Attention modders (buildings)!

[pippu]

It would be awesome if someone could make a in detail Youtube video where the whole process of making a custom building is shown. Making the model, texturing, importing to the game and setting the settings. Now obviously You don't have to teach us how to use the programs, but more like what we need to know when making models for THIS game. That would be great, and I am sure that the community would much appreciate that!

And here is a random picture of a fluffy baby seal:happy:

 

[co_fiirdraak]

I created an example building as a hobby project for those who are interested in taking a look at the model and textures. There is no video on any of it, though, but I hope it helps at least on some level to understand how it can be done.

Link to my reddit post.

 

[KR153]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. Never used checker patterns for temporary texture. Interesting idea.

 

[pippu]

I created an example building as a hobby project for those who are interested in taking a look at the model and textures. There is no video on any of it, though, but I hope it helps at least on some level to understand how it can be done.

Link to my reddit post.

Your post gives me a general idea on what I need to make a building, but it would be nice to have clear instructions in one video that shows how to make all the different textures, what the different textures are for, what settings to use in 3d software, etc,,
Kind of like this tutorial for SC4.

I am most worried about texturing. I can make decent models, but texturing seems more complicated. I know what all the different textures are for, but how can I make them?

 

[KR153]

Okay, so _D is diffuse, _N is normal map/bump, _S is specular, but what is _B exactly? It isn´t the alpha, that is for opacity, right?
So is that the grayscale colour mask? How does that work?
Oh,...what about illumination? It was listed in the wiki. I would like to see how that is supposed to work with a grayscale map.

 

[co_fiirdraak]

Okay, so _D is diffuse, _N is normal map/bump, _S is specular, but what is _B exactly? It isn´t the alpha, that is for opacity, right?
So is that the grayscale colour mask? How does that work?
Oh,...what about illumination? It was listed in the wiki. I would like to see how that is supposed to work with a grayscale map.

_B is bump map but Cities: Skylines doesn't use bump maps. We only use them to generate the normal map. Bump map is opened in a software like CrazyBump or Bitmap2Material and then converted into a normal map. So, in essence the bump map is unneeded in the asset importing process itself but is required when creating the normal map (unless you have other ways to create normal map such as baking normals from a super high-poly model). Color mask is greyscale but really it can be just black and white where the white areas are where the color variation is applied. For instance, you can paint only the wall areas with white while the rest of the texture is black and when used in-game the walls are the only areas in the building that change color. Illumination is similar: the areas with white are illuminated and the color of the illumination is taken from the diffuse map. So, if you have an ad sign on the wall that is red, and you make the illumination map white in the area of the ad sign in the texture, the sign will glow in reddish color. The greyscale basically controls how strong the effect is in both, color mask and illumination.

 

[KR153]

Thanks for the fast reply. I wa abit confused because I though all png files were used for that model directly. I mostly create such files to create a bump map too, but I use the NVIDIA plug in for Photoshop.
The colour mask thing is interesting for variation of residentials, not as much for unique commercial buildings.
I reallyl hope for some kind of miracle (2nd UV channel or something) to make that illumination thingy better. In this case the windows would only glow bluish, right?
Another question: You baked some AO into that diffuse texture, right?

 

[co_fiirdraak]

Thanks for the fast reply. I wa abit confused because I though all png files were used for that model directly. I mostly create such files to create a bump map too, but I use the NVIDIA plug in for Photoshop.
The colour mask thing is interesting for variation of residentials, not as much for unique commercial buildings.
I reallyl hope for some kind of miracle (2nd UV channel or something) to make that illumination thingy better. In this case the windows would only glow bluish, right?
Another question: You baked some AO into that diffuse texture, right?

The illumination glows the color what is in designated by the white color so if you have blue-ish windows then the glow will be blue-ish. I did not bake any AO into the texture. Usually when making assets for the actual game I do some manual shading and highlighting when painting the texture.

 

[KR153]

No AO? But what is that dirt/shadows in your diffuse map? Did you paint that in maually?

 

[co_fiirdraak]

No AO? But what is that dirt/shadows in your diffuse map? Did you paint that in maually?

All the highlights and the shadows on the brick walls are manually made. The roof tiles are almost directly from a photo texture. But I haven't rendered anything on a 3D software.

 

[KR153]