Modders Info Thread

[co_martsu]

Thanks for all the suggestions! The whole point of us making the modding tools is that you don't need to touch Unity yourselves

The decoration/ beautification/ park tool sounds really cool indeed. Can it be used citywide beyond "park making"?

Yes, one of the coolest thing is that you can actually decorate space between buildings, place trees and props etc!

 

[Bipin]

Thanks for all the suggestions! The whole point of us making the modding tools is that you don't need to touch Unity yourselves



Yes, one of the coolest thing is that you can actually decorate space between buildings, place trees and props etc!

I like that we'll be able to place props in such a way. Often times, it's the little details like this which come together as a whole to breath life into the city simulation. That's what I had found for SC4, at least.

 

[AshleyTayles]

Thanks for all the suggestions! The whole point of us making the modding tools is that you don't need to touch Unity yourselves



Yes, one of the coolest thing is that you can actually decorate space between buildings, place trees and props etc!

I love the sound of this! You guys are really going all out.

 

[Hayro]

are there will be any steam workshop support?

 

[Goldiva]

Yes, one of the coolest thing is that you can actually decorate space between buildings, place trees and props etc!

OMG. Happy. Love the ability to tinker with city looks and feel on the fly!

On this note, more details for importing custom props...

• Snap To options: "Snap to ground" and "Snap to building (surface)"
• Snap To variable: lock/ unlock X axis, yes/no collision-sensitive to other props
• Prop deform/flatten ground Yes/No
• Prop visibility distance (LOD render)
• Prop animation time interval; play distance

For decoration tool....

• Press Tab (or directional keys) to Rotate Prop Facing, at least 8 directions.
• Press Hotkeys to align prop in row, or Hotkey + number to place multiple props at a time.

Thanks!

 

[co_martsu]

are there will be any steam workshop support?

Yes, there will be Steam Workshop available for Cities: Skylines!

 

[Hayro]

Yes, there will be Steam Workshop available for Cities: Skylines!

thanks! ^^

 

[OlaHaldor]

I'd like to add trains and road vehicles to the list of modable items.

I'd love to have my train I'm modeling for Train Fever in Skylines as well. Who's with me? :laugh:





That means, at least for trains, we need guidelines on how to set up different pivot points. For a carriage itself, for the different bogies and how to add lights, what's needed for textures (diffuse, reflection, specular, normal, etc), animation of opening doors.

 

[Bipin]

I'd love to have my train I'm modeling for Train Fever in Skylines as well. Who's with me? :laugh:

Me, over here!

I'd like to add trains and road vehicles to the list of modable items.

It means, at least for trains, we need guidelines on how to set up different pivot points. For a carriage itself, for the different bogies and how to add lights, what's needed for textures (diffuse, reflection, specular, normal, etc), animation of opening doors.

From the looks of it, that train is quite a simple model. The body appears to be of simple geometry, with textured details as opposed to modeled ones. The only "complex" models there appear to be the bogies. This is a good example of using modeled details and textured details in the right amount, in the right places, and thus making it an easier asset for the game to handle, which I imagine would be important for trains. In other words, to recreate this model, it would be quite easy; just a (fairly) primitive form for the body, with most of the work being done on those bogies. That said, for work like this, people will have to get used to texture/UV mapping which can be a bit finicky.

As SC4 modder, I have seen first hand how this can be quite an issue for some people, especially when folks wish to modify in-game automata, which are not unlike the 3D models you'd encounter in this game. One thing that had been suggested for Sim City that I could see taking off here is a tool which allows pre-built models to be imported and textured. The model would already be mapped, so users would simply have to replace one bitmap texture for another, thus allowing for the creation of personalized vehicle liveries. Perhaps you could even take it a step further by allowing users to mix and match pre-built and pre-mapped details such as bogies, pantographs, etc. Of course, it would also be nice for us more proficient modders to make our own models from scratch, which could be imported into the aforementioned tool.

 

[OlaHaldor]

Yes, the model itself is fairly simple, but getting the correct shape was not. The textures bring it to life, no doubt.
I started with a spline cage and made patches.. There's obviously a lot of polygons that can be merged, and I'll do so before I start making the passenger wagons.




The UV map for the train, so far..


UV mapping a train isn't the hardest thing in the world. Planar mapping on the side axis, reusing as much as possible and then mapping the front. That's it!

UV mapping a building and retaining a good resolution for all parts is harder since there's a ton more details in a building. However, if the game uses materials with repeating textures, UV mapping a building can have overlapping UVs, which makes it a whole lot easier to handle.

 

[DDRJake]

How will game music files be structured? Will there just be a "music" folder where we can throw in our own music to build to or anything more elaborate?

 

[slornie]

Will there be a "mod manager" tool to enable/disable mods installed from the Steam Workshop? And do the save-files know which mods were active when they were last saved so the game can warn us if we've not got the right dependencies set up before loading them?

 

[Bipin]

Yes, the model itself is fairly simple, but getting the correct shape was not. The textures bring it to life, no doubt.

UV mapping a building and retaining a good resolution for all parts is harder since there's a ton more details in a building. However, if the game uses materials with repeating textures, UV mapping a building can have overlapping UVs, which makes it a whole lot easier to handle.

This reminds me of a function in 3dsMax whereby you can make procedurally generated brick walls by importing a variety of bitmaps that are images of single bricks. All you have to do is make sure that each image has the same dimensions. In doing this, you can create a seamless, non-repeating wall texture with just a few different styles for each individual brick. The scale of the wall texture is determined by how each individual brick is scaled. I'm not sure how this would be implemented with regards to CSL modding, but it may be of use for quickly creating procedural textures that are composites of only a few separate images. In regards to overlapping UVs, I can foresee that being useful for creating varying levels of grime and dirt.

 

[RHKINC]

Do we know if vehicles will be moddable? For example I can picture Chicago style buses, [insert company names here] garbage collecting, or new train types (bullet trains, old fashioned touristy trains, Oriental Express anyone?).

 

[TotalyMoo]

Just poking in to say that we're monitoring all these questions and not ignoring them by any means, even if we don't reply. The original post will eventually be updated with (hopefully) answers to all of your questions, once we're ready to give you more info about modding.

 

[co_martsu]

Will there be a "mod manager" tool to enable/disable mods installed from the Steam Workshop? And do the save-files know which mods were active when they were last saved so the game can warn us if we've not got the right dependencies set up before loading them?

Some sort of a "mod manager" will be needed and we're looking into it! For the save files we have to figure out a way to notify which mods are needed or maybe those should be downloaded automatically with the save. Will also look into this one!

Do we know if vehicles will be moddable? For example I can picture Chicago style buses, [insert company names here] garbage collecting, or new train types (bullet trains, old fashioned touristy trains, Oriental Express anyone?).

No certainty of the vehicles yet, but will add to the list of things people want to mod!

 

[AshleyTayles]

Some sort of a "mod manager" will be needed and we're looking into it! For the save files we have to figure out a way to notify which mods are needed or maybe those should be downloaded automatically with the save. Will also look into this one!



No certainty of the vehicles yet, but will add to the list of things people want to mod!

I second the desire for modifying/adding new vehicles! I want my city to look like a scene from a bad Grease remake :laugh:

 

[DataTraveler]

No certainty of the vehicles yet, but will add to the list of things people want to mod!

Ability to make custom building, cars, roads, props and etc models/textures to the game would make CSL a game to survive on its own for a long period of time. This would take care of people who want specific theme for their cities inviting and making the game more attractive to all kinds of people. As much as I love CIM2 it lacked that modability.
Anyway keep up the good work can not wait for CSL to come out, been waiting for city builder game for so long after SC4. We believe in CO!


And give us some alpha screenshots pls

 

[Svip]

Some sort of a "mod manager" will be needed and we're looking into it! For the save files we have to figure out a way to notify which mods are needed or maybe those should be downloaded automatically with the save. Will also look into this one!

Maybe each mod could have a unique ID like Firefox add-ons. You provide an online script to generate the ID and we add it in a metafile somewhere. Then in the save files, you can include one or more of these IDs to know which mods you need. You could also add the mod names in the save files, just in case the user don't have them, so they know which mod to look for. Or if they are using Steam, maybe Steam Workshop already have an ID look-up system?

 

[eis_os]

Hmm, sounds completely how my ModManager for CIM1 works.

Except automatic downloading. Mod pinning in the savegame is however optional, united transport systems uses so savegames won't crash. Should save a user friendly name if a uuid is required/used.

Please test your system if mods are not available, removed, addons/dlc are missing!

CIM1 crashed badly with such stuff, I added a lot of extra code in MM so people can remove vehicles as example.