Deed_Poll

Do buildings / lots grow into each other when they upgrade? That would be a cool mod. Though this is probably pie in the sky for now, some kind of medium density residential zone would be useful, perhaps a mod that grows car parks over zoned land to match demand in much the same way as the original Sim City grew schools and hospitals. I definitely want more building levels eventually, and I see no good reason why 8x8 or 8x4 growable lots should not be possible at the top level. Edit: I used to love the low/medium/high wealth element of SC4 as well with specific push / pull factors and tax brackets. That was glorious.

One possible reason as I have found when making level 1 / 2 buildings is that they get upgraded too quickly in developed cities, and short of running a small city with minimal services (and lots of ugly bubbles that clamour for healthcare and education!) it is always a shame to see them built over. What the game really needs is a 'make historic building's mod like on SC4. Fantastic work all the same! Really enjoying this thread, and very pleased with the passion of many members on here for rural / realistic buildings and mods not just ever taller skyscrapers!

That is incredible, Azurespecter! Will you share it when it's finished?

These are great! Could you use them as props to make a European style tourist camp site?

Hi guys, Sorry to come crying but I've tried everything I can think of and have had no luck searching for a solution! This is how the model looks before I export it as FBX: Here's how I have the options configured for the export: And here's what it looks like when I import it into the Asset Editor! I even tried scaling the Z-axis down to 0.2 on blender (producing a squashed model) before I export to account for the weird transformation but it comes out exactly the same. I tried unchecking the "apply transformation" box thinking that might be the problem, but it just gives me the same thing on its side, i.e. as if I had just imported it and used the rotate tools in C:SL. I'm completely stumped! I've got several models to work before using the exact same settings so I'm wondering what on earth is going on and how I can fix it. Many thanks in advance, Dan

That did the trick! Thanks so much. I must have checked it off by accident. Interesting as well that you have to save before you export for it to register, that's good to know as I have been banging my head against a brick wall getting certain models to export properly and that fact will definitely help when it comes to diagnosing the problem. Cheers!

Looks useful, but why didn't you make it round? It would look smoother and more realistic. OK, here's V2!

My first really decent intersection! So it's like a roundabout overpass, except cars join the roundabout AFTER they leave it if you see what I mean. It meshes nicely with an alternate OWR grid pattern and hasn't given me problems yet. This one just shows you the joining roads in red, the roundabout in yellow and the exit roads in green. The roads that join with the grid transition into 2-lane OWRs to allow for the adjoining lane from the roundabout.

I really like these! The saturation issue has come up for me a couple of times. What I do is adjust the saturation to about -50% on Gimp and the models look about the same in game as they do in Blender. Remember to keep a copy of the original in case you want to change doors, textures etc for future models.

It's the asset editor that's broken! What you need to do is load any building from the asset modifier and then go new prop and import as usual. You should then have the window in the bottom right corner with the drop-down menus for size. Set these to 0x0 and save, it should then be accessible from the parks menu / bench logo in the asset editor.

Just an update to say that traffic is really surprisingly manageable with a mixture of higher and lower density buildings. The picture above is just made from tiling the hexagon type, and the road network is not so different from a standard grid layout topologically speaking. There are no 3 way intersections, only 4 way intersections and the more randomised nature of the roads means the quickest routes are more various and unique to each journey than a standard grid layout. Moreover the less efficient zoning % means less traffic in general, and when main thoroughfares emerge they can be upgraded to wider roads or overpasses. My next project will be to map out a complete road structure to a custom base-10 region with decagonal and pentagonal islands as a cool sandbox. Thanks again, you've done a super job on these!

Scratch that, I found them on the steam workshop! Amazing work!!

You genius! Can I download them?

Very cool! I guess with base 5 geometry you could create girih tiles in the asset editor?

Nice one! Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm definitely getting the hang of the nodding process thanks to you and the other helpful people on this forum! Cheers

Cool screen shot! I'm really new to this uv mapping thing, what will you do next? Will you start painting over the chequered png with textures using the model as a guide? So will you say "ok, this window is blue 5 so I'll paste in a window there and see how it looks"? I noticed you've done all the faces of the building with the same texture, based on what you were saying about occlusion baking this seems like a good idea. I certainly think the shadows could improve on my semi-detached house model, the way I am doing it at the moment involves a lot of repeats of the same textures - should I shrink down the "brick" texture of my UV (but keep it the same % of the UV) so I can sample each texture individually? I guess my buildings are symmetrical for the purposes of occlusion baking that should work OK? Cheers!

Has anyone been able to get their own custom props to work in the asset editor yet? Since it lets you place props mid way up walls, on roofs etc. I thought it would be a good idea to just import the core of the building (walls and roof) through the usual channel, but then to 'decorate' it with windows, extensions, conservatorys, garages, patios etc later. This would allow for a lot more variations based on a theme, and would be perfect for my British semis pack as I could do different styles of windows and place different window bays onto different cores to make it more unique.

Ah, ok thanks! The zero size warning has sorted itself out - I found out you need to load any building, then go new asset, prop, import the model and there will be a "properties" box in the lower right corner. Then you have to tickle the size dropdowns until they both read 0 and re-save. Problem is the thing is always 2x2 squares, way bigger than the export model, and however I try to scale the export from blender or within the asset editor it always comes up the same size.

Almost finished! I think they're way too big at the moment, I should probably make them fit a 2x4 instead of a 3x4. That would make the gardens a bit longer too! The plan then is to have semis as 2x4, small terraces as 1x4 (with 2 per lot), large (tall) terraces as 3x4 (4 per lot) and detached houses as 4x4. On top of that I will do a set of "bovis homes" new housing developments in a similar way, but probably 3 deep so I have some control where they spawn. I want to do 5 different pairs of colours for this model, and a couple of different lot configurations for each colour. Then if I do, say, 5 semi-detached models, that's 50 different houses just for one house size! I plan to make chimneys as a prop, some more realistic satellite dishes, and some various extensions / porches / conservatories to keep it nice and varied. Let me know what you think (other than that they are way too big!

Cheers! Yeah I'm thinking once I can sort a set of props out it will look better. What I really want are the square hedges that come on some of the existing buildings, but I might make my own. I also want to make lawns, hoses, flower beds, greenhouses and garden sheds. I'll probably release a few houses at once on the workshop when I have the props. I already did the conservatory as a prop but I'm having trouble finding it and the lot editor is giving me errors.

Thanks guys! I'm just starting to discover how much refinement is required to make these usable! I've tried a bit of re-texturing, some white buildings etc but it's really hard to get the saturation levels to where they need to be for every filter setting. Here's the current progress - since last time I've: * Added a conservatory extension to the rear (I tried importing it as a prop but couldn't work out where to find it on the menu and got a "zero size" error) * Re-scaled the building to be more in keeping with the Cims and their cars (though they look laughably small next to the default LD buildings and the roads!) * Made the low brick fence at the front symmetrical * Made the roof tiles darker (though I am finding them a bit too dark using the "Realistic" filter I downloaded! Here's another one I'm currently UV mapping. It's a more generic '70s - '90s traditional style semi Further comments and suggestions are more than welcome! Cheers

Sorry I won't be much help, but I love that sub station! I guess that's happening because the "normal" subway station is a sort of ground-level underground affair a bit like a park. Is there any other object you can place beforehand to level the ground permanently?

BLACK CAR WINDOWS! I looked at it today and realised it's been bugging me all along. Just nice dark windows would be lovely instead of flat grey

Yeah I agree the water is great! I was working on a city that had gradually grown out from the middle tile along a river and didn't move my sewage outlets or water pumps. I had just built a bunch of filtration pumps and the sewage was already receding back downstream towards the sewage pipes, sewage treatment well in the green etc. Then I made the mistake of building a dam way further (maybe 3 or 4 tiles) upstream - big error! As the water level dropped after the dam it created a low tide and the dirty water tracked back upstream eventually killing about 30k people! This happened gradually enough that I assumed my traffic network was to blame and went around dropping emergency crematoriums like a headless chicken. When I saw what I'd done I was strangely overjoyed that it was my fault after all and could be avoided!