mic´s building again: Release for Pug Monaco Serie and new wip "lost Places Factory"

[Miccrosshill 367]

hi there,

 

i am new in this community, so this is my first post. Also i am new to moddeling, i choosed Blender to make my models and i am watching one tutorial after another.

For my first project i choosed a kind of old signal station - i did not found the english translation - for the germans here - weichenstellwerk. Thats what it looks to me.

I appriciate all tips and helps you can provide

first of all - i preparation to get this later in the game - how can i add traintracks to the model? I saw a template from bloodyPenguin for the Cargostation - this may be not suitable to my model.

 

thanks

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

You can place simple train tracks (no station, just going through) in the asset editor.

[Tim The Terrible 586]

Hi and welcome!

I would leave the tracks out and make it a free to place building so people can place it where ever they want.

[Miccrosshill 367]

Thanky a lot for the welcome

I will make it "free to place" - i finished the basic buildup with basic textures. Is it better to have a plane/block  on the ground? I saw severall Assets that bend with the ground in CS.

Next step will be finetuning and joining all together *hehe - i frighten the upcoming work*. Also is it better to bake textures?

 

btw:

Verts:805

Faces: 493

Tris:1473

is that ok ?

 

thanks for your advises in advance

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

Welcome and great work! I wouldn't bother making it follow the terrain because it would look weird and tracks are usually placed on flat ground anyway... For the textures it really depends. Baking is probably better if you want some ambient occlusion or if you have complicated layouts that are not convenient to place on a unique texture. Otherwise not using baking allows to overlay UVs thus improving the overall resolution. The tris count seems adequate for such a building (size+detail+won't be used a lot). What matters most is the optimization of the LOD. I'd say it should be possible to shoot for under 150 tris and 128 or 256 textures, but that's a very rough estimate. Keep it up!

[art just right 427]

17 hours ago, Miccrosshill said:

Thanky a lot for the welcome

I will make it "free to place" - i finished the basic buildup with basic textures. Is it better to have a plane/block  on the ground? I saw severall Assets that bend with the ground in CS.

Next step will be finetuning and joining all together *hehe - i frighten the upcoming work*. Also is it better to bake textures?

 

btw:

Verts:805

Faces: 493

Tris:1473

is that ok ?

 

thanks for your advises in advance

 

Looking soooo usable! Cannot wait man

[Avanya 2,605]

Hey and welcome!

Since it looks like you textured it in different parts, then I'd highly recommend baking the final texture - you can always move some faces outside the UV area if you plan for them to overlap. Remember resolution should be the power of 2, but it doesn't have to be square - you can have 1024x512 for example if that works better for your building. Tris sounds fine for the level of detail you have - remember to remove the ones you can't see if you haven't already. Like the top side of the beams under the wooden part.

I'd highly recommend you make a LOD for it since the game's automatic ones will likely butcher your lovely building. You should be able to get it below 100 tris - do ask if you're unsure how much detail to leave out.  For the LOD texture baking is for friend again.

Lastly I'd recommend you turn lightness/brightness and saturation on your final texture down by 30-50% - the game really does a number on colors.

Cool idea and I can think of a handful of people who will love this building so much! It looks great and I'll have to find somewhere for it.

[Miccrosshill 367]

Thanks for the tipps Lost_Gecko and hi to Avanya *hehe* i use a lot of your Assets in my game. Both of you are doing a great work thanks also for your tips i appreciate them. Actualy i joined all objects and did a new uv&texture. Repeating the workflow helps to learn I decided to use not a baked texture (newbie in modeling) and stay the traditional way.

 

So the actual status is:

High Poly Model finished and already imported into CS - found some normals that must be flipped - but i am really happy how it looks .. i put some traintracks to see if they fit  .. and voià - my first ingame preview

 

of course next is normal map, illumination and the darken of the diffuse map - so all looks fine - also i added two lamps at the front of the building and i was hoping that i could illuminate them also. The the lod and thats it *g*

 

Hoping the next days it will come to the workshop

[Tim The Terrible 586]

Looking really good, can't wait to use this!

Check your normals (not the bump-map) because the triangular part on the side is flipped (in case you missed it)

I also recommend desaturating the bricks. It's probably an old building, but the bricks look new and fresh as it looks now.

[gfvsims 169]

Welcome! That's looking great!

[Miccrosshill 367]

Hi again,

 

i had messed up the mesures of the model - but got it right - thanks god that scaling in blender don´t affect the textures ..so i did a small test to check the right size :

 

looks good for me - the powerlines are just fitting - also all proportions seems right now (at least for me).

 

but when i switch to night i got an issue :

one of the faces becomes gray - only this one - when i zoom in the gray fades out and i can see the texture - any idea why this happen?

 

Also i need some help with the light script. I found the thread with the script

 

i tried this version for testing :
 

Spoiler

 

// --- FIRST LIGHT EFFECT ---

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

// Final position in prop
var pos1 = new Vector3(0f,10f,-1f);
// this would be near the center of the prop, 10m above groundd

// Final direction in prop
var dir1 = new Vector3(0f,1f,0f);
// this would be up

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

// --- SECOND LIGHT EFFECT ---

var lightEffect2 = EffectCollection.FindEffect("Flood Light Orange") as LightEffect;
var pos2 = new Vector3(0f,10f,1f);
var dir2 = new Vector3(0f,1f,0f);

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

// Apply effects to prop
var asset = ToolsModifierControl.toolController.m_editPrefabInfo as PropInfo;
asset.m_effects = new PropInfo.Effect[] { propEffect1, propEffect2};
asset.m_hasEffects = true;

 

but i just recive a "object reference not set to an instance" error in the ModTools. I also did not know if i have to put a light into the scene before? I want to put two fllodlight in my lamps on the front of the Building - shining downwards. Any help is appreciated.

Btw. is there an Option to get rid of the Grid in the Assets Editor?

 

Next Steps:

Texture Fixing

adding Light

 

 

thx folks

[boformer 3,169]

First of all, nice work with the model and the textures! I think your normal map is a little bit too strong.

1 hour ago, Miccrosshill said:

one of the faces becomes gray - only this one - when i zoom in the gray fades out and i can see the texture - any idea why this happen?

That's the grid of the asset editor. Just ignore it.

1 hour ago, Miccrosshill said:

Also i need some help with the light script.

You can only add light effects to props, not buildings. Use one of the existing light props, or create a new prop if it is really necessary. I think the building works without additional lights.

[Tomcat22 190]

Looking good, it will be a good addition. About scale issues in blender. (In case you dont know) When you choose 'metric' for measurement and put 0.01 in 'scale' then you are ready to go. In that way you can use real measurements (for me it is meters) and you wont need to play with scale while importing asset(leave it 1). It is also good to put a box equal to 1 cell in game (8x8 m) while modeling. Or you can use simple 90cm x 180cm box when you want to compare your model with human size (especially good for building with doors) . These are very simple tricks, probably you already know them but I learned them very late my bad  

[Miccrosshill 367]

Thanks a lot for all your suggestions they helped !

 

Anyway - i finished the Model with light and texturing - all to do is the LOD-part. I realized that you can use the Move-It Mod also in the Assets-Editor and i used it to move the Ingame Floodlights into my Lamps

here the "final" preview (the train is one the Game generates - Fits perfect) :

 

 

if you have any suggestions regarding the Model - don´t hesitate

At the end .. i used a Rock Template for this Model .. so it needs no Road or anything else.

What is your Opinion? Is a another Template better for the use?

 

And i installed also the "Asset UI Category Changer" - technically i should choose to put it where it belongs - in the Train tab .. is there any known problem with this?

 

and again .. thanks for help & suggestions - fine community this is

[Miccrosshill 367]

ok .. i just worked at the LOD .. i worked down from the original model and deleted all details .. i choosed to delete also the weight-bearing part .. i assume from the distance it will be not necessary. It has now 163 and a texture with 512 px. thats how it looks :

 

is this fine?

 

sorry for bothering you - its my first attempt and i have no experience if it is right or not.

 

see you 

 

[Tim The Terrible 586]

I would prefer this awesome building without lights and illumination. I don't think these kinds of buildings would still be used nowadays and I feel it would fit more as an abandoned building. Definitely without the bright lights (the props).

[Miccrosshill 367]

Hi tim,

 

when i got all technical fine - i will make a second one without light and more abandoned looking (more dirt on the textures, glass broken, maybe a broken lamp,..) this shouldn´t take more than a couple of hours .. just a little messup in the model and on the texture map *hehe*.

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

9 hours ago, Miccrosshill said:

ok .. i just worked at the LOD .. i worked down from the original model and deleted all details .. i choosed to delete also the weight-bearing part .. i assume from the distance it will be not necessary. It has now 163 and a texture with 512 px.

 

Nice work! Maybe you could bake the LOD texture from the main model's one, this way détails such as the timber framing would be preserved  Also I'd say 512 LOD texture is a bit too big for this size. 256 would probably be enough. 163 tris for the mesh is ok, but maybe it's possible to reduce it further. I tend to get rid of small parts under roofs and such because LODs are usually seen from above and these parts are very small anyway. The gaps can be filled with the walls. Of course it's a matter of preference and it's just a detail

Oh, and press the camera icon (or the 'p' key I think) in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to get rid of the UI (like in-game)

[Avanya 2,605]

Hmm, 163 sounds like more than it should have looking at the model. Try selecting everything, remove doubles (bar on the left), find "Mesh" on the menu at the bottom left, then "Clean up" and "Delete loose". Counting tris on that image I would have guessed it's below 50 so I think there might be some extra ones hiding. Looking at the level of detail on the building itself you're ont he right path and I think with any tiny hidden faces gone the tris will be good.

Texture is too large for a LOD. Something this size should prob be 128x128 or 128x64.

Looking really good and keep up the good work

Edit: Btw what colors did you use for the illumination map? It looks like your windows are lit up during the day too.  For buildings you'll want to use 192 as the neutral color instead of black. And to get randomly lit windows values either between 128-192 or 192-255. Lots more about that here if you haven't seen that guide yet.

[Miccrosshill 367]

Hi there,

 

new day new start - great advises. i cleaned the LOD-Model up .. found lot of doubles and no needed vertices - so i am down to 46 Tris *proud of me*

i redid the texturing .. and saved it 128*128 - looks quite squishy. But from distance it could do the work.

 

as i understand my import folder should now look like this :

model.fbx

model_d.png

model_i.png

model_n.png

model_s.png

model_lod.fbx

model_lod_d.png

normal/illumination/specular maps arn´t needed for the LoD - it seems to me there isnt enough detail left to justify these?

 

 

 

[boformer 3,169]

2 hours ago, Miccrosshill said:

normal/illumination/specular maps arn´t needed for the LoD - it seems to me there isnt enough detail left to justify these?

I would add an illumination map.

[Avanya 2,605]

46 sounds much better.  Yeah, LOD textures aren't pretty up close, but by the time it switches to it you're so far away you can't see more detail anyways. I'd recommend an illumination map for the LOD too since the game will make it's own if you don't add one, which is often just a weird full illumination for the whole thing  Specular might be a good idea too, but you can always test to see if it looks weird without. Normal maps for LODs are rarely useful (and often just look weird), so I'd totally leave that out.

[Miccrosshill 367]

Finally !!

 

what a pain in the ... to get the last Details ready for the upload to steam .. first i got a problem that my lod didn´t shown .. the i struggled a little with preview images .. but at the i end - i won *hehe*

 

may i proudly present :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913871752

 

netx steps ..

wait for issues to get fixed

work on a modification as abadoned building with broken windows .. broken wood - grafittis and without light.

preparation - new project - railroad warehouse

 

thank you all again for your patience and help

 

[Tomcat22 190]

12 hours ago, boformer said:

I would add an illumination map.

Yes I would too. If asset has illumination map and lod doesnt then I get full lit asset in lod distance sometimes.

Well done Miccrosshill it is looking good  Looking forward for next projects

[Judazzz 1,936]

That's a pretty damn spectacular (and mighty fine) debut you made, Miccrosshill!

[Miccrosshill 367]

Thank you

 

btw.: working on the changes for the same building but as abandoned one .. mostly texture work .. here the first impressions .. i am curious how this looks ingame.

[Matthias King 348]

That graffiti looks great. Would it be possible to release just the graffiti as a wall prop? I only have about six pieces of graffiti to work with. These would do a lot to add variety.

[Miccrosshill 367]

something like that ?

 

Side1

other side

[Matthias King 348]

I actually meant as props that can go on a wall like billboards, but those walls are nice too. I'll take those too!

[Miccrosshill 367]

Ah, i see. I didn´t know that you can make decal´s for the wall .. but i found some threads about it.

Anyway, i like the idea and got quite some nice inputs during searching for Graphic´s. That´s why i decided to make a kind of Collection of Streetart from around the World. Mixed Wall´s and Decal´s. I want the walls comin in two size´s - one small and one (when i find the right graffiti) extra wide. Let´s bring some Streetculture into the Game *hehe*

So my plans are 4 Props for each country - let´s see how long i have fun with that

 

happy friday folks - weekend is near

 

 

UPDATE:

 

did a first test with the Decal Type - i am not so sure if this is the right way .. it was tricky to place the decal against the wall .. and i could not get the Graffiti placed at a higher position (i have Prop Snapping) - it stays at the bottom of the building.

check it out :