The normal map generator should be set to +X +Y, which means no color channel inversions are required. This can be made from the diffuse or a height map (brighter colors will look extruded out more) using a normal map generator online, a photoshop plugin like xNormal, or standalone software such as CrazyBump. Image shows the same flat normal map on faces with different UV rotation/flip.Īlso sometimes called a bump map, adds fake depth or form by affecting how the lighting appears. Problem: default normal map value is 0.5, which isn't possible by using 127(left) or 128(right).

If you don't import an illumination map, it will default to no illumination. Illuminationīuildings can have two different types of illumination - diffuse contribution illumination in the 0-120 range, which is almost never used, and random night window illumination in the 128-255 range, which is what most buildings use. If you don't import a color map, it will default to full color, but the 'use color variations' setting must be enabled for the colors to appear. The diffuse will get multiplied by the color variation, that means the resulting color will look darker than the original diffuse.

White means fully affected and black means not at all. Colorĭetermines which parts will be affected by color variations. If you don't import an alpha map, it will default to fully opaque or fully visible. Semi-transparency is not supported, you need to use the rotors shader for that. Gray values may affect how it looks from a distance or at an angle. Transparency, white means opaque or visible, black means transparent or invisible. This can then be saved and played as the location you originally selected.Using lighter values for the invisible parts will decrease the chance of small details like railings disappearing completely. The real world location will now populate the 9×9 grid in the editor for further tweaking if needed. Select a file (whichever looks the most accurate) and press load. At the bottom of the screen there’s a button labelled “Import Height Map”. The next thing to do is launch the game and open the map editor. Once the zip is downloaded, open it up and copy the files to the following directory:Ĭity: Skylines > Files > MapEditor > Heightmaps. Once the grid is captured on the site’s global map, a series if Height Map files can be downloaded to your PC and inserted directly into your map editor.

The good news is the community has already got to work and created a web based tool at terrain.party that allows players to take a snap-shot of any location on the planet.

It would actually be quite hard to recreate real world locations in the map editor with any real amount of accuracy and it would take some time to get them just right.

Import real maps cities skylines