Dubai Skyscraper

I'm sorry if this was discussed before, but I didn't read all posts and threads related to this mod development. Anyways, I was wondering if the algorithm is going to 'produce' all possible plot sizes? For 4x4 plots we got 4² = 16 possible sizes, but with 8x8 plots we're having a maximum of 64 combinations already... am I right? That would make it hard for both modelers and players to design or grow a certain building. For example, if I wanted to grow a 7x8 building, I'd have to zone exactly this area to make sure the zoning algorithm doesn't divide the plot differently. Also, having more plot sizes means less variation for each individual size. This might lead to very monotonous looking cities. So, wouldn't it make much more sense to have the algorithm zone a smaller set of standardized plot sizes, for example even numbers ( 6x4, 6x6, 8x4, 8x6, 8x8 ) wherever it is possible?

Finally! This is exactly what I was waiting for! Does the mod by any chance speed up the asset editor, too? (One reason for why I stopped making assets for C:S were the terrible loading times in the asset editor. So if this is finally resolved I might consider to continue my work)

As AJ3D said, you could (should) bake normal maps from the detailed models. This will create the illusion of 3D details that aren't actually there

I'm not going to make the glass of any of my buildings yellow. Why can't we use full RGB values in the illumination map instead of greyscale??

... I'm not sure whether I understand this or not. In their post they are showing the base game highschool which has blue glass, but the ingame illumination is yellow

Your assumptions are absolutely correct. The best way to make a statement about the "weight" of an asset is to put polygons in relation to its size, or the volume of the model to be more specific. There is a wonderful mod that does that: Mesh Info. If you're building way beyond thedimensions of a standard max sized plot, ignore the 10k triangles recommendation. I've done it before, my Burj Dubai model is something about 20k polys I believe. Mesh Info however confirmed that its weight is significantly lower than most base game growables. So yeah, no point in sticking to dogmas

I was about to suggest that (or to make a larger model that extends way beyond the max size), but this also holds disadvantages such as having only one texture for all buildings. It would probably be the best to find a balance between splitting and combining parts of the complex.

Very awesome yet ambitious project, I hope it will succeed

Is the entire model a single mesh? If so then there's tons of options to reduce the tri count

Are you sure you followed my suggestion "- The scale of your object (SketchUp components oftenly import with an offset scale for some reason; to reset the scale to 1.0 -> select object(s) and press CTRL + A -> apply scale)" correctly? Because 2.5 is pretty much the ratio which Blender randomly assigns to Sketchup components (2.54 to be excact). Here is an example, this is what you will see immediately after you imported a .dae file selected the object: Blend004 by Dubai Skyscraper, on Flickr [1] - Offset scale of the imported object [2] - The object in the scene explorer As stated before, before you do anything to it, select the object and hit CTRL + A -> apply scale That's all I can think of, I'd surprised if the problem still persists after you follwed my advice.

Regardless of what it looks like in Blender, it can be scaled incorrectly ingame. Also, you need to change the unit settings before you import the .dae file

In Blender there are 3 values that influence the scale of your model: - The scale & unit settings in the Scene tab (I use metric units and 0.01 scale) - The scale of your object (SketchUp components oftenly import with an offset scale for some reason; to reset the scale to 1.0 -> select object(s) and press CTRL + A -> apply scale) - The scale option when exporting to .fbx (leave it at 1.0)

Some update from my side: I've had a look at the game source code with ILSpy, and a look at ZoneBlock.SimulationStep in particular. But this wasn't really helpful at all, I have a really hard time understanding the code. I wish there were comments in the code, giving me at least a hint of what's going on. It feels like running circles, every other line of code is full of things I've never heard of. I can't get a clue of the methods, not to mention the zoning as a whole, and I don't think I'll ever figure it out on my own. It seems I have no choice but to leave this to the experienced programmers among us.

Just a thought, not all signs should be iluminated 24/7, it looks kinda weird at daytime.

I don't have any experience with donations but I thought I'd throw in my two cents anyway: In general I think it's a good thing. People can show their appreciation of your hard work and reward you for it. I would not expect too much though, but it is definitely worth trying. But don't start selling your skills, it will probably kill your motivation if you have to model something you are really not interested in