Crownsteler tries Cities Skylines modeling (or: How do I create convincing windows?)

[crownsteler 31]

Hello all,

A few years ago I tried batting for SC4, but for various reasons never finished anything. Over the past few weeks I've gotten into cities skylines, but haven't been able to build the city I want due to a lack of appropriate assets. What better way to remedy this than by making your own? So for the past week I've been working on a small set of contemporary Dutch row homes, to decent result I feel. However I don't have a clue how to make good looking windows, and I was hoping someone help me out here. 

I tried using screenshots from Google Streetview for the windows, but I am not too convinced:

I have plenty of texture space to prevent repetition of the windows, but I will run into the issue of not getting enough and good enough shots of Google Streetview. 

Suggestions?

Here is the rest of the set (with temporary window textures. The above one weighs in at around 750 tris, these 3 at 5-600. I intend for them to share a single 1024x1024 texture, that is smart right?)

The real life buildings are here.

So help me figure out the windows (and illumination and perhaps some other minor details), and help me get them into the game soon.

[Avanya 2,605]

For the windows it might be worth just making them a really dark blue without any detail, at least if you are going to give them a high specular value, which will let the game give it some fake reflections. You definitely want to keep the beams that are on the outside of the window and those should be all black (or at least almost all black) on the specular map, so they don't have any reflection. On the top one I would probably even model the beams in the larger windows - your tris count is nice and low, so you can afford that little extra detail and it will make the windows look better. Then the whole glass part of the window can just be one face with high specular value.

[crownsteler 31]

Thanks for the input. I am hoping to avoid solid colours for the windows, as I feel they often feel a bit lifeless. But I'll have a try.

I imported the asset into the game, makes clear there are 'some' issues with it:

1. Forgot to update the windows

2. The normal map didn't load (misspelled it accidentally)

3. Need to desaturate the colours quite a bit

4. Needs to be scaled down a bit (now 9 meters tall, 8.4 would probably be better for 3 floors (2.8x3))? 

5. Could indded do with modelling a bit more of the geometry (though properly loading the bumpmap would help there as well).

[Darf 1,439]

For the windows, google maps detail should be plenty. If you just overlay the window area with a dark greenish/blueish gradient and enable shadows inside in photoshop they look quite nice.