Greyflame

I have a Bluesky now, same username. I've found some of the Skylines crowd there and I'll go looking for art crowd soon. I'm also on Cara. I haven't posted anything on either, yet; I became more isolated in the recent social media landscape. But I'll have things to share again.

@NamoVFX Feel free to check again if/when you next spot me crawling out from under my rock.

@NamoVFX Hi, thank you for your interest, and sorry for my late reply! Life threw me some curveballs and I haven't had the chance to get back into CS1 I was expecting. Still hoping to get modeling again but I'm not sure what my time will look like for a while, so I can't commit atm.

Skylines followers: I'm pivoting back to CS1. Nothing new to say about the state of CS2, and hopefully it will reach a point where I'm excited to create assets, maps, and cities for it. But the hype got me back into 3D work and I wanna channel that. So CS1 stuff maybe coming.

@NamoVFX The short answer is that I do plan on working on more trees, but there's also little coherence in how I prioritize projects, so I can't say what I'll be working on at any given point. And I have a bad habit of redoing old work if it no longer lives up to my expectations, haha

@Serentropic Do you plan on making more trees? Would really love some longleaf pine trees, that way more Southern USA maps can be made more accurately.

@james_eor This program allows you to input a real scale, which I think informs the height proportions and erosion simulations. I tried working at 58x58km last night and it's challenging to imagine how features that size translate to details.

@james_eor I'm still trying to figure that part out. You can set resolutions in increments of 1024, and the paid version of this program allows you to export large tiled maps. I'm still not entirely sure what CS2 will want, but I think it needs 58x58km of topography for the default size.

Trying out another terraforming software, Gaea. Made this valley in a couple hours of procgen fiddling. This is the first experiment that it might translate into a real map. Imported to CS1 since 2 isn't available yet. Hoping 2 allows higher res height maps. #citiesskylines2

@teddyradko @CBQ_Fanatic @worldcreator3d Yeah! Import options, too. One thing I've been playing with is kitbashing pieces of real world terrain and then procedurally blending them together.

@Serentropic @CBQ_Fanatic @worldcreator3d That sounds like very nice timing. Is there heightmap export functionality?

I couldn't wait for the #CitiesSkylines2 map editor ... so I bought and started learning some professional grade terraforming software, @worldcreator3d. Still pretty new to it. This is something I was planning to do eventually anyway; I want to keep upping my map game.

@poplarponderosa @teddyradko @worldcreator3d It can! The resolution depends on the license you buy. My license (the most affordable...ish one) allows for up to 4k texture exports, and I think the higher licenses allow for unlimited export size, and/or tiled maps.

@Serentropic @teddyradko @worldcreator3d Very interesting! Can the software export a height map image? And at what resolution?

@teddyradko @worldcreator3d I'm discovering that is fairly new software, so it's still missing some important features that will hopefully be soon. But it does have a lot of power and just being able to apply natural looking erosion in a couple clicks is wonderful

@Serentropic @worldcreator3d If this tool can do the kind of stuff i suspect it can im super interested trying it out for CS maps 😅

@davidstosser In-game procedural tools would be a gem, especially erosion simulations. But I'm fine outsourcing these tools for the time being with the CS2 team focusing on performance/other features for now. All this will be for naught if we don't get a new way to texture the terrain.

I feel silly sharing this *entirely empty* city every time, but each time I try zoning, it looks silly. There's a possible future where I just keep chipping away at this save as I add mods. Gosh though, hand crafting topography to look realistic is still tough and tedious.

@OzzieMike85 That was the first thing I did, but I almost immediately decided that the flatness was boring for me, haha.

@duucro This is from Skylines 2. I would have fixed the river ages ago if it were Skylines 1, haha.

Every time I load up this game I end up terraforming instead of actually populating my city. I think I might need the editor to release before I can properly enjoy CS2. I can't control the water sources so the river remains way too large and deep ;A:

@teddyradko @worldcreator3d Right now I feel like I've just entered a Faustian Bargain for a power I don't fully understand xD It will take me some time to learn how to wield this magic myself, haha.

@Serentropic @worldcreator3d Teach me this magic sensei 🤩

@HonourablBarber @worldcreator3d Oh yeah for sure I'm not keeping this one, haha. I'm just learning the tools still. Probably my first *real* maps will be enhanced versions of my favorites from CS1.

@Serentropic @worldcreator3d This looks great but it also looks like it can only house around 30,000 sims

@CarricusGr7470 @worldcreator3d I'm not too sure yet how World Creator and World Machine compare. Functionally they seem similar, and I think World Machine is both more feature-complete and free. I'm hoping Creator will be worth the upfront cost. TBD I guess, but either way it feels like a good workflow.

@Serentropic @worldcreator3d Nice. I always used world machine with the map editor in Cities Skylines because I felt like the editor was too limited.

@OzzieMike85 Biggest troubles I'm having are the assets themselves and the hilliness. The buildings are more realistic than CS1, but still definitely not what I'm looking for, lol. The hills will probably be easier to deal with once we have MoveIt and can detail lots by hand.