Dear Developers, please increase or remove the 8x8x8m limit to TMK creations

[SleepyEngi]

So, I was told I could post this here, so here we go: The Thememaker's toolkit has it's flaws. But it's also a great and powerful tool. It gives us many options and guarantees that any objects uploaded to the game will be of high quality. Limitations like triangle count and texture size are understandable, if not a life saver for the game's frames. But I, and many other custom modelers have one massive problem: We can't build anything that exceeds an area of 8 meters cubed. Even when it correctly fills all the other requirements.

For reference, that is the height of 4 peeps stacked on top of each other. That's not enough to make a model of most trees.

Here you can see a chart I made of height comparisons for various models in the game.



As you can see, the maximum size for a TMK model is marginal compared with what's possible. Just the Pirate ship is around 5 times taller than the largest TMK objects possible, and that's without counting how long it is1 This is a huge bummer for us modelers who want to create large models.

Please frontier, the idea of the game is to allow our imaginations to run free and to create the parks we want. We users can go the extra mile and work really hard to get our custom models in the game, but this limit highly lowers the amount of things we could create. Even if you're not a modeler yourself, this limitation just makes it so no large models will be uploaded to the workshop, when massive trees and spaceships and buildings could already be available for you to download.

Most larger models can work just fine with the other limitations, like a triangle count of 8000 (Which most models don't come close to needing anyway), animation restrictions and a bone count of 18. If you could at least make the limit as much as the largest model in the game, or allow us to scale the object that would give us so much more modeling options. Heck, in other games they allowed us to make objects as tall as skyscrapers! Wouldn't it be amazing to have a giant spaceship flying on top of your park? It's not I need the peeps to be able to walk on it, I just want to see my bigger models in the game.

We don't even need to up the triangle count, just the size limit. The performance of a 12 triangle cube that is 36 meters tall wouldn't affect the game as much as a 8 meter tall Dinosaur model with 8000 triangles and 8 different texture files. And the larger models in the game show that it's possible, even if our models had incorrect collision or looked bad it wouldn't matter as long as we could get them in the game. Please allow our creativity to run free!

 

[Helena]

I think they want to put in because 1. they want us to make piece by piece stuff 2. Maybe to secure ability to release packs with larger items?

And with larger item they need to increase the texture budget then there's the risk of people misusing it. But I think it can be programmed in the toolkit to read the size of the object and allow larger budget respectively?

Same thing with triangle count? maybe allow for a slight increase then. And also read that for tiny objects such as less than 1 meter should not need to have super heavy triangles which we can see in workshop already.

But then of course it will make the tmt processing slower.

I for one wish to be able to release paper thin objects without having to cheat with invisible objects. Imagine those fairylights and the icing stuff, these are flat.

 

[shaneturner12]

I wonder if that limit is there for performance reasons (bear in mind that it also requires 6 LOD levels) since it's mainly for scenery items.

Shane

 

[Helena]

An object that is 15 meter tall, but is identical (modelwise and texturewise) to the 8 meter tall will not do any difference to the performance.

 

[lilibat]

An object that is 15 meter tall, but is identical (modelwise and texturewise) to the 8 meter tall will not do any difference to the performance.

Yeah if they let up on the size restriction but didn't lift other restrictions that might be interesting.

 

[KickAir8p]

. . . That's not enough to make a model of most trees . . .

THIS! Outside of dwarf varieties, mature apple trees are about 20 feet high -- this limitation dashed my hopes of flexicolor apple trees! Flexi-color trees in general (which wouldn't've been as necessary if the Frontier-added autumn trees had been flexicolored, digression, sorry). The 8m³ limit can't have anything to do with performance, so what's it for, really? [rolleyes]

Edited to add: 20 feet is a bit more than 6 meters. [redface] Plenty of things are bigger though, and since we can't use texture atlases like the art-devs do yet, making a larger work out of custom 8m³ pieces uses more resources than would otherwise be needed.

 

[SleepyEngi]

I think they want to put in because 1. they want us to make piece by piece stuff 2. Maybe to secure ability to release packs with larger items?

And with larger item they need to increase the texture budget then there's the risk of people misusing it. But I think it can be programmed in the toolkit to read the size of the object and allow larger budget respectively?

Same thing with triangle count? maybe allow for a slight increase then. And also read that for tiny objects such as less than 1 meter should not need to have super heavy triangles which we can see in workshop already.

But then of course it will make the tmt processing slower.

I for one wish to be able to release paper thin objects without having to cheat with invisible objects. Imagine those fairylights and the icing stuff, these are flat.

As I said, we don't even need a texture size increase or triangle count increase. Just a scale increase. That way performance is not affected. There's easy ways to work around small textures and still having them look like perfectly fine big objects, for example, my bigger models use tiny textures since they're just solid colors, and they look the same as if they had 2kx2k textures.

 

[Asgaurd]

Not going to happen.

 

[SleepyEngi]

Not going to happen.

If you're only going to say that, please at least provide some reasoning.

 

[KaiRubix]

the only work around I see is make your huge object in the 3d program and try to cut it up in 8x8x8 sized pieces. its a bit convoluted but this is the only way I see how we can add huge objects into the game.

 

[SleepyEngi]

the only work around I see is make your huge object in the 3d program and try to cut it up in 8x8x8 sized pieces. its a bit convoluted but this is the only way I see how we can add huge objects into the game.

While it is true you can do that for stationary obiects that barely pass the limit, anything too big would require models in the 3 directions, which would be a monumental ammount of extra work and would bring performance and graphical problems. And you would require to line them up perfectly. Plus no one is goint to subscribe to twenty six assets to assemble one object themselves. And cutting them up percectly in the first place is already difficult.

The on the other hand, you can't do this with animated objects, which is why I personally need the limit removed, since it would be near to impossible to syncronyse the animations correctly.

 

[Asgaurd]

If you're only going to say that, please at least provide some reasoning.

Hi Dipper, My views are very similar to Helena's on this topic.


Quote "I think they want to put in because 1. they want us to make piece by piece stuff 2. Maybe to secure ability to release packs with larger items?

And with larger item they need to increase the texture budget then there's the risk of people misusing it.

Same thing with triangle count? maybe allow for a slight increase then. And also read that for tiny objects such as less than 1 meter should not need to have super heavy triangles which we can see in workshop already."
-------------------------------------------
The larger Items and Higher Poly counts, are Frontiers bread and butter so enabling us free range will impact there own, DLC.

You can work around itto a extent but its a pain to do, as in some of the assets i have released.

An hence why I think frontier it will not want to let it happen.

 

[SleepyEngi]

Hi Dipper, My views are very similar to Helena's on this topic.


Quote "I think they want to put in because 1. they want us to make piece by piece stuff 2. Maybe to secure ability to release packs with larger items?

And with larger item they need to increase the texture budget then there's the risk of people misusing it.

Same thing with triangle count? maybe allow for a slight increase then. And also read that for tiny objects such as less than 1 meter should not need to have super heavy triangles which we can see in workshop already."
-------------------------------------------
The larger Items and Higher Poly counts, are Frontiers bread and butter so enabling us free range will impact there own, DLC.

You can work around itto a extent but its a pain to do, as in some of the assets i have released.

An hence why I think frontier it will not want to let it happen.

That's why I very explicitly wrote in this post that the only limit that needs to be raised is the size limit. Triangle count, bone count, texture size and all material limitations are to stay the same.

And as for DLC, they still are the only ones who can make new flatrides, coaster, guests, shops, shop objects, hats, staff, map environments, ground textures and more. And the main reason people buy DLC is for the rides included. So we won't be harming them in any way by making bigger objects.

And consider this: How much publicity has Skyrim gotten from the creative freedom it's mods has? Cities Skylines too. They don't limit your ability to create assets and they get a ton of advertisement from people using this mods. Skyrim is in a big part famous thanks to it's mods in addition to the base game. Tell me, isn't it true that more people would buy the game if they saw that they could hop over to the workshop and download some amazing model they saw in a youtube video, like a massive spaceship that hovers over the park? Or s statue of liberty to place in a lake? Or a Giant Mr bone's wild ride skeleton? Or just meme models like a 20 meter tall guest t-posing, some people find that funny. All of this is free content for the developers. Free content that makes the game more appealing for new players, and the devs are missing out on it because we can't make anything big with this limitation.

Hell, we could already have giant redwood trees, vegetation packs, big basic shape packs, anything you could want for your park's scenery. But this limit is taking all that away from us.

 

[SleepyEngi]

Hi Dipper, My views are very similar to Helena's on this topic.


Quote "I think they want to put in because 1. they want us to make piece by piece stuff 2. Maybe to secure ability to release packs with larger items?

And with larger item they need to increase the texture budget then there's the risk of people misusing it.

Same thing with triangle count? maybe allow for a slight increase then. And also read that for tiny objects such as less than 1 meter should not need to have super heavy triangles which we can see in workshop already."
-------------------------------------------
The larger Items and Higher Poly counts, are Frontiers bread and butter so enabling us free range will impact there own, DLC.

You can work around itto a extent but its a pain to do, as in some of the assets i have released.

An hence why I think frontier it will not want to let it happen.

Dear Asgaurd, I tried replying to you too, but it seems my reply also disappeared.

As I was saying, we do not need an increase to any of the other limits. The only limit that needs to be increased is the size limit. People can already mis-use the texture limit, since if you look at the example scenes that were uploaded today, they have up to 22 high quality textures, while typical models, even massive objects, have around a maximum of 8.

Triangle count is not a problem, for most big objects like buildings don't even require as much triangles as small, complex objects.

Anyway.

But frontier does have a reason to make it happen: It's free content and free advertisement. We can all remember incredibly popular games which are famous due to their modding. It's all free content that adds to the base game itself, which is worth more than the DLC's. Players will be intrigued by models they see in youtuber's videos and realize they can go to the workshop and add so much more content than what is normally offered. Youtubers will make videos of the new bigger custom models, and players will see that maybe now the game has that one thing they wanted in it, but never saw a chance before since the developers would never add it themselves because it wasn't something specifically for parks, like the many small dinosaur models that already exist. Now imagine a giant t-rex! Or a statue of liberty, or maybe a spaceship that hovers over the park. This will all be possible even with the triangle and bone count limits, as long as they increase the size limit. It's basically free money that the devs are missing out on, perhaps to make more dlc that won't have this user generated content in it in the first place.

 

[Asgaurd1]

Dear Asgaurd, I tried replying to you too, but it seems my reply also disappeared.

As I was saying, we do not need an increase to any of the other limits. The only limit that needs to be increased is the size limit. People can already mis-use the texture limit, since if you look at the example scenes that were uploaded today, they have up to 22 high quality textures, while typical models, even massive objects, have around a maximum of 8.

Triangle count is not a problem, for most big objects like buildings don't even require as much triangles as small, complex objects.

Anyway.

But frontier does have a reason to make it happen: It's free content and free advertisement. We can all remember incredibly popular games which are famous due to their modding. It's all free content that adds to the base game itself, which is worth more than the DLC's. Players will be intrigued by models they see in youtuber's videos and realize they can go to the workshop and add so much more content than what is normally offered. Youtubers will make videos of the new bigger custom models, and players will see that maybe now the game has that one thing they wanted in it, but never saw a chance before since the developers would never add it themselves because it wasn't something specifically for parks, like the many small dinosaur models that already exist. Now imagine a giant t-rex! Or a statue of liberty, or maybe a spaceship that hovers over the park. This will all be possible even with the triangle and bone count limits, as long as they increase the size limit. It's basically free money that the devs are missing out on, perhaps to make more dlc that won't have this user generated content in it in the first place.

I agree with you totally, User generated content keeps a game alive and attracts more people to buy it. The only reason i bought skyrim, ( was for the hi res texture pack ) then I bought Skyrim SE (For all the new user generated assets), And it made Bethesda a legend in the gaming industry, for having the foresight and dedication to there player base to allow these type of user mods.

But I think frontier has a different mind set, but we will just have to wait and see.

 

[SleepyEngi]

Can we put an F in the chat for the post getting ultra ignored? [big grin]
Anyway. I'll just say this: Giving more freedom to user generated content means more free content for your game. More content for your game, specially the oddly specific things players can make- means becoming appealing to much more audiences. People will find things they wanted before but couldn't have. With the massive diversity raising any limits at all- even if it's just the size limit- will mean much more people willing to buy the base game, and that is free money for you developers, that will not be gained to perhaps make DLC more appealing, when let's be honest- the things players make won't exactly fit in with the style that professional developers make and would never be better than the stuff the devs can make. And with youtubers making videos with this new content, it's also free advertisement. Imagine being able to make your game much bigger and have more stuff.. for free! Well all you have to do is raise the limit. :l

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I'm willing to bet they raise the size limit. Just like they increased park size 3 times, and raise blueprint count from 500 pieces to 4000(?). Maybe they want to make sure the new thing works, before letting everyone go hog wild. Or maybe not. It is Frontier after all. [rolleyes]

 

[KickAir8p]

I'm willing to bet they raise the size limit. Just like they increased park size 3 times, and raise blueprint count from 500 pieces to 4000(?). Maybe they want to make sure the new thing works, before letting everyone go hog wild . . .

That's what I'm hoping. [up]

 

[Chante Goodman]

Can we put an F in the chat for the post getting ultra ignored? [big grin]
Anyway. I'll just say this: Giving more freedom to user generated content means more free content for your game. More content for your game, specially the oddly specific things players can make- means becoming appealing to much more audiences. People will find things they wanted before but couldn't have. With the massive diversity raising any limits at all- even if it's just the size limit- will mean much more people willing to buy the base game, and that is free money for you developers, that will not be gained to perhaps make DLC more appealing, when let's be honest- the things players make won't exactly fit in with the style that professional developers make and would never be better than the stuff the devs can make. And with youtubers making videos with this new content, it's also free advertisement. Imagine being able to make your game much bigger and have more stuff.. for free! Well all you have to do is raise the limit. :l

Hello, Not_Dipper! I wouldn't say this post has been ultra ignored, I have responded to you twice on Reddit! [yesnod] As I said to you before, our dev team are super busy, but we have been looking into your question (it is a great question that you expressed in detail) and we hope to have an answer for you soon!

 

[SleepyEngi]

Well, it's been a month and some days but take your time :|