Ami's Berlin: Assets (L.A. westside map released)

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

All done

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875799827

[boformer 3,169]

Why don't you apply smooth shading to the reflector? It looks like a spider web.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Um err what now? I didn't know you could control the shading. How do you do that?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I figured out how to do it and updated the model on Steam.

I'm not 100% convinced that it's much better.

[Epic Lurker 108]

The edge of the disc is so dark because it is trying to smooth out the transition from the front to the rear of the disc. You should mark the edges at the rim of the disc as sharp in Blender. Or use an edge split modifier to achieve the same effect.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Ok, will do. I had no idea that these kinds of things could actually be imported into C:S. 

edit: done! That's much better 

Thinking of doing this street light next:

Its the selux Urbi

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I'm starting to like this Blender thing. fun fun fun

 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hope you guys don't mind if I'm practically blogging here. 

Beware the dangers of working from front+sideview diagrams...

I missed some loops!

[odrzutowiec 5]

I never realised what an interesting light pole can do to a boring street! Great work

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

shoutout to Ronyx

Just gotta rotate em 180 deg and they should be dun n dusted

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Ok modder masters, I got issues (again).

The new light on a path is messed up (the light effect is on the wrong side), while the same exact light (as far as I know) is correct on a road.

 

???? 

 

In my last update, I moved the light effect to the other side. It's like the path is still using the old light before I updated the script. But I only have one light and no other versions!

// --- FIRST LIGHT EFFECT ---

// Used light effect
var lightEffect1 = EffectCollection.FindEffect("Street Light Highway") as LightEffect;

// Final position in prop
Vector3 pos1 = new Vector3(0f,5.75f,-1.3f); 
// this would be near the center of the prop facing the street, 5,75m above ground

// Final direction in prop
Vector3 dir1 = new Vector3(0f,-1f,0f);
// pointing down 

var propEffect1 = new PropInfo.Effect {m_effect = lightEffect1, m_position = pos1, m_direction = dir1 };


// --- SECOND LIGHT EFFECT ---

// Used light effect
var lightEffect2 = EffectCollection.FindEffect("Street Light Highway") as LightEffect;

// Final position in prop
Vector3 pos2 = new Vector3(0f,5.75f,1.3f); 
// this would be near the center of the prop facing the street on the other side, 5,75m above ground

// Final direction in prop
Vector3 dir2 = new Vector3(0f,-1f,0f);
// pointing down 

var propEffect2 = new PropInfo.Effect {m_effect = lightEffect2, m_position = pos2, m_direction = dir2 };


// --- THIRD LIGHT EFFECT ---

var lightEffect3 = EffectCollection.FindEffect("Street Lamp") as LightEffect;
Vector3 pos3 = new Vector3(-1f,3.5f,0f);
// facing the sidewalk, 3.5m up
Vector3 dir3 = new Vector3(0f,0f,0f);
// not pointing (point light)

var propEffect3 = new PropInfo.Effect {m_effect = lightEffect3, m_position = pos3, m_direction = dir3 };


// Apply effects to prop
(GameObject.Find("Tool Controller").GetComponent<ToolController>().m_editPrefabInfo as PropInfo).m_effects = new PropInfo.Effect[] { propEffect1, propEffect2, propEffect3};
(GameObject.Find("Tool Controller").GetComponent<ToolController>().m_editPrefabInfo as PropInfo).m_hasEffects = true;

 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Looks like it's not just me. So did CO leave a bug in the code, because they never planned on having non-centered lights on paths? Or is it a bug in Network Skins? Is there any way to fix this?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

@boformer - did you ever get a chance to investigate that bug with the light effect not being rotated on paths in Network Skins?

 

On to my next problem. Oh, there are many, but let's start with this. I'm working on an update to svenpotsdam's glorious Siegessäule (Victory Column), with his permission. He even gave me his model to work with from before it got decimated. His model of the "Golden Elsa" is original and quite wonderful. 

There are many versions of it on the workshop, but none of them have a good LOD. I'm having a problem with my own custom LOD that I just made. The main model has a 2048x2048 diffuse texture. I would like my new LOD model to have a .... lol, nevermind, I just found the problem. Posting on simtropolis does it again!

I had scaled the LOD diffuse to 1x2, but had not adjusted the image dimensions in the save.  I wanted 512x1024 but instead got 567x1133. Drrrrp! My bad... nothing to see here, move along. 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Here is a question for @Ronyx69 .. I would like to make this part of a pic into a full roof texture. What photoshop methods do you recommend? 

This is the only view I could find of the new roof of the Victory Column (post restoration):

I would like to photoshop-magic that little part into a full roof texture that would go here, hopefully preserving the lines and making them go to the center:

How would you approach this?

[Ronyx69 2,413]

have the circles ready

make a line on each side

figure out how many lines you want total, divide by half (since you have one on each side) I chose 80 so it's gonna be 40

figure out angle between lines, we have a line on each side so divide by half so instead of 360° we have 180° to fill

180°/40=4.5°

have both lines in the same group

start recording an action

duplicate group

free transform the group, type in 4.5° in the rotation

stop recording action

repeat action until lines go around the full circle

then make lines black,  make background orangey

overlay some textures

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Thanks so much @Ronyx69 You have set me on my way! Here's the result...

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

It's up  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=885189116

 

 

thx again @Ronyx69 and the rest of you that have been helping me in this thread. Tell me what you think! And don't pull any punches... feel free to give me hell for uploading a 39k triangle asset to the workshop. I'm wondering how you guys feel about that.

Spoiler

 

[schokoladeneis 1 193]

Is the roof of the lower parts really red? I always thought they used copper (Grünspan).

Nevermind I saw the picture above. But I think it's too much saturated. Or is that because of the lookuptable (LUT) you're using?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hmmm dunno, maybe have a look in-game and tell me what you think. The roof was an issue because the old roof was copper green, but the new roof is red tiles (as shown in that tiny part of that photo a few posts up). I couldn't find much source material for the new roof (post 2011 restoration), so I tried to make something that looks good. At first it was lighter and closer to the red granite color, but that made it all too bland and I didn't like it. So I darkened it. Maybe too much? Here is the texture in the end:

^^^ these eagles repeat perfectly (horizontal axis). Feel free to grab them and use them.

[Epic Lurker 108]

Hey Ami, in general your asset looks great. You're really up front about how expensive your asset is so no one can complain. So you are free to ignore any of my points below, especially the labor intensive ones. That said, here are my ideas on what could be improved:

1. Inconsistent texture resolution. Some faces (like the blue reliefs with the horses) have tons of pixel detail, while the surrounding textures probably less than half the number of pixels per area. Once we are close enough to appreciate the detail in the relief, the lack of detail in the surrounding texture really stands out. ideally all surfaces should have approximately the same resolution, with only some slight variations for less important areas.

2. Inconsistent level of detail of the geometry. This is the same as the previous point, but now relating to geometry. The statue on top has geometry for every toe, every finger and every feather. Pretty, but people are rarely going to come close enough to appreciate that level of detail. If they do, it immediately stands out that the fence directly below the statue has much less detail.

3. Too many triangles spent on small round objects. The column has these golden decorations that are really pretty small. They could be modeled with fewer triangles, and from any reasonable viewing distance they'd look the same thanks to the smoothing. Same story for the smaller columns around the base. 

4. Normal map generated by using the diffuse map as a heightmap. This is pet peeve of mine, many people do this and it just looks bad. For example, your normal map makes your eagles look like this:

A complicated relief like these eagles deserves a hand made heightmap. This can be done by tracing contours of elevated areas with the photoshop lasso tool and giving them a height. You'll never match the level of detail in the image with this technique, but at least your normal map will enhance the detail of your diffuse instead of fighting with it.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Good observations about the level-of-detail inconsistency in the tex map and in the mesh. I'll try to pay more attention to that on the next model.

 

I am in particular agreement with your point about the eagles normalmap. It looks to me like a big flat pancake with a bunch of deep creases an I'd love to make it better, to give their busts and heads more volume, for example. I just have no idea how to do it. I've only ever used nomalmaponline which was recommended in one of ronyx's texturing videos. Where would you point me to learn about better custom normalmap creation? If I could improve those eagles simply, it would be worth it for me to publish an update. I spent a ton of time making that texture map, so it deserves a nice normalmap and it's a perfect example of where a normalmap can shine IMO.

[Epic Lurker 108]

Great, I've been wanting to explain this to someone. Most asset builders don't utilize the normal map to its full potential.

Using normalmaponline is fine. I use xNormal because it has photoshop filter, so I can create a photoshop action that will update the normalmap in my skylines import folder with a single click. But that's just convenience, they both do the same thing.

It is important to understand what they do. They turn a heightmap into a normalmap. In a heightmap bright areas are high, dark areas are low.

Pictures of 3 dimensional objects in normal light are not heightmaps. Consider a flat vertical surface, with a round protuberance on it. If you take a picture of that surface, the top of the protuberance is tilted toward the sky and it is brighter. The bottom is tilted away from the sky and is darker. Below it there will be a slight shadow.  Your picture will show all these things. If you try to use this picture as a heightmap, you are giving completely wrong height information and the resulting normals will look bad.

 

The only way I know to get quality results for a complicated relief like your eagles is drawing a heightmap by hand. Time consuming, but worth it if you care enough. I use the lasso tool to trace areas that I think are the same height, and assign heights. Here is a relief from the Amsterdam central station, my hand-made heightmap, the normalmap computed by xNormal, and the relief in-game.

Notice how the normal map already seems almost 3 dimensional? If things don't look right in the normal map, they will not look right in game.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Ok this is sweet, thank you for helping me with this. I think this is another golden morsel that belongs pinned somewhere, but I'll leave that issue to the mods!

 

So how did you get from image #2 where you have your hand-drawn greyscale, to image #3 the normalmap? With the online thing? What settings? What is the difference in the normalmaponline "level" and "strength"? I don't really understand how the color spectrum in normalmaps works, and I think that is what is intimidating me. So green is top-lit and purple is bottom-lit or something? Could you explain that a bit more, and how you manage that when you're going from your own heightmap to the actual normalmap?

 

Also, how many height different height levels did you define in the 2nd image?

 

Lastly, what is this about reversing the red channel for Cities:Skylines?

[Epic Lurker 108]

The colors are explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping#How_it_works

They encode the surface normals, not how the surface is lit. The game decides in real time what areas to make darker or brighter based on the surface normals and whatever light sources are around. Areas with surface normals that point toward a light source become brighter, if the surface normal points away it becomes darker.

I went from the heightmap to the normal map using xNormal, which is software you can install for free, and it comes with a handy photoshop filter so all I need to do apply this filter. However, if I had used normalmaponline I'd get pretty much the exact same thing.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I'm having trouble with this technique. Here is my attempt:

initial diffuse map:

my manual height map attempt:

normalmap online output at basic settings (strength=2.5, level=7.0, blur/sharp=0, filter:sobel, invert=red checked):

It still looks like a horrible flat pancake. I think the problem is that this is such a high relief sculpture with so much volume, there should be almost no flat areas. I tried to tweak the normalmaponline settings but it still looks bad IMO:

 

 

[Epic Lurker 108]

Well I never said it would be easy. Do large structures first, maybe use a brush with a soft edge or apply some blur. Don't try to do details until the big stuff looks reasonable. Maybe practice on some other area first that might be easier. The panel above was not the first panel I did.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Can anybody explain to me what "strength" and "level" are in the normalmap online settings?

 

Frustrated with the results, I tried loading my grayscale heightmap into blender and then baking a normal map.

Amazing how the same exact source material gave a wildly different result via a different process. Here is the result of my first blender normalmap baking experiment:

It's better in some ways but worse in others. I could imagine it being much better if there were vertices only at the edges of my height map colors, so that the transitions would be slopes and there would be much less flat space, but I have no idea how to do that. End result, I'm still not happy with it, and still frustrated. I tried to "sculpt" the blender mesh, but having zero experience in that as well, it was another dead end street and another total fail.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

Here's my attempt by combining various sharp and blurred versions of the maps you provided and generating a few new ones using combinations of your diffuse and heightmap.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Not fair. Did you record yourself doing it by any chance? TEACH ME MASTER

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

wtf ronyx... Did you even make it wrap around? Or am I imagining things? I went into photoshop to take care of the wrap and I'm not sure if you already did it or not...

I think it would be impossible for you to do it because I didn't mention that there are a couple of pixels (2 exactly) overlap. But I can do that bit.