I ask please to VS (or Fabio) to download them and commit this set. Thank per advance.
You can count sh_oasis_seasons ad 100% done, as the original had already a snow image.
the they gives the building a Winterlook.
their make a very good work.
These houses (as well as next batch) experiment a new alignment to the sidewalk, with a backyard (like the blocks) instead of a front yard (like most of the other independent houses).
They are also aligned to a side of the tile, so they can happen to become semi-detached, according to what is built near.
I'll commit them into SVN tomorrow.
Those are excellent, nice work!
I can't do much with them right now, but I'd love to see how they look at semi-detached side-by-side. They'll make some great looking low level residential areas.
I am amazed at how quickly you managed to do all four rotations.
Latest batch (#8) in SVN r1030.
Four rotations in 2D are not trivial, but I paint all of them at once. I start making a "map" of building's footprint on the tile i 4 rotations: seen everything "top-down" helps a lot with positioning and non-rectangular parts. Then I "build the walls" is solid color; if it's not a rectangular building, I split it in rectangular parts and copy-paste them on the ground map. At this point I add a roof with the same method of splitting non-square parts. Eventually, I give the walls a texture using a flood bucket tool. After that, I start adding windows thinking: if on these 2 walls they are like this, how will they look in the next rotation? Similarily I add the details (vegetation, chimneys and so on), often using just the ground map to place the trees correctly in the four rotations. Finally I copy-paste the whole lot, add the snow, and replace trees with their winter version.
This whole process can take several hours, but I make now batches of 10 similar buildings, so that most of this process can go in parallel (e.g. if I get the windows right for one, I copy-paste them in the others and just change some lesser detail).
One small complaint for 00_20, 00_25, 02_15, 03_15 There's no doubt these are apartment blocks, even if small, so some connecting staircase/corridor must be there, usually forming a distinctive vertical element (?) inside the house - often placed "above door" (for lack of better words). It is common that this thing has different windows. Sometimes big ones, maybe even with balconies, sometimes smaller ones, sometimes placed between levels... Lack of this is somewhat noticeable. It's a (minor) mistake on many other buildings already, as all have what I'd call "window monoculture". Given that you're painting these anew, maybe you could try some variation in future models?
Agreed. These stairwells are usually in the back side of the building (at least in Italy*), for building not extremely modern. I already put the back door in correspondence with the front door (hence assuming there is a ground floor corridor between the two). I'll try to put different windows above the back door in buildings of 2+ storeys (I might as well edit these 00_20 and 00_25 later, after I tested this solution in next batch).
* It was (is) considered that the street side of the building is the "master" side, with living rooms and main bedrooms, whereas the backyard side is for the kitchen, washroom, secondary bedrooms, and other "utilities", including the stairwell and the elevator shaft, when present.
Ah, that makes sense, too.
I tried to find some examples of this, and to my astonishment, could not find (m)any. Lacking evidence, I take that back It seems to be mostly a feature of some concrete panel blocks, namely the one where I spent my childhood (file 07).
Next batch will transform some houses 1 tile wide into row housing.
Row houses look better in 8 rotations, so that corners are handled better.
I'd appreciate some feedback before it's too late.
Very very good work ! I ask me a question : do the set not too uniform because row houses are too similar ? I'm afraid city with this buildings show monotonous aspect if each model grows in same area ?
Another suggestion to improve aspect of [color=#0]high-rise block[/color][/font]: put down pipe (pipe where rainwater falls towards ground, I don't know this word in english) in border of house for break monotonous line.
I don't know if you understand, sorry for my poor english.
Fabio you have make a got job!
I particularly love the corner blocks, those are lovely.
Seeing the rows of trees in the backyard really makes me wish there was a way to get tree-lined sidewalks. I guess the only way to make that happen would be to have a building set back from the edge of the tile enough to extend the sidewalk in to the tile and add the trees there. And then that leaves a lot less room for the actual building... and it would conflict with the tiles beside it that didn't have the tree-lined sidewalks built in.
Another idea would be to have trees outside the edge of the tile but then they would interfere with stations and other road additions. They'd look fine on a bare sidewalk but otherwise would cause a visual conflict.
Unless the road itself was modified to have trees on it... but then they'd be all over the entire urban area and be repetitive.
you could use trolley-bus catenary as a means to get tree-lined sidewalks.
Not even a catenary, just a wayobj (as also street lights in Pak96.Comic). It would be beautiful, although useless for gameplay. I would make it cheap to build and with no maintainance, so that if you want eyecandy you don't pay for it.
On the other hand, it would be nice to incorporate it directly in city roads.
I could think of a is_cityroad=1 setting for roads: those would have their speed limit floored to 50 km/h (lower is accepted, but not higher) and wouldn't be overtaken by the city.
I love purple trees (prunus ?).
I was sick and tired of the stock few green trees, so I went for something different and also widespread in cities as an ornamental tree.
Why not have it being built automaticaly the same way the city takes away the roads from the player when it builds a building nearby.
When the build being built surpasses a certain building level the roads would turn into city roads with trees and/or lights on sidewalks instead of normal city roads. That way the "improved city roads" would be built close to "wealthier" buildings.