Ocram's Cities XXL Projects

I think I am almost ready to upload my first mod for Cities XXL on Steam (or CXL Platinum here). One tiny problem is that the only way I know how to make textures results in very large and repetitive picture.

Here is the first project, a medium-density wall-to-wall row of rowhouses. BTW, this is in the same style as my Banished (never completed) and Cities: Skylines (needs tweaking before release but functions in game) rowhouses. This is just bigger because banished housing is single-family and cities skylines has a limit of 32x32 meters (so I just decided to make mine 16x16 meters). I plan on tinting the bricks a different color for each unit (and I plan on making 3 variations with the different tints and their different patterns as well as different props being the only differences).







Thank you for the feedback and help!

--Ocram

EDIT: Here is a picture with more colorful variations for the brick facade:

 

@Dreian: thank you for the suggestion but I made each rowhouse unit 7 meters wide so I would probably have to make them bigger (10 meters wide) and make them T1 NOZAC (and I don't think NOZAC works for Cities XXL). Ideally, I would want the player to be able to choose the color mix he wants but I have not fully figured out how I would go about doing that. Also, this building most likely results in a lower polygon count.

@pauliaxz: I will upload the diffuse tonight but I won't have access to my computer until around 8 or 9 pm (and it is 9AM now) because I am busy with several things away from home today. In the mean time, I will just say that every part of the model has a unique part on the diffuse so the diffuse is 2048x2048 pixels with a ton of repetition. It would probably serve me well to have one texture map to multiple different places (with only 2 variations of windows--lit and unlit so I can use the same UVW map for the diffuse and night-lighting textures).

I was also hoping that Cities XXL would change the population growth to be linear so 1 worker counts for 2-10 population and that the population multiplyer and the worker count would be easy to mod so that my first idea for a mod would result in realistic population counts... oh well... once 5x5 tile zones are figured out (through mods or DLC) I will switch to Cities: Skylines. However, it would be really great if they had more LOD's (for improved performance).

Thank you for the help!

--Ocram

 

Here is the diffuse for my rowhouses. It is way too big to be used for a mod but I hope that it can be shrunken by mapping repetitive features to the same part of the picture (and make the picture 512x1024). BTW, my rowhouses will fit on a 40x40 lot but are wall-to-wall with a backyard (and possibly a front lawn).

http://i.imgur.com/xrXAQOb.png

Thanks for the help!

--Ocram

 

I managed to fix the diffuse so that it is only 1024x1024 while being higher quality at the same time. Thank you Monty for the video on how to move around polygons in UVW maps.

Here is the model at full-scale in Cities: Skylines (I test it this way because it is easier for me). In the code it is a college.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424140737

Thank you everyone for the help! I really appreciate it! However, I want to know whether 1024x1024 is acceptable for Cities XXL medium density?

--Ocram

 

I apologize for not updating this thread as well. I figured out what was wrong with my corrected model and fixed that issue (a hidden box I had to delete). I now have all 4 LOD models acceptable for a T2 residential building in Cities XL. In order to test how the model looks, I put it into Cities: Skylines



Cities: Skylines has a very vibrant filter so the building looks over-saturated.

 

I am practicing in Cities: Skylines (L1 or L2 are perfect for the main models of Cities: Skylines and L4 is perfect for the LOD model) but as soon as I learn how to import my models into Cities XL, I will. After that, it should be easy to convert from Cities XL Platinum to Cities XXL. If there is a tool that makes FBX files super easy for Cities XXL, I might do Cities XXL first. However, the Cities: Skylines and Cities XXL mods will be on the Steam workshop and the Cities XL: Platinum mod will be on the XLEX.

My model will look much better as part of Cities XL's skilled worker medium density condominiums than in Cities: Skylines.

--Ocram

 

Update: I have made a couple more models (I haven't finalized the textures yet).

Now that I think of it, I think I will port my rowhouse mod for Banished to Cities: Skylines, Cities XXL, and Cities XL Platinum. When I finally make an upload to the XLEX, it will have multiple buildings (20 individual rowhouses, 2 groups of 5, 1 group of 3, each model with at least 2 texture variations). I just have to finish what I started first.

--Ocram