New to modelling, need some help

[Vitoria90 10]

Hi. I'm new to this community and to 3D modelling in general. I only really  play Cities Skylines when it comes to city builders, and I recently started to model my first custom asset, which happens to be a car. I have learned most of the basics of modelling for C:S, made the model and all the textures, but I can't figure out how to make the bumpmap of the car look good. I'm using Blender. I was recommended to look here for help with that kind of thing. Could someone provide me with one of their implemented model and it's textures so I can have a look at them and see how the bumpmap looks? Either that or a guide for making the bumpmap of automobiles. Thanks in advance. 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

You can simply draw a height map texture where white comes out and black goes in. Then use this tool to generate a normal map from that.

Here's what a bump map looks like:

 

And here's the generated normal map:

I work in higher resolutions, and scale them down right before I import them into the game, so for example here I worked ona 2048 texture and then scaled it down to 1024 for the game.

Also don't forget to invert the red channel, it's how the game needs it.

[Vitoria90 10]

Just now, Ronyx69 said:

You can simply draw a height map texture where white comes out and black goes in. Then use this tool to generate a normal map from that.

I sort of did that with the bumpmap technique of playing with the levels of a greyscale version of the diffuse. The problem I had (which I should've specified) is I don't know what level to place the body of the car at. I tried setting around a 50% grey, but the car turned out extremely shiny in game, like the body was a highlight.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

1 minute ago, Vitoria90 said:

I sort of did that with the bumpmap technique of playing with the levels of a greyscale version of the diffuse. The problem I had (which I should've specified) is I don't know what level to place the body of the car at. I tried setting around a 50% grey, but the car turned out extremely shiny in game, like the body was a highlight.

The normal map should not affect the specularity of the car. That's what the specularity map _s is for, normal map should be _n.

[OwiHH 240]

I recommend allways refilter the bumpmap manual with different techniques for a realy good look. Alot scratches on the bumpmap as example for flat surfaces make it look bit unreal because of to much scratches if the color isnt a singlecolor.  Basicly a bump map is more made to hightlight or darken bumps and details. Sometimes it is to much or less detail if the bump map has to much or less resolution. But thats the next step. you need a paint programm gimp or photoshop ( where you can use open source nvidea texture tool to create good bumpmaps with alot filters to cut off the working time).

Nice your car works.

if the car is to shiny you shouldt add a Specular (Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows)

 * "_d" suffix stands for the diffuse texture (RGB)       - 3 color channels texture defining the albedo.
  * "_a" suffix stands for the alpha texture (Mask)        - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel transparency.
  * "_c" suffix stands for the color texture (Mask)        - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel where the color variations can be applied.
  * "_i" suffix stands for the illumination texture (Mask) - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel if the diffuse color should be considered emissive.
  * "_n" suffix stands for the normal map texture (RGB)    - 3 color channels tangent space normal map.
  * "_s" suffix stands for the specular texture (Mask)     - 1 color channel mask to specifying per pixel specularity.

Specular maps are the maps you use to define a surface's shininess and highlight colour.

The higher the value of a pixel (from black to white), the shinier the surface will appear in-game. Therefore, surfaces such as dry stone or cotton fabric would tend to have a very dark specular map, while surfaces like polished chrome or plastic would tend to have lighter specular maps.

The colour of a pixel is also used, to calculate the resulting colour of the surface. A very saturated specular map will have a very different visual effect than a grey specular map. If you need a more "neutral" highlight on a surface, your specular map should use the inverse of the diffuse map's colour. Using the same colour on the specular as on the diffuse will result in a more saturated highlight when viewed in the game.

You can use contrasts in specular to make a surface appear more visually interesting in the game - for example, this door has a very dark specular for the wood while the metal parts are much lighter, which will make the metal stand out more as a shinier surface when light hits it. This sort of contrast can help make surfaces in the game appear more realistic too.

Supported textures for vehicles

• Diffuse
• Normal map
• Specular (Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows)
• Alpha (Grayscale)
• ColorMask (Grayscale. White means that diffuse map is multiplied by a variable color. If the template has an emergency light effect, the color mask needs to be 0 in the areas that should light up and the color variations can only be used to modulate the color of the emergency (police, fire, ambulance) lights)
• Illumination (Grayscale. This has a unique usage for vehicles: 0.5 is the neutral color. 0 is used for turning signals and 1 is used for braking signals and headlights.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Please dont forget the Illumination map alot assets on workshop are missing good working ones.

Somewhere in here is a pretty good car tutorial with all answers but i cant find the link at moment if i find it ill post it later on.

The basic shiny level from the vanilla game is abit high allready but thats peronal taste but mainly having a bit less shiny _s map texture is allways good for further LUTs and visual mods players use mostly. Less people play vanilla i think.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

9 minutes ago, OwiHH said:

The colour of a pixel is also used, to calculate the resulting colour of the surface. A very saturated specular map will have a very different visual effect than a grey specular map. If you need a more "neutral" highlight on a surface, your specular map should use the inverse of the diffuse map's colour. Using the same colour on the specular as on the diffuse will result in a more saturated highlight when viewed in the game.

• Specular (Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows)

Which one is it then? How can a specular map be saturated if it's grayscale? Where did you get this information from?

From a look at the textures ingame, the alpha, color and illumination maps are combined into one ACI map, where each map takes up one of the RGB channels (R is alpha (inverted), G is color variation map,  B is illumination), for the normal map it uses two channels for the bump (R and G) and uses the B channel for the specular map, which is why it becomes an XYS map (in some places it's written as XYZ, I assume this is a mistake), so it must be grayscale.

Am I missing something?

[Vitoria90 10]

20 minutes ago, OwiHH said:

I recommend allways refilter the bumpmap manual with different techniques for a realy good look. Alot scratches on the bumpmap as example for flat surfaces make it look bit unreal because of to much scratches if the color isnt a singlecolor.  Basicly a bump map is more made to hightlight or darken bumps and details. Sometimes it is to much or less detail if the bump map has to much or less resolution. But thats the next step. you need a paint programm gimp or photoshop ( where you can use open source nvidea texture tool to create good bumpmaps with alot filters to cut off the working time).

Nice your car works.

if the car is to shiny you shouldt add a Specular (Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows)

 * "_d" suffix stands for the diffuse texture (RGB)       - 3 color channels texture defining the albedo.
  * "_a" suffix stands for the alpha texture (Mask)        - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel transparency.
  * "_c" suffix stands for the color texture (Mask)        - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel where the color variations can be applied.
  * "_i" suffix stands for the illumination texture (Mask) - 1 color channel mask specifying per pixel if the diffuse color should be considered emissive.
  * "_n" suffix stands for the normal map texture (RGB)    - 3 color channels tangent space normal map.
  * "_s" suffix stands for the specular texture (Mask)     - 1 color channel mask to specifying per pixel specularity.

Specular maps are the maps you use to define a surface's shininess and highlight colour.

The higher the value of a pixel (from black to white), the shinier the surface will appear in-game. Therefore, surfaces such as dry stone or cotton fabric would tend to have a very dark specular map, while surfaces like polished chrome or plastic would tend to have lighter specular maps.

The colour of a pixel is also used, to calculate the resulting colour of the surface. A very saturated specular map will have a very different visual effect than a grey specular map. If you need a more "neutral" highlight on a surface, your specular map should use the inverse of the diffuse map's colour. Using the same colour on the specular as on the diffuse will result in a more saturated highlight when viewed in the game.

You can use contrasts in specular to make a surface appear more visually interesting in the game - for example, this door has a very dark specular for the wood while the metal parts are much lighter, which will make the metal stand out more as a shinier surface when light hits it. This sort of contrast can help make surfaces in the game appear more realistic too.

Supported textures for vehicles

• Diffuse
• Normal map
• Specular (Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows)
• Alpha (Grayscale)
• ColorMask (Grayscale. White means that diffuse map is multiplied by a variable color. If the template has an emergency light effect, the color mask needs to be 0 in the areas that should light up and the color variations can only be used to modulate the color of the emergency (police, fire, ambulance) lights)
• Illumination (Grayscale. This has a unique usage for vehicles: 0.5 is the neutral color. 0 is used for turning signals and 1 is used for braking signals and headlights.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Please dont forget the Illumination map alot assets on workshop are missing good working ones.

Somewhere in here is a pretty good car tutorial with all answers but i cant find the link at moment if i find it ill post it later on.

The basic shiny level from the vanilla game is abit high allready but thats peronal taste but mainly having a bit less shiny _s map texture is allways good for further LUTs and visual mods players use mostly. Less people play vanilla i think.

I think I might've made my specular map incorrectly from what you've said. Right now I'm having a problem I was not having before where I can't import anything into the asset editor. The model loads in the preview but nothing happens when I choose next.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

What does the specular map look like? 

If you import it without the specular map it suddenly works?

Are all textures the same size? And are all the lod textures the same size as well if you're importing those?

Also if you're importing your own lod textures you must import lod_s and lod_a, otherwise it will have problems.

[Vitoria90 10]

Just now, Ronyx69 said:

What does the specular map look like? 

If you import it without the specular map it suddenly works?

Are all textures the same size? And are all the lod textures the same size as well if you're importing those?

Also if you're importing your own lod textures you must import lod_s and lod_a, otherwise it will have problems.

I think the mistake of my specular map is it has transparencies for parts I didn't want touched, and I'm now assuming that's not the right way to do it. All textures are 1024x1024.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

There should be no transparency, it goes from black to white, black = no reflection, 1% - 90% specular highlight reflection, 90% - 99% environment reflection (the clouds and that city texture), 100% - windows

I haven't measured the actual rgb values tho, these are approximate.

I suggest using about 0 - 15% specular, and about 95% if you want that reflection texture.

 

[Vitoria90 10]

Something's wrong with Blender, it's not exporting correctly even though I didn't change any settings in it. Even trying to import the .fbx file into Blender itself isn't working.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Is it all one object? It must be all combined in a single mesh, then maybe select only that one object and export selected only, I don't know blender myself so that's all I can guess.

[Vitoria90 10]

Just now, Ronyx69 said:

Is it all one object? It must be all combined in a single mesh, then maybe select only that one object and export selected only, I don't know blender myself so that's all I can guess.

Exported again, managed to import it into Blender, going to try to get it into the game, if it doesn't work I'll get some footage of what's happening, maybe that might help find the problem.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

You can also add me on steam for quicker back and forth communication.

[OwiHH 240]

<< alot good infos there.

Here is the vehicle tutorial i meant - it uses 3dmax but the information in there are usefull for blender modders too and works same way to understand what all the different textures do.

For the import issue it could be the common problem for new modders that use blender.

You allways need to apply befor exporting: 

When in object mode with your object selected, hit CTRL + A, and select rotation and scale. On the left side bar, make sure location, size and rotation are all checked. Save and export again.

 

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

I'm paying very close attention to this thread, texturing is the next skill I need to learn. 

A quick question about texturing different objects, do I have have the model in 3DS Max looking complete with the textures before I go to export or do you have to generate the UV Map first and then add materials to the map by photoshopping the rendered image to suit?

The guide you linked above is based on people already having some knowledge of 3DS/Blender, for a complete novice like myself it seems to be missing some steps. 

Is there a quick guide to texturing for beginners?

[Ronyx69 2,413]

4 hours ago, squirrelarmyuk said:

I'm paying very close attention to this thread, texturing is the next skill I need to learn. 

A quick question about texturing different objects, do I have have the model in 3DS Max looking complete with the textures before I go to export or do you have to generate the UV Map first and then add materials to the map by photoshopping the rendered image to suit?

The guide you linked above is based on people already having some knowledge of 3DS/Blender, for a complete novice like myself it seems to be missing some steps. 

Is there a quick guide to texturing for beginners?

You decide the workflow, but here's one way to do it:

1. model
2. uv map for the texture size you want
3. export uv template
4. make texture using the template
5. apply it to the model
6. go back and forth between the model and texture and fine tune stuff

[OwiHH 240]

Yes basicly you need to have it look like you want within 3dmax/blender befor export it - export is the last step befor importing it into the cities skyline editor.

It depends on what you create and personal taste. If you have something in mind allready you can mix both steps / creating parts of the model and texture and add other parts later. IF the model is simple like a fence you mostly create the texture first and just add it to the model later. But like Ronxy said switching between texturecreation and modeling most people do due finetuning.

If you look here thats what you looking for - i use blender so i dont know anything about 3dsmax. ;-)

 

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

If I can import the textures from my other CAD packages will it just be the UV/LOD mapping I need to work on? 

[donoteat 478]

51 minutes ago, squirrelarmyuk said:

If I can import the textures from my other CAD packages will it just be the UV/LOD mapping I need to work on? 

CAD doesn't do polygon modelling well -- you'll likely have to do a hell of a lot of optimization if you're working from AutoCAD or Solidworks or something like that.