to a separate steam subscription. if you upload them under the same steam ID they will produce the same error as my latest asymmetric roads - they produce duplicate errors even if they have different names in game. the names get overwritten when they get uploaded and suddenly all the different ground elevations will use the same elevated prefab (it will choose the first one to load i think) so yeah just FYI

.Del · December 1, 2017

Looks awesome! Are you going to do ETC toll booths for these highways as well?

Koesj · December 3, 2017

@Ronyx69 That's fantastic! I've been messing around a bit more with my 4m/8m wide highway segments from the beta days and these smaller scale roads works pretty well IMO. The nicest thing about them is being able to have really shallow merges. I'd love not having to manually detail all my untextured work like in the picture below:

Ronyx69 · December 5, 2017

Randomly figured out that negative fog values hide the insane over the top vanilla bloom effect on light effects:

Now @Judazzz would you make the ultimate eyecandy fog slider go below 0? Down exactly to -0.49 (because -0.5 is glitchy)
If not I will need to make a mod that constantly checks if the fog is this right value and changes it, or something like that I guess.

On 12/1/2017 at 2:26 AM, Bad Peanut said:

would you consider making a UI mod to release alongside this? something that would only place the basic expressway but would allow you to upgrade to each other network? - that way it won't clutter the normal road network menus with all 23 variations. You might be able to look through the code for the MOM track selector/ hook into the upgrade tool etc. that way all but the two basic 3 lane and 4 lane expressway prefabs would be hidden in the UI and not a bigger giant mess for everyone to sort through (one of the reasons why i decided against doing a project similar to this is because i don't know enough to set up a similar UI mod)

Definitely not, I don't see how browsing through thumbnails is worse than having a new custom mod with some new UI, seems like needlessly overcomplicating things.
Players are already used to scrolling through hundreds if not thousands of props...

Here's the design I think I'm sticking with: (just random 4 thumbnails for preview, they would be ordered in a way that makes sense in the game)

There's a center guideline and the slightly brighter rectangle indicates 1 cell width.
S/T means normal segment or transition segment. L/R means left or right offset. Lane counts on each end on the right. Traffic direction is up.

If you find this confusing just know that you won't be able to figure out how to use the roads anyway so it doesn't matter.

On 12/1/2017 at 2:26 AM, Bad Peanut said:

EDIT: also just for your info, if you have elevated meshes to each prefab you will have to upload them to a separate steam subscription. if you upload them under the same steam ID they will produce the same error as my latest asymmetric roads - they produce duplicate errors even if they have different names in game. the names get overwritten when they get uploaded and suddenly all the different ground elevations will use the same elevated prefab (it will choose the first one to load i think) so yeah just FYI

They are all basic, made to behave like elevated, there are no other variations. Also not surprised CO screwed up yet again, and now creators have to deal with it, and won't be able to properly update it without causing issues for previous users either. Also missing networks still break saves? I predict a lot of broken saves because of updated/deleted networks from the workshop.

Continued work on the expressway: lane props, lights, also experimenting with a very subtle dirt/stain decal.

K141 · December 5, 2017

You're seriously amazing, dude! This is insanely awesome.

Bad Peanut · December 5, 2017

Sometimes i don't understand your hate towards the developer team... i mean really, your bitterness is next level.?

Yeah sure sometimes their direction/ choices aren't the best and can be frustrating but it's like looking the gift horse in the mouth. They've still produced a road editor which i know from the development point of view was something extremely difficult to make.

And I'm sure the bugs will be ironed out of it's possible over the next few updates. Already today's update has fixed some based on feedback.

Honestly curious: why does it bother you so much? You don't have to keep making things for a game you consider the developers to be subpar??

Ronyx69 · December 5, 2017

1 hour ago, Bad Peanut said:

Sometimes i don't understand your hate towards the developer team... i mean really, your bitterness is next level.?

If you think "my bitterness is next level", don't ever join the c:s creators discord as you will be triggered out of your mind.

1 hour ago, Bad Peanut said:

Yeah sure sometimes their direction/ choices aren't the best and can be frustrating but it's like looking the gift horse in the mouth. They've still produced a road editor which i know from the development point of view was something extremely difficult to make.

And I'm sure the bugs will be ironed out of it's possible over the next few updates. Already today's update has fixed some based on feedback.

I haven't received any gifts. And yeah the road editor really is a miracle.

The game has made millions yet it looks like a game from 2003 and the work is incredibly sloppy, a ton of buildings from previous games got reused, there's plenty of z fighting, incorrect smoothing, overexposure, completely screwed up normal map/specular, the 90° normal map problem, one building has an entire piece of it missing on the lod, another one has windows UV mapped on the backface of a billboard which makes no sense, inconsistent and not matching their own recommendations for texture sizes and triangle counts, shadow glitches they claimed to fix but they are still there.

"over the next few updates" ? You mean after creators release things that are half broken because CO screwed up again? Just like with the updating old assets glitch that made assets fail to load.
And then we have to deal with the players complaining about our broken stuff even though it's not our fault.

2 hours ago, Bad Peanut said:

Honestly curious: why does it bother you so much? You don't have to keep making things for a game you consider the developers to be subpar??

Cause I got nothing else to do? I just look at memes and make assets and mods all day, mostly memes tho.

Also you are a meme as well now, how you blindly keep defending the game, it's just ridiculous, I have no idea why I wasted my time writing this comment as you will dismiss everything and keep defending it.

Bad Peanut · December 6, 2017

See i agree with everything you've said but i still just don't feel as vehement about it as you seem too. Honestly, i understand the frustration but in comparison to other games I see Co as being slightly ahead of the curve in terms of feedback orientated changes and general game upkeep.

I'm glad I'm a meme now, it means i've achieved what i set out to do! You're also a bit of a meme, always complaining about how this is such a terrible game and the devs won't listen to what you have to say hahahaaha i guess we're all memes at the end of the day

also just out of curiosity - which buildings don't match their own recommendations for textures? I admit i haven't looked at every single texture map in game which I assume you have, but i haven't yet come across one that hasn't fitted the general guideline on the wiki.

also thanks for your candid response, makes a refreshing change, memelord

Ronyx69 · December 6, 2017

7 hours ago, Bad Peanut said:

also just out of curiosity - which buildings don't match their own recommendations for textures? I admit i haven't looked at every single texture map in game which I assume you have, but i haven't yet come across one that hasn't fitted the general guideline on the wiki.

Quote

To give some rough guidelines, the triangle count of the building models in the stock game ranges from less than 1000 triangles for the smallest and simplest buildings to about 5000 for large and complex buildings. A few exceptional buildings use up to 10-15k triangles.

Generally the buildings use 1024x1024 texture maps, or 1024x512 if the building is small or simple. If working on a large building, try to see if it can be fitted in 2048x1024 size before making a 2048x2048 sized map. We try to refrain using 2048x2048 maps, and use them only in really important and huge buildings, such as a stadium or an airport.

Let's go straight to the meme asset then:

There are also a bunch of growables which are around 10k tris, and simple buildings using 1024x1024, and there are even some high density residential which uses 2048x2048.

Now still everything in this game is extremely low quality, especially when comparing to any other modern game, and I would like people to make more detailed and high resolution stuff. Just saying they don't meet their own guidelines.

charlesnew · December 6, 2017

2 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

There are also a bunch of growables which are around 10k tris, and simple buildings using 1024x1024, and there are even some high density residential which uses 2048x2048.

Now still everything in this game is extremely low quality, especially when comparing to any other modern game, and I would like people to make more detailed and high resolution stuff. Just saying they don't meet their own guidelines.

4

Wow, that's pretty bad... 12K tris for a tiny Merry Go Round...

I actually made a Steam post a while ago on some things I thought were weird and sloppy about the game you can click the spoiler if you want to see it (plus a bit extra I added).

Spoiler

- Any traffic issues in the game are caused by poor planning, but it's a fact that the traffic AI sucks. Vehicles stick to one lane when there are very clearly other lanes to use, they take the shortest route even if there is a tonne of traffic on it, or the whole "pocket car" system where cims can bring their cars with them onto trains, ships or buildings.
If traffic AI was good, why are there mods to change it? I understand it will raise system requirements. Just make it a separate free DLC that people can download if their computer was good enough. Even have different levels of AI accuracy for people with different computers (Like traffic++).

- Speaking of traffic, bad traffic doesn't even make people unhappy. It does restrict service vehicles, but that's it.

- The whole death care system is just weird and completely unrealistic (seriously... emptying cemeteries??)... And whole residential towers get abandoned because of one dead guy.

- The whole crime system is unrealistic and shallow

- Industry is extremely shallow. You just zone stuff and keep it away from everyone else. SC5's industry (even though the game sucked) was quite good actually.

- It's super easy to keep people happy in your city. One you give them power and water and some basic services, they are happy. You don't even need commercial, or jobs. Also, while there is a "level up" system, there isn't really any wealth system in the game. In fact, higher level buildings have a higher population density which shouldn't be the case if they're supposed to be "richer".

- There is no rush hour or daily schedule. People can go to work at 12 AM to 12 PM. Parking should play a much bigger role like IRL, but it doesn't because of the "pocket cars" mentioned earlier. Amount of traffic/pedestrians is the same at 9 AM or 3 AM.

- Zoned buildings are completely out of proportion. Why do houses take up the same amount of space as a skyscraper? Why are 2-metre long airport runways landing massive double-decker jumbo jets? It's so wrong...

- Everything is just "plop and forget" there is no challenge. If there is crime, plop a police station and forget. You plop an airport and forget. It's nothing special. You don't expand it. It doesn't even do anything useful, really.

- Why is there no clean sewage treatment in the game? As far as I know, we're not building a city in a third world country or the Industrial Revolution.

- No air pollution.

- Ship and plane AI is weird and sometimes completely non-existent.

I also notice that the "challenges" this game offers are often the result of poor programming. For example, as mentioned earlier, death waves are caused by people moving in your city at the same time being the same age. Industry creates horrendous and unrealistic amounts of traffic.

3

1

But at the same time, I can't help but feel like Bad Peanut. I don't feel as much hate towards the devs. The recent road editor was quite good and in-depth (by their standards, at least). CO also listens to people more than other companies too, though they could do with more listening. They seem to want to help and I'm glad they're adding to the game, it's just that I don't think they seem to be doing it right. CO's rare openness to modding is also quite nice, but I think they realise that many people wouldn't be playing this game still if it weren't for the Workshop.

This is probably the wrong place to talk about this stuff though. Meanwhile, I'll continue to enjoy this game, but I just hope they can get it right with their next game since they have a bigger and more experienced team now.

Bad Peanut · December 6, 2017

2 hours ago, Ronyx69 said:

There are also a bunch of growables which are around 10k tris, and simple buildings using 1024x1024, and there are even some high density residential which uses 2048x2048.

Now still everything in this game is extremely low quality, especially when comparing to any other modern game, and I would like people to make more detailed and high resolution stuff. Just saying they don't meet their own guidelines.

that is pretty extreme, tbh i only really hang around the public transport buildings and unique buildings and I always found they are reasonable when it comes to triangle count and textures. One thing that makes sense though is that of course they won't follow their advice to modders because modders are supposed to try and make the smallest possible file size so the add on isn't big, but that doesn't mean they have to restrict themselves. I mean you say they're low quality now (which i agree the overall graphical composition isn't like these first person shooters etc that you see) imagine what they would look like if they DID limit themselves to only a few thousand triangles for that merry go round haha

In regards to the overall "extremely low quality" i don't really think that's 100% reasonable because literally ANY simulation game that looks better (which there aren't many of) don't run properly as simulations, it's far too much to expect both excellent graphics and high performance gameplay, and I think the developers have done the best job balancing that which is why i don't have much hate for them at all. I COMPLETELY empathise with the drawbacks they encounter during design and development and to bitch incessantly about "poor quality" when it's probably as high as it could be - especially when the devs have from the start said they will support low end computers is just such a silly thing to me. It's literally why i do defend the devs so much because all the complainers only complain because they want everything without realising what the cost is. Show me the simulation that runs the same amount of agents, as efficiently as cities skylines, (so not the fiasco bull from SimCity 2013) which has no lag, excellent graphics and has a large modder orientated development plan. You can't.

There are games out there with excellent graphics, but most of the time they aren't as CPU intensive as a simulator - they're usually the sort of first person shooter that looks amazing, plays well but at the end of the day the computer isn't reallly thinking that much, all you do is point and click (to over simplify it, but you get what i mean)

anyway in the end, I do still agree that things would be great if the quality could improve, it's just I don't believe/or see the quality as low as you do in the circumstances.
Anyway I do take your point of view more seriously than others considering you have a better understanding from a modders view (more so than me seeing as you can also code mods) so thanks for taking the time to talk to this recurring meme

Ronyx69 · December 12, 2017

I can't believe somebody would unironically defend vanilla carousel - the worst absolute trash tri-waste of an asset. I won't be making any more attempts.

Expressway released: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1229516239

There are things I wanted to do and couldn't, and things I didn't the most logical way now that I look back with the knowledge I gained while trying to create this mess, but this will do I guess.

Split example: