Shannanigan: WIPs & Stuff

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Hello there...

I'm new to the world of Cities: Skylines. My brother told me about it on Christmas... I bought it the next day and now I'm making "stuff"! I'm going back to school for Mechanical Design (after 15 years as a footwear designer, drawing everything "by hand"), learning Solidworks, Creo and AutoCAD in school, and teaching myself 3D Max and Blender. This is a great outlet to practice everything with a purpose, rather than randomly building things.

I'm really into 1950s & 60s kitschy Mid-Century Americana. So thats pretty much the style all my assets will be... bright colors and funky shapes... the cheesier the better! I'm going to use this post to share my creations. I'm still figuring out some of the back end info for creating assets... but eventually I'll start posting to the Steam Workshop.

First up... a couple props! I love big, obnoxious signs! Expect a lot of those... Lol!

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Ice Cream Shop... "The Might Cone". Based on real buildings you can still find across the USA, made by an Ice Cream company called "Twistee Treat".

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

I couple of Mid-Century suburban houses... I really need to find a way to get rid of that "ruining" around them. I want the grass to come up to the house... it just looks bad this way. :/  I played around with the illumination on the first one so that you can see the curtains in the window at night. Its too bad alphas in this game don't do gradients, but I think it turned out ok.

I'm also trying to figure out how custom assets work in the game... I'd like these to work as an actual house that gets built in residential areas, but I don't want them to disappear when "upgraded".

[Badi_Dea 476]

Everything looks really nice, good going!

The smoothing groups on your ice cream could use a little tweaking, but it's a really cool building

8 hours ago, Shannanigan O'Crabby said:

I really need to find a way to get rid of that "ruining" around them.

I don't think there's anything that can be done about the ruining at the base of buildings.. I've been thinking that if I ever decided to do some light residential buildings, I'd check out making large decal lawns to obscure the ruining - might be worth a shot.

 

8 hours ago, Shannanigan O'Crabby said:

I'm also trying to figure out how custom assets work in the game... I'd like these to work as an actual house that gets built in residential areas, but I don't want them to disappear when "upgraded".

When you use a growable template, it will have a level assigned to it. You can either make more assets and fill up levels 1-5 each one looking increasingly fancy; or just use the same model for levels 1-5, but there's the chance that it'll still upgrade into a different building. There's the Building Themes mod too, and if I remember correctly (it's been a while since I've use it) you can specify upgrade chains, so one prefab will only upgrade to another.

Looking forward to seeing more stuff!

 

 

[Bad Peanut 826]

you should watch a whole night cycle on your curtained windows just to make sure they look right all night. As the cycle progresses the light part will fade and the darker parts will lighten... so it might eventually invert what you have displayed - not sure if you like glowing curtains

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

15 hours ago, Badi_Dea said:

The smoothing groups on your ice cream could use a little tweaking, but it's a really cool building

 

Thanks! I did fix the smoothing... here it is in the game. Not sure why that kid is on the counter though... lol!

I set up a quick asset using a park to test it in the game and I put both the parking space lines and the "glowing blue" parking spot indicator.
I thought that is what pulls cars in to park... but the one spot I didn't put the indicator got a car to park in it.
Do those parking lot lines draw cars in by themselves? Maybe the glowing blue indicators aren't needed?

 

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Went a bit nuts making plants yesterday...

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

My latest venture... a proper Drive-In Theater. The screen structure and concession stand are the "Building", and I've made an entrance booth as a prop.
I'm also working on "speakers" and a "Now Showing" marquee sign. The textures need to be dirtied up a bit...

Right now I have a single illuminated image for the screen... but I'm hoping I can figure out how to make a large animated screen prop to use instead.

Also need to figure out which fences/walls/hedges will keep people and cars from randomly walking through them! What is the point of fences that don't make Cims go around?? Silly Cims...

I think this will be my first submission to the Workshop... its turning out pretty good.

 

 

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Well I finally took the plunge and submitted to the Steam Workshop.
My Drive-In Movie Theater is now available... http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1285281657

[Badi_Dea 476]

looks good! did you get the animated billboard figured out?

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Just now, Badi_Dea said:

looks good! did you get the animated billboard figured out?

 

Not yet... so for now its just an illuminated "Intermission" screen.
I do have a large screen prop made that will fit over that and hide it if I do get the animation issue worked out.

 

[Badi_Dea 476]

That's a bummer, but hey, it still looks great

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

So I'm going back to my "Mighty Cone" project, and there are a few things I'm wondering if I can correct before I release it.

1. Is there a way to keep the Cims from walking through the building? I thought that whole ruining thing let the game know where structures are but they keep walking through it (same with my drive-in). Its super annoying!

2. What the heck does "Flatten Full Area" and "Flatten Terrain" actually do in the asset manager? Because it doesn't look like either actually flatten anything entirely...

I also want to include a custom outdoor table.

I'm having issues with the sitting positions. They are according to the In-Game round table I used as a base asset, which is larger.
I did find a tutorial in Steam which is really helpful... http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1202529406
Just wondering if anyone knows how this works, and if I'm on the right track to get 4 positions that face towards the center.
 

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

So I figured out how to work around "The Ruining"... and I'm super happy about it!

I subbed to a couple of buildings on Steam and noticed they didn't have ruining around them so I dumped the models to see what they did. All it takes is moving the base of the building slightly below the "ground" level so no vertices are at set at 0.

But I don't think the game generates fill for uneven terrain this way, so I just added a section a few feet deep below the house that takes its place. The game still applies that dark grey texture to anything below the 0 ground level (Sadly, but I'm picking my battles!)

P.S. Yes, I made Lawn Flamingos. Lol!

[Badi_Dea 476]

11 hours ago, Shannanigan O'Crabby said:

All it takes is moving the base of the building slightly below the "ground" level so no vertices are at set at 0.

Dude! I've been making assets for this game since the beginning, and I've never noticed that before - thanks so much for sharing!

I'm really liking your stuff, it all just feels happy

[Bad Peanut 826]

12 hours ago, Shannanigan O'Crabby said:

The game still applies that dark grey texture to anything below the 0 ground level (Sadly, but I'm picking my battles!)

You can change the shader using mod tools if you don't want the concrete base texture

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

8 hours ago, Bad Peanut said:

You can change the shader using mod tools if you don't want the concrete base texture

 

OOh... really? I admit I find ModTools totally intimidating. I'm not much of a coder beyond basic HTML...
Is there a tutorial somewhere that explains how to do it?
 

[Ronyx69 2,413]

23 hours ago, Shannanigan O'Crabby said:

 

OOh... really? I admit I find ModTools totally intimidating. I'm not much of a coder beyond basic HTML...
Is there a tutorial somewhere that explains how to do it?
 

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/72397-building-continuing-below-the-ground-level/?do=findComment&comment=1655161

[boformer 3,169]

I love everything you've made so far! You are a true perfectionist!

[Giveaway412 29]

I would just like to say that I'm thrilled with the bright and colorful look you're going for. I think a bit too many people in the C:S modding community make only dark and gritty building that clash a bit with the game's artstyle, IMO.

I eagerly await the release of your Mighty Cone building!

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

4 hours ago, boformer said:

I love everything you've made so far! You are a true perfectionist!

 

Either that or a crazy lady... its a toss up. Or possibly both... Lol!

 

 

2 hours ago, Giveaway412 said:

I would just like to say that I'm thrilled with the bright and colorful look you're going for. I think a bit too many people in the C:S modding community make only dark and gritty building that clash a bit with the game's artstyle, IMO.

I eagerly await the release of your Mighty Cone building!

 

Thanks... its kind of my "M.O." I like making shiny happy retro-inspired art and it ends up in everything I do.

I'm just working through that seating position issue for my table... then I'm going to submit Mighty Cone to Steam.
I'm not a fan of the vanilla tables, but if I can't make mine work correctly I'll eventually give in and use the C:S one.

 

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Hey... no Mighty Cone yet... but I did upload both of my houses and a bunch of my retro props to Steam.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/shannanigan/myworkshopfiles/

[Badi_Dea 476]

Looks great! I really like your retro style preview pictures, looks fantastic!

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Hey... The Mighty Cone has finally been unleashed!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1300068651


I compromised with myself... and just made my table the same size as the Vanilla one so the people are sitting on it correctly.
Eventually I'll figure out those custom seating codes...

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

I know some people use that 81 tiles mod but I'm pretty sure my computer would explode. I don't want just "abandoned" stuff outside the playable area though.

So I've started making some things based on the "Abandoned House" building so they can be placed without roads, on the beach, etc. like these little "mod" cabins. The issue is that they only show up when map building unless the user has a mod (Find It, etc) to place while in game and of course they don't count for anything, just decoration.

I'm wondering if there is an alternative option to use as the base asset that does the same as the Abandoned House, but shows "In-Game" without any mods?

[Delta2k5 311]

Hey there!

 

Well, you could try to use this mod to change the assets ui category.

Other than this you could probably use one of the park assets by others to create a freely placeable asset under parks category. Download and install it by subscribing as usual and use it as a template. A candidate on this would be something like this one.

If I'm right you should anyway be able to set every type of asset to a freely placeable one by disabling some things like the need of water, fire, and the production of garbage + x, but I don't know exactly by now...

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

On 2/23/2018 at 2:40 AM, Delta2k5 said:

Hey there!

 

Well, you could try to use this mod to change the assets ui category.

Other than this you could probably use one of the park assets by others to create a freely placeable asset under parks category. Download and install it by subscribing as usual and use it as a template. A candidate on this would be something like this one.

If I'm right you should anyway be able to set every type of asset to a freely placeable one by disabling some things like the need of water, fire, and the production of garbage + x, but I don't know exactly by now...

Thanks for the info... I just found this article as well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429744078

I need to do some checking to see if they can be placed outside the "playable area" though... since thats why I started this idea in the first place.

I may need to compromise with myself and just have them in game rather than the map editor... and tell people to use a Mod for placing them in the "dead zones". :)

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

Finally got a new house done and added a couple of new props.
Summer is coming... eventually... so its swimming pools and BBQs.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1330056755
 

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Wow! You make some nice assets. I like the style. Do you plan on doing more window detailing in the future? For example, that awesome ice cream shop would be over the top with that "open" sign in the window like the RL image. Anyway just wanted to chime in and say great job.

[Shannanigan O'Crabby 41]

On 3/14/2018 at 10:48 AM, Mr_Maison said:

Wow! You make some nice assets. I like the style. Do you plan on doing more window detailing in the future? For example, that awesome ice cream shop would be over the top with that "open" sign in the window like the RL image. Anyway just wanted to chime in and say great job.

Thanks!

Yeah the windows are too bare on the Mighty Cone.
I thought about adding some stickers and such like the real one... but I didn't end up doing it.
I might update it eventually...