Cityscapes Sim Builder

Bringing large scale sim building to mobile

The team was excited to bring a game genre that they were passionate about, City Sim Building, to mobile device. The goal was to bring a product to market that was not a lightweight version of a PC game but a fully fledged PC gaming experience to mobile

Minimalist Models

The sum of its parts

In order to show what could be hundreds of buildings on device we needed to be very economical about our solutions. The goal was that even with simple individual buildings, when they were all viewed together they would create a visually impressive city. This would also help keep the builds lightweight and performant.

Density and Wealth

Adding upgrades and content

After establishing the initial style and look the next step was breaking the models up and getting more content to meet the design needs. Players want to see buildings upgrade as a point of progression and have visual feedback to reinforce the upgrade. We looked to model modularity as a solution to create instanced prefabs in Unity and save on memory and production time.

Research and Development

prototyping and setting up the models

After the team was aligned on the goals, I worked closely with our Graphics Engineer to do a series of tests to get a production ready asset. The main goals were to test a shader that would allow us to tint the building colors, add objects to respective upgrade levels, and add height to the buildings.

Tinting and materials

The tinting was done using a shader created by our Graphics Engineer. I helped test iterations of the shader by setting up the models and testing on in both Maya and 3ds Max. I also set up the textures for the shader. While setting up the textures I also tested out and set up parameters for our material visuals, setting parameters for materials such as wood, windows, and concrete for external artists to eventually use. Some of these would be placed in a library for easy use.

Height

The buildings were set up using multiple UV maps to allow for the floors to be easily added in Unity. This was done using the same shader that was handling the tinting. I created multiple models and worked closely with our Graphics Engineer to get this working. This was a huge win and when the shader and models were working, it felt like magic as everything was coming together.

Animation and VFX

I hooked up models with Unity Object animations to add movement to the building lots and add points of interest. I also created some of the VFX for the building lots as well. These were added to the building lots in the form of smoke, sirens, or people moving. Some of the fun things added later were food trucks and parades.

Production

Setting up a pipeline

Once the R&D was done and we tested all the features necessary for design it was time to move into production. We worked with external artists from our partner studio to create the massive amount of assets necessary for a game this large. I set up documentation in Confluence and ran meetings with the external 3D and 2D artists to help guide them on how to use the shader and hit the visual target.

Concept Art and Feedback

I created concept briefs for the external studio to work from. This was done by working with my Art Director and our Designer going through various references and sorting them into their appropriate Wealth and Density. We also made sure to include references appropriate for each type of building in the RCI model to help them feel different such as balconies and pools for residential and different signage for commercial.

Closing Thoughts

Adding VFX and seeing the city come to life

During production my role was to deliver concept and model feedback, act as an intermediary between the external artists and my Art Director, guide the artists in implementation and make sure assets were hooked up in Unity correctly while tracking each point of production. I managed the pipeline and also worked with our Designer to continue to add buildings and also worked on VFX and building lot animations while waiting for any buildings to come in. I’m super proud of what the team accomplished with this game and having played the launched game, am happy to see it be a truly fully fledged City Sim experience on mobile.