Animated Billboard Pack
I know what you’re thinking: 200+Mb for an asset pack??? First of all, there are 10 assets, so it’s really only about 20Mb a piece. Secondly, the truth is, most of that space is taken up by the diffuse texture (i.e. the movie) and the way the game bakes the data into the .crp file. The actual ingredients of the .crp file are actually way below 21Mb, only about 7Mb, but somehow the game bakes them in a way that bloats their size, so what I am saying is that these billboards should not be taxing on your system despite the seemingly intimidating file size. The billboards are all low polys and the texture size is well within the "safe" range (you should not see any warning in Content Manager):
Main Model: 28 tris / 4,096×3,968 texture / diffuse, illumination maps
No custom LODs, the ones the game generates look fine.
I have not picked up any impact on frame rate or game performance, all I see is that they add exactly the little spice my city desperately needs, which brings me to my third point: I think you will think it’s all worth it, despite the seemingly absurd file size.
I have packed these all into a single subscription because I do not want to spam my workshop page with billboards. Just disable those you do not plan to use. They can be found by searching for the following keywords in Content Manager, Find It!, RICO, etc and in-game in the Park category under the prop tab:
(1) Apple iPhone + Beats;
(2) Adidas;
(3) Save the Children;
(4) Dune;
(5) Blade Runner 2049;
(6) Nike;
(7) Wong Kar Wai + Akira;
(8) IKEA + Paul Smith;
(9) Delta + Skittles
(10) Godiva + McDonald’s + Kenzo + Honda + Absolut Vodka
The illumination map is basically just a 4K square of grey (I cannot shrink it to something smaller because it has to match the diffuse texture) with 9 pixels of black. I can cut each billboard’s size in half if I get rid of the illumination map but honestly they just look so much better if they are lit up. I have made sure the illumination maps for all the billboards are exactly the same, so if you use the Loading Screen mod the game should only load it once and apply it to all the billboards.
Of course, if there are any experts out there who have suggestions on how to reduce the file size, please send them my way. I’ve done my research and this is the best I can achieve at the moment. : )
And if you have any recommendation in terms of trailers and commercials for future billboard releases, please feel free to send them over and I’ll consider them.
