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So a new forum, a new color scheme, and so a new avatar. And a new BAT! The Oakland Tribune: (click for full size)

Sterling Drug Company Building Looks like I'm getting lazy again. Here's a small update, I still have a lot of work to do before this building is finished. Something is wrong with the windows on the lower setbacks, it's the white curtains. It's not rendering the glass, so I will have to do something to fix that.

Just to give an update. I have a Guardian Lion model ready to go. I need to put the finishing touches on it (LOD, test in game, etc) and it should be on the workshop tomorrow. I will have a bronze and stone variant. I'll start working on a gate next.

Even though we all have our disagreements and complaints about the voting system, let's still remember to be grateful for Paradox/CO giving us this opportunity to win free stuff and thankful that they will continue to hold contests. That's the most important thing!

We've got to fight back against the machine! Conformity be darned--variety is the spice of life, and as appealing as round avatars may be, they are ultimately boring. I like the idea of placing the avatar in a white panel so that it blends seamlessly. Would it be possible to use an interface in the avatar selection window that overlays the desired shape onto the avatar before uploading? This would allow for round avatars and make both square and round avatars available and blend seamlessly. And besides Dirk's "laziness", is there any other disadvantage to maintaining the two themes, like higher server costs? I mean, the part controlling the avatar window can hardly be more than a few lines that can be copy-pasted when discussing theme maintenance (if, in fact, a simpler solution is unavailable--I'm not a website coding whiz). No it is 100% pure laziness you understand. The technical difficulty is miniscule. Each time I need to make a modification or enhancement to the base theme, I then have to export that base theme out, and reimport it into the Square theme and then re-set all the preferences for the theme to match. It may sound trivial when written, but when I'm modifying and tweaking the base themes several times a week responding to issues or adding new features, and after every upgrade patch, that extra work just to support Square-heads... like I said, becomes a drag. Compound this task for months and years, and then I'll begin to dread ever having to make theme changes or fixes at all ... So no, I won't manage two themes where one is just for squares. But I'll tell you what. If the vote closes and we are within 5% margin, I will consider it a dead heat -- only then will I agree to manage two themes.

I created a simple mod that allows you to replace the textures of any of the stock buildings. The mod is still in development, but it already works! Working Features: Replace the main texture of any assetPlanned Features: Replace the color variationsReplace other textures (specular etc.)Remove the original textures from memoryReplace textures of cars, props, trees etc.Texture packs as separate modsHelp needed! There are hundreds of vanilla buildings with oversatured textures (pink/yellow/blue roofs etc.). I want to bundle a texture pack with the mod that replaces these textures with remastered versions. My time is very limited, so I'm looking for talented asset creators who can extract and modify the textures. The textures are the intellectual property of Colossal Order, so we can not upload any of those to a public service like imgur. If you want to help me, please reply in this topic and add me as a friend on steam (steam name: boformer), so I can invite you to the closed beta. Also post your suggestions which assets need to be modified (and how you would modify them).

A bit of ongoing very high density construction. Normally I would call it a random skyscraper jungle, but I tried to keep a theme in mind when growing/plopping. This isn't a CBD, either... the CBD will have the real skyscrapers! I have yet to use MMPs and do other beautification work (saving it for last) so it's still a bit rough around the edges. Current pop is hovering around 140k

I love that last picture, the way the HSR hub is seamlessly integrated in the city!

And it only took 12 years to get that way.... now there is a game that could possibly be everything SC4 was and more in less time than it takes to talk about, and that's what is amazing to me..... and the pictures above look moderately realistic, but lifeless... just my opinion of course...

Hi folks Well we are making progress! We now have a dedicated PLEX section on the STEX! Over the next while, we will work to get all the legacy PLEX files transferred into this new section of the STEX. We are hoping that this will be completed within the next two weeks... seriously... it wont happen overnight but it will happen. Thanks again to the Dirktator for throwing us a lifeboat - it is very much appreciated. Simpeg Staff

I've only been playing SC4 for a week, but I've played a lot of SC3k. So far SC4 is a lot more complicated than its predecessor, especially in traffic management. I've figured most of the basics out (I hope), but for the love of me I can't figure out why a particular corner has abandoned high rise buildings. Anyhow, here's some high resolution pictures, hopefully some veterans can give me some pointers. I've grown this city organically, only using the latest NAM and the Major Medical Center mod. There are two cities directly below Avignon, both heavily Industrial-Dirty. All other neighbors are empty. I haven't fully exploited NAM with puzzle pieces and trams/FLUPs/pedestrians yet, but I'll get to it soon. Abandoned Due to a Long Commute Time - I've built a spaghetti of diagonal subways, tunnels, and a moderately effective highway system. I know Sims take the shortest linear path instead of preferring highways, and I've tried to connect most areas with avenues or highways, I'm still not quite sure what the problem is. I've read up a bit on the traffic simulator guide,, but I'm not sure how to fix this without mass demolition. Particularly, the SE corner of the island and upper downtown area is hit the worst (right above the signs.) There's also a massive spike in commute time ~5 years ago, which I'm not really sure why because I haven't built any major expansions in my city. I've only expanded in the upper Northwest corner upon the hills in a mazey neighborhood - maybe that's why? I've gotten commute time down to 2 minutes on average, but it's suddenly spiked to 20 +/-2. I'm not sure how a small subset of low density neighborhood can skew a population of 400k Sims. Fig 1. Overview. City primarily split into four land masses. Blue lines are underground highways. White lines are (mostly) obsolete car + passenger ferries. Tunnels connect the Southwest industrial / airport area to the main core residential block, and on the Eastern side industry to island residential block, and industry to western industrial / future residential/commercial block. Fig 2. The zones and major road networks. Fig 3. Traffic congestion. Looks decently okay except for some intersections. Not sure how to fix that. Fig 4. Traffic volume. I built the Eastern tunnels to alleviate the Industrial-Island bridge - not sure if I should build another underground tunnel connecting the Island's bottom SW corner to Southern industrial area. Fig 5. Subway grid. I inadvertently found out subways were awesome. Like SC3k, I built mine to be mostly diagonal so Sims only travel in two directions at most. Fig 6. Graphs. Notice the sudden peak in commute time whereas it was previously very stable at sub 2 minutes. Job and pop graph, and regional overview with population at-a-glance. Also a tangential question: there a some "no jobs" icons popping up, yet the demand for residential is at an all-time high. What gives? If I zone more residential most of them won't have many jobs to go to.

O.K.

yes, I need the diff texture and the internal name of the asset. Many of the colored roofs are a result of the color variation system. I'm working on a way to modify the colors. I will invite you to the private mod tomorrow. You can disable assets with my Building Remover mod. Replacing meshes would be possible, but it is not in the scope of this mod.

Ill do a few. There are a few that have orange, blue and red roofs that I personally think would look better if they were toned down. Do you just need the new diffuse texture?

An Update, final form taking shape, a rough look at what It will look like in-game

Actually demand is calculated per district, that's why separate RCI bars would make sense.

Well by coincidence i am also developing a similar (although smaller) residential zone with some buildings you are using. I like it and i think it looks close to irl asian cities. I especially love the design of the roads and infrastructures. Some suggestions: Like gviper said, i am also missing some greenary. There are a bunch of options you have: a) natural mayor ploppable with dragabble paths. b) asian temples with natural mayor ploppable c) a stadium or a major art museum or something among it with a mayor ploppable and park trails. d) etc. I would make an irregular road layout (for example, with a bunch of far and curves, or in a roundabout shape) and make a park in it, or near the river maybe. One more suggestion is to mix more comercial midrises there, because irl cities in asia have a bunch of those i think (you may correct me). Oh and please turn the Comalco Place around!!! xD But i like it, very nice work and this kind of layout and buildings are very very very hard to pull of at least for me

Nice design feel, but aesthetically I am longing for some greenery...

Exactly this. The contest is awesome and im so happy right now that I actually am doing quite good :) (Even if I missed the theme a bit...) Oh and I have some IMO intersting stats for my skygarden hotel. Since ot got featured quite prominently, the number of visitors has increased a lot, while the ammount of new subscribers has decreased proportionally. I think the "popularity contest" argument kinda shows in the 150 upvotes, I already got. That seems to be true... on the first sight. But if you have a closer look and compare featured with non featured assets, the picture changes. Here are two of my non featured assets, Dubai Wheel and Growable Residential 01: As you can see the, the subs and visitors raise to a certain niveau and hold it, with small fluctuations. Now, here is my Growable Office 03 - featured for 2 - 3 days now: Notice how the views and subs get a significant boost as soon as the asset is being featured To draw a comparision to your contest entry, it got the same amount of attention as the increase of views prove. But we both know it is a pretty special design which does not appeal to everyone. Therefor the boost for your asset is not as significant as for my Office 03.

Oh, I actually wanted to add that, but forgot about it. I'l edit it into the other post

pretty cool!

You could just rework the registry entries, but that can lead to problems if you are not careful, it's also very tedious due to the number of them, not to mention the respective installers from Steam/Origin *should* have done this automatically. Personally I'd recommend SymLinks, you can set Windows to see all the files in both the install location used by Steam/Origin, but also in the typical default locations this way. Once you've got the tools installed, simply delete the SymLinks and nothing needs any permanent change.

Looks great! I'm seriously looking forward to seeing some of these NYBT International Month BATs on the STEX.

Models removed - new ones work in progess!

i hope this gets finished, its so good.

how was u able to turn the train tracks on the high speed real network the would not turn 4 me

@dirktator:You make it sound like you have had to create a whole new theme. If so, you have my pity. What's wrong with a conditional subroutine call to either the square avatar or the round avatar masks routine? It then becomes just a user selection in the avatar section of the user parameters. If (squareUser) call squares: else call circles; If you can't do this in the source language of the site (PHP?) I'd be greatly surprised. The call overhead can't be as great as carrying a whole theme.

You must make the texture a bit larger than the uvmapped part, it should solve the problem. The game engine is... "not very precise"

looks beautiful- I grew up in the San Fransisco Bay Area and this reminds me of the Napa area.

Hello everyone. Here is a link to my video guide on how to create a new asset from start to finish for Cities Skylines. I will show certain steps required and will hopefully give some basic idea on how to go about modding for cities skylines. This will of course only scratch the surface even though its around a hour long, but it might help you and encourage others to create their own awesome assets.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this, it's not like everyone in your situation would do the same. In fact, I bet most won't. As the host of this contest you are kind of in a dilemma. You want the contest to gain the highest possible attention of players, but you also want to satisfy the modelers who take part in it. I can't deny that Steam is the superior tool to cover basically the entire player base. But there's always something that can be improved, and I want to help you with that as much as I can There could be quite a few ways to host future contests. I've been thinking about it last night and here are two options I consider to be the most viable, without leaving the Steam Environment. Ultimately you as the host have to decide if they are feasible and if the gained transparency justifies some extra work. 1) You could have all modelers send you their entry at a given deadline. Then you, Paradox, view them and ensure that all of them follow the rules of the contest (you would do this anyway). In the next step you could upload all entries on a neutral account of yours, reducing the randomness/bias of the contest quite a lot. Of course, this does not solve the issue of who gets featured and who not. 2) Following the same procedure like my first suggestion, but making the entries some kind of "free download bundle" (DLC?). Within a given timeframe players can download it, which automatically installs all of the contest entries in their game. This ensures they won't miss one. For transparency, there could be an extra menu/tab for that, which lists the entries only. I know that this requires some coding, but this seems reasonable to me. To determine the winner there would be plenty of options. Let's say the players can disable the assets individually, but not deinstall them one by one. You could have some kind of "tracker" which looks up which assets are being disabled the most. Each entry would have a score of 0 - 100% of players who keep it enabled. The winner is the one with the highest score. For transparency, these results could be updated like once per day on the Paradox forums. These are just theories I came up with. I'm sure you guys at Paradox could come up with even better ones. Just do some brainstorming with your team, discuss the issues the community pointed out. Figure out what you can do, and what is too complicated. Especially my 2nd suggestion, although I believe is the most fair, could be a little tricky to implement, and the voting system might need some improvement.

He calls himself a dragon. Luckily, I'm a real one >shapeshift. Althrough it was quite annoying to repair all that burnt down furniture of my palace and remove several coal-colored things in samurai armor, it was definitivele worth it. Later that day I enjoy some lasagna. Enough horses around for that! You just went down to get some coockies at seven eleven. Sadly, some creepy guys enter the place to rob it. As a nearby cop comes by and orders theese guys to surrender, they take you hostage. A few hours later and a few cops more, the thing alerady became a stressy standoff and minds start to getcrazy. Upcoming shootout alert!

... and a 4x3 lvl 4 residential

5103 My wife finally got her visa, so we're heading up to the UP- I mean, *ahem* Upper Peninsula on Sunday to hunt for a dwelling. I'm pretty pumped, it was a tough few weeks alone with our kids.

Heeelp. I get a warning "you can only upload 4mb for a new CJ entry which is only 3.7 Mb. What the Fidji ??? It doesn't bug me here... (see below) EDIT : AH, belay that, t'was a temporary bug. ______________ W.A. : Warriors ------------------

Hey guys, just released my entry for the colossal order contest (daaamn I could use a GPU, having to play on the laptop is quite hard...) Anyway, here it is : My first unique building. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482908793

A big update today. First, the Wan Chai Yacht club! Busy cruises The classic Peninsula Hotel on Salisbury road has great views of the island skyline. President's Suites in the upper floors of the Peninsula Hotel is an one-of-a-kind experience.

I can do signs and what not. This will essentially be a vertical billboard. Also, I do not believe awnings will be that hard to do. As I have not done much in the way of placing props onto buildings in the asset editor, are there any particulars I need to pay attention to or can you pretty much place these things where you want them on the sides of buildings?

Started a new (huge) region. This is the highway network around the capital.

How about a little fresh air and catnip wine?

Now I'm honored to present you the final version of downtown Coos Bay! And you may be interested in the skyline view from far away. And here's function distribution map for this CBD And here's a commercial plan about one building under construction And this height map clearly indicates the height control effort adopted to this moderate height CBD. I'd give special thanks to the great BATters in SC4 community, to name a few, Reddonquixote, scotty222, PBGV103, jasoncw, Darknono35, kellydale2003, DmScopio, darn42, girafe, on001222... So far I'm quite satisfied with the result but I'll still hang around and make possible improvement for this CBD, so any suggestion is appreciated in whatever means.

Provincia: Turtle Kitty The newly formed Provincia District is o the southeast coast and near the cape and the Harar border. The first town to be built in the district is the new capital for the area, Jamestown, named for the newly-born Prince James, son of Grand Duke Splunt and his wife, Baroness Christi. Prince James has not yet assumed many royal duties, though he has been appointed an Admiral in the Royal Schulmania Navy. His command is the Second Fleet, based out of Marshall Naval Base in Otfoxx, Wirdilia, Mookimia. Let's see what else is going on in Provinicia. Robinia College - Jamestown Campus presides over Wirtington Circle. The circle is where James Street splits into James Street Upper and James Street Lower. The business district includes Prince's Cornet, The Jamestowne Market, and other fine retailers. City Hall is just across the street from the market. At the end of Turtle Kitty Lane is the Turtle Kitty School, a fine educational establishment in its own right. A lovely park with a pond is at the end of the street. It is here turtles and kitties come together to enjoy the sun and swap stories about the good ol' days... Silas Gardner Park is a great amenity for the neighborhood bounded on the north by James Street Lower and on the south by Turtle Kitty Lane. Front Street is at the left, closest to the sea. By the March 30th Commemorative Arch on James Street sits the Kittenpaw Inn. It's a great place to come and relax! The corner townhouse has been purchased by G Lo. G Lo is about as famous as J Lo, but for different reasons. G Lo is best known for being a cooking sensation, having founded restaurants across the country known for good food and good times. Admiral Department Store and the Provincia District Government House sit on the east side of St. James Square. ProForce HQ is on the corner across the street from Admiral. St. James Square, viewed from the south A wider view of the whole city... Let's stop on Turtle Kitty Lane so we can get a snack and watch some Netflix!

Thanks for the welcome guys. Mostly R$$$ buildings and some degraded R$$. At the moment, the RCI demand is like this: R-demand is looking healthy. CS$ - Max CS$$ - Max CS$$$ - -2000 CO$$ - -Max CO$$$ - -4500 ID - -Max IM - 3000 IHT - Max No demand for ID is understandable, because my population IQ is about 185. However, every time I zone in more commercial med/high density they all turn into medium wealth, even without nearby parks to boost desirability. Does that mean I'm top heavy? With the population graph, how do I set about balancing the jobs?