PJC Cities XXL to Cities: Skylines asset conversions

[PaulJChris 140]

Hi ladies and gents.

I am a reasonably experienced asset maker with around 100 models built for Cities XXL.  Sadly the game is no longer supported , the player base has dwindled and  what is achievable by modding in that game appears to have reached its limits.  I bought Skylines upon release but neglected  to note the system requirements ( 64bit only)  so could not play it for nearly a year  until upgrading to a decent modern PC which I now have.  I suppose I am looking for a new home.   I have several hundred hours experience in 3dsmax and have recently gravitated towards Substance Painter and Substance Designer for texturing as the system is faster and more intuitive for me and enables the creation of all the required maps in one go rather than making them individually in PS which I used to do.    I have some limited programming experience but am not up to speed with C# .  I  am however motivated to learn enough to be productive on the modding side as I can see great potential for Skylines in the years ahead.

About 6 weeks ago I revisited Skylines and also reviewed what has been achieved by the modding community  since release. Simply  amazing.  Also  the quality of the user made assets appears to be rising continually.  This has inspired me to seriously re- engage with the game.   I have out around 90 hours  play so far and have grown cities to 100K so I have reasonable grasp of the game dynamics but am not an expert.  I got fed up with vanilla after about 30K and started introducing mods, mainly the gameplay ones  such Move It, Road anarchy , Find it, RICO etc .  I am now at the stage where I want to move more towards realism as my instincts are more in the City painter camp hence my interest in making assets.   I have studied most of the tutorials on asset creation and have learned a lot, I have also read through a number of prominent  modders threads on here noting their progression from their first attempts to the amazing stuff more recently created.

I recognize a few names on  here from Xlnation .   I wonder if I could start by importing some of my CitiesXXL assets into Skylines?.   Anyone  else done this  and can pass on any knowledge/tips before I start  would be appreciated.  Is it worth the effort or is it better to start from scratch?   I obviously already  have all the 3DSmax files and textures , it would seem that the Cities XXL lod 4 can be re -used as it carries the same target spec ( ie less than 100 triangles).  Then a case of choosing which of the 3 other Lods to use for the main model.   Then striping out the bases of the XXL models as not required in C:S  .   Then redoing the nightlighting to comply with the C:S standard.  Will mostly need to be RICO stuff i think, most of my existing  models do not have a multiple of 8M footprint,  some are at the CXL standard of  40m x 40m (5 x 5 in skylines language).   You can review my back catalogue here  http://xlnation.city/resources/authors/pauljchris.19/  to see  if there are any models in there that people would like to see in Cities Skylines and I will attempt some conversion work before I move on to making fresh stuff.  Please bear in mind that some of my earliest work is of  lesser quality, I like to think I improved a bit with practice over time.

Thanks for reading . I hope to be able to get up to speed  with C:S  and to be in a position to contribute something decent for the community fairly soon.

Regards

PJC

 

[barcasam7 185]

Welcome Chris, I used to play Cities XXL too and loved your models. Glad to hear you're on board with this game and everything you said is bang on. I would love to see - One Boulder Plaza East in cities skylines. I will probably let someone with more experience than me talk to you about specifics assets size. Footprint isn't really such an issue when using RICO as some buildings take up huge plot sizes. Majority of players now use RICO, it's almost become the defacto. For night lights I'd recommend this guide:

 

[PaulJChris 140]

1 hour ago, barcasam7 said:

Welcome Chris, I used to play Cities XXL too and loved your models. Glad to hear you're on board with this game and everything you said is bang on. I would love to see - One Boulder Plaza East in cities skylines. I will probably let someone with more experience than me talk to you about specifics assets size. Footprint isn't really such an issue when using RICO as some buildings take up huge plot sizes. Majority of players now use RICO, it's almost become the defacto. For night lights I'd recommend this guide:

 

Thanks for the welcome and the helpful link.    Seems pretty straightforward to me.   Is  this still best practice as  it was written in 2015?

[PaulJChris 140]

I was going to start with this one  6k triangles 300 Lod  which i thought might look good in skylines.  Large footprint.  But One Boulder Plaza East is  another good one so I can try that as well.

 

  

[barcasam7 185]

I believe that is still the best practice for illumination maps. That looks great Chris! 6K tri's is acceptable for that foot print. Not everyone conforms to the tri count as sometimes it's required e.g. Boldy Buildings which are incredible detailed. You might encounter problems when using the cities skylines asset importer. It's best to disable your assets/mods in steam before using it by this guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=466981085

 

[Darf 1,439]

Tris count is not the most important factor, 250-400 tris per square is the guideline, less is always better. Ofcourse you can make some exceptions for very detailed buildings. Most important to keep in mind is texturesize. Rather have a building with a 1024 map with a 1000 tris more than one with a 2048 map. Most of your maps should be able to convert to C:S, except the illum map.

[Sparks44 92]

I think a 2048x204 texture on this building would look amazing. I saw some Victorian terraced houses in your collection which I'd love to see in cities skylines as I'm building a UK city.

All of your assets look amazing, I would probably download all of them. Just remember to lower the whites and saturation on the diffuse texture and not to add props or parking in the asset editor. Only the entrance is needed. 

 

[PaulJChris 140]

Thank you everyone  for your help so far.  Your are  not kidding about the saturation, 1st attempt at import  washed out my diffuse map completely - looked absolutely terrible so now to fix that.

So the drill is to just provide the base building and no other props to provide  maximum  flexibility?  No control over  the floor area at all, is this correct?  Is it best if the 3dsmax model is "closed" such there is an unseen bottom polygon or does this not matter to the  skylines engine?    I would have like to have been able to reproduce the coloured block paved effect for certain parts in the above model and replace the tree props from CXL with their C:S equivalents , the grass texture is horrible I ( not my finest hour there)  and can be dispensed with completely.  

Regards

 

[Darf 1,439]

You can either cave in the area and use your own textures or adjust the pivot 2 cm up and make the ground area paved. No need to close the building. You can use any prop you want of the workshop, but the general concensus is just to add the standard trees as you can customize all trees with prop it up! Also, yes standard rendering in C:S look absolutely terrible and the editor is even worse. To fix this you will need a good Lut (I still recommend natural color), daylight classic, ambient oclusion, shadow strength adjuster and dynamic resolution.

[BoraBora 5]

Your XXL models are beautiful, indeed. I'm into french provincial cities/towns/villages so I'd love to see your Castle Wall/Esplanade Road pack converted for CS.

[PaulJChris 140]

Darf,

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, this really helps.   As you can see , even with a toned down diffuse , i still have a lot of work to do.  I haven't even started on the other maps yet.

[gfvsims 169]

Welcome to Simtropolis (and Cities Skylines!). It's fabulous to see yet another talented asset creator on board. We are really spoiled at the moment.  Like @Sparks44, I'm currently building a UK-based region, so I'd love to see anything you have that would fit that style.

[Sparks44 92]

12 hours ago, PaulJChris said:

Thank you everyone  for your help so far.  Your are  not kidding about the saturation, 1st attempt at import  washed out my diffuse map completely - looked absolutely terrible so now to fix that.

So the drill is to just provide the base building and no other props to provide  maximum  flexibility?  No control over  the floor area at all, is this correct?  Is it best if the 3dsmax model is "closed" such there is an unseen bottom polygon or does this not matter to the  skylines engine?    I would have like to have been able to reproduce the coloured block paved effect for certain parts in the above model and replace the tree props from CXL with their C:S equivalents , the grass texture is horrible I ( not my finest hour there)  and can be dispensed with completely.  

Regards

 

Yes, maximum flexibility is a good thing. Just think about how city painters can integrate the building into their city. Remember we cant delete the props or trees that come with building. However in-game we can add whatever we like. You could add some minimal paved floor area to certain areas, but not grass. The assets I've seen with grass never look good and will never match the grass of the theme. Diffuse looks good, I'm surprised the roof turned out nicely.

[pauliaxz 195]

Welcome, Paul, I see you also migrated to CSL from CXL.

Anyway, speaking about proper diffuse, it is enough to multiply whole texture with gray color with its value ranging from 128 to 160. And then desaturate to ~80 out of 100

[PaulJChris 140]

Playing around with some basic vanilla props in the editor to get some ideas for composition

 

[cmdp123789 710]

That looks fantastic.. the more assets, the better! lets keep em coming!

[PaulJChris 140]

Hit a newbie error with this asset.  It is too big  ...just.  It needs a 16 X 15 footprint which of course is not possible.  Learned about sub buildings which is a possible way forward but then I would have to slice the model into 2 which would be ok as it was modelled symmetrically..  What does the game do with parts of a model outside of the defined limits ?  Will it just clip off the too large parts or refuse to load the asset?   Perhaps this was a little ambitious for a first attempt, will try a smaller model I think unless any one can give a clear strategy to progress with this  particular asset.

 

[Turjan 1,048]

The model will just throw an error when it exceeds the allowed size limits and not be available in-game. But yes, sub-buildings is the way to go.

An example for this error message, which by the way lists all allowed lot sizes, is this here. I guess an asset creator could tell you whether 16x15 is now allowed. It wasn't at the time I got this message, which was a few game updates back.

[PaulJChris 140]

Thanks for you help.  I shall get the slicer out then and chop it  into 2 equal parts.  The current configuration is loaded by the game, with no error message but no icon either so that is the way to go. 

[PaulJChris 140]

Strange.  The game did accept the oversized asset without any error messages.  The only issue was that the terraforming of the ground outside of the specified plot size was  not enabled as you would expect.  The rest of the building works fine and became fully functional as a tier 5 low density residential after plopping with RICO enabled..   Any tips for balancing population settings for the game?  . In the real world this building has 230 flats with population of around 600 persons and is designed to provide convenient accommodation close to the town centre.  The central area is used for  residents  parking.

[pauliaxz 195]

Looks nice! IMO, it should he high density building instead of low. And speaking about household number, I personally, divide real households number by 3. Let's say IRL it is 60 households, so in game I set it to be 20. Some modders also do almost the same (multiplying by 0.3)

[Turjan 1,048]

Just to be sure: did you try to put the building on the workshop (set it to invisible so nobody downloads it), subscribe to it yourself and see whether it still works? I just ask because the creator of the Rijksmuseum in my example in the last post didn't notice anything wrong with his oversized asset either. It worked for him, just not for anyone else.

Another heads-up, just in case: If you use self-made props, you have to publish them on the workshop and subscribe to them from there (disable your local versions) before you use them on your building, or nobody else will ever see them on the finished building.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

If your building exceeds the lot size, you will have culling issues - the building will disappear when looking away from the lot.

You need to split it into multiple sub-buildings, probably two 8x15 buildings.

[PaulJChris 140]

Fair enough guys thank you for your input. I haven't tested it on the workshop and I have not used any custom  props . I am still very new to this but will take advice from  experienced people and divide the model.  Which template to use for sub buildings?   I do not see the sub buildings button at the moment so must be doing something wrong.

[barcasam7 185]

I believe you import your first part to the asset editor and there is little city/building icon next to the bulldozer now which is for sub-buildings. 

[PaulJChris 140]

Thanks found it. There is no icon as it it covered over by the Move It icon but if you hover the mouse between the Move it icon and the Bulldozer a flyout appears which enables you to activate the import sub buildings menu.   Easy to proceed now I know this.  Anyone know if there is anyway to share the  same textures between the two halves of the model?  Seems a bit wasteful to have to upload the same textures twice with a slightly different name for each half when they are identical like this.

[barcasam7 185]

Sharing textures isn't supported in sub buildings unfortunately. But with the loading screen mod it will check if the building has the same texture and only get it once. Most avid players have this mod so you shouldn't worry. 

[alborzka 66]

Wish this game had a medium density level, I feel like the jump between low and high is too much but that's just me

Did you add multiple entrances to this btw? Or do police/ambulances just go to one entrance?

[PaulJChris 140]

Thanks for your continued interest.  I have now split the model and have it working successfully  in game using a sub model for one half of the building.   I have not finalized  things like parking spaces and entrances but this is next.  At the moment you can connect the internal road within the complex to the street network  after you plop it but you need road anachy to do so.   Resident Cims   then park on this street but do not seem  interested to use any other parking spaces that I  place so must be missing something,  anyone  have any tips/rules  on the  correct placement of parking space and entrance markers  to get them to work effectively ?   Can buildings have more than 1 entrance , this building has at least 10 in the real world?   Specifically when using a sub building , is it better to place these type of markers on the main building plot or can you also place them  on the sub building?  Also when using a sub building, do you set its stats separately and the game adds them together or do you just load all the stats for both "halves" onto the main building?

  Also  I   need to finalize the building stats so as too be reasonably balanced.  The finished model footprint is  15 x 8 x 2 ie   15 x16 + the surrounding ped paths which allow an alternative exit to the rear on to a ped/cycle  path as in the real world building ,  so the total footprint is 15 deep  x 18 wide .   230 real world households equals 70 in game households based upon the rule of thumb posted above.   Not enough experience to judge the other factors, cost will  be quite high , garbage very high,  currently I have it set to residential high density level 5 ( even though it is a low rise building)  , electricity  and water costs I am not sure about.  For a debut building I just want to get these numbers such that they don't break the simulation too much therefore  any opinions any thoughts on what to do for this particular building would be gratefully appreciated. 

Sorry for so many questions but  you guys have been very helpful so far and the asset is not far away from being ready to publish now.

 

[barcasam7 185]

I'm not sure if this guide will help you or not. They have the recommendations of households per tile for each zoning type - http://www.skylineswiki.com/Zoning