[h3]Hello everyone! Welcome to the development diary of the Eastern European Pack for Cities: Skylines II! I’m Alex_BY, one of the first modders of Cities: Skylines. Today, I’ll tell you a bit about how we worked on this vast building pack and the concept behind it.[/h3]
[h3]You can download the Easter European Pack here: https://mods.paradoxplaza.com/mods/98960/Windows[/h3]
[h2]Concept and Inspiration[/h2]
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Eastern Europe”? Depending on what you’ve seen in pop culture or what you’ve read, you might have thought that it looks something like this:
A frame from “Eurotrip” (2004).And, I must say, there’s some truth to that! Although, in reality, things are (usually) not that bad. Our primary goal in creating the Eastern Europe Region Pack was to bring into the game everything needed to build a typical Eastern European city: panel houses, panel houses, a few more panel houses, and, of course, service buildings made from the same panels.
The biggest panel district in Eastern Europe - Saltivka, Kharkiv, Ukraine.A pinch of historical architecture, a few village houses – and there you have it, the ability to build a true Eastern European city!
Again, Saltivka, Kharkiv, and Ukraine, but from a different angle from the first picture.[h2]The Development Process[/h2]
[h3]Challenges in Planning[/h3]
During the planning phase of our pack, we already encountered some challenges. First, the pack was going to be really huge. My reference file alone was almost 1.5 GB.
The PureRef doc is where we collected our main references.The things I focused on included the following:
A bunch of low-rent buildings.
- All the residential Medium and High Density, as well as Mixed Density.
- Low Density Commercial
- A big part of service buildings.
This file already contained over one hundred assets, not counting the Residential Low assets, the remaining majority of Commercial and Service buildings, and the Signature category from other creators
Spoiler alert: the final delivery list includes over 300 entries, and with the levels and styles taken into account, the total number of assets in the pack approaches a thousand.
The bottom row of the Eastern Europe assets list.[h3]Technical Hurdles[/h3]
One of the toughest challenges was adhering to Colossal Order’s detailed technical specifications for models. Unlike traditional workflows, where tiled textures are often used, Cities: Skylines II required every building to fit into a texture with a maximum size of 4096x4096 pixels.
In the original Cities: Skylines, many modders used a technique where textures were often mapped to a smaller resolution, with UV islands extending far beyond the 0,1 UV boundaries.
This screenshot is an example from an old model of mine where you can see this method being used. However, for Cities: Skylines II, all these UV islands would need to fit inside that 0,1 UV boundary, and that means stacking the UV islands over one another rather than extending them beyond the boundary.
For this pack, I was going to create more than 100 buildings, and I couldn’t use 100 different 4 K textures. Thus, planning became the most critical stage of the pack’s development.
Optimization became the mantra.
[h3]Optimization: Reuse and Innovate[/h3]
Thus, our first major goal in working on the pack became optimization. It became clear that we needed to reuse details and textures as much as possible wherever we could. The beauty of real-world Eastern European architecture came to the rescue: most buildings that we were inspired by were explicitly designed to be built very quickly and to create many different structures from the same panels. This design philosophy translated perfectly into game assets.
And it worked!
Medium and High density, and the panels and details that they are made from.
The UV map for Medium + High Density residential.In these two screenshots, you can see buildings that are mapped to a single texture. There's even some space left on it! Here's how it looks with the textures:
This brings us to another important concept of our pack:
[h2]From Gray to Gorgeous[/h2]
Yes, here we can circle back to that very first association with the words "Eastern Europe.” People living in countries of the former Eastern Bloc (all the way to East Berlin) likely understood this concept right away. In modern times, many old gray panel buildings have been renovated or are undergoing significant renovations, transforming into quite decent and visually pleasing homes.
With the pack, we decided to bring the same idea to life. The more leveled up your city becomes, the better it will look! While at the beginning of the game, neighborhoods with panel buildings might appear rather gloomy and depressing, over time, you’ll see them flourish!
As you can see from the screenshots below, players will see this transformation unfold in-game:
- Level 1-2: More gloomy, monotonous facades.
- Level 3-4: A splash of color and added character.
- Level 5: Fully renovated, visually striking structures.
Screenshot of a test layout from in-game during the development of the pack.[h2]From Panels to History[/h2]
As I mentioned earlier, the Eastern Europe Region Pack includes a wide range of panel buildings and some historical architecture.
A distinctive feature of many Eastern European cities is that panel housing districts surround their old historical centers. At the same time, historical buildings have long been repurposed for business and commercial use.
Therefore, we decided that Low Density Commercial in our pack would represent the low-rise historical buildings.
There are also the Low Density Residential buildings. We also have many historical wooden houses that you can find all over Post-Soviet Eastern Europe, and their colorful exteriors stand out among the gray and snow.
Colorful Low Density Residential is in their final stages of propping.
Some examples of Low Density Residential and Commercial.
[h2]Service buildings[/h2]
Of course, we absolutely had to create an expansive range and complete set of service buildings. The Eastern Europe Region Pack includes:
- Elementary School
- High School
- Medical Center
- Hospital
- Police Station
- Police HQ
- Post Office
- Welfare Office
- Research Center
- Disease Control
- City Hall
- Water tower
- Firehouse
- Fire Station
As you can see, the list of buildings is quite impressive.
The service buildings are just a part of what the Eastern Europe Region Pack has to offer![h2]Spotlight on Disease Control[/h2]
However, I would like to highlight one service building in particular. I came up with the idea for this building during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.
The whole Disease Control Center in all its glory.The Disease Control Center, as presented in the game, is one of the most inhumane representatives of the Brutalist architectural style. The actual building that inspired it houses an oncology center.
Despite its grim facade, this structure embodies hope and healing—proving that what’s inside truly matters.
Final Thoughts and Screenshots
Developing the Eastern Europe Region Pack was a monumental effort that tested our skills and creativity. From overcoming technical constraints to faithfully capturing a region's essence, this pack has been a labor of love.
A lot has changed since we began in early 2020, but one thing remains constant: our passion for creating immersive, authentic experiences for Cities: Skylines players. We hope you enjoy exploring and building with the Eastern Europe Region Pack as much as we enjoyed making it!
Now, some screenshots!
City Views in Shenyang, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Kashgar.
Low Density Residential
High Density Residential
High Density Office
Service Building References.
Lineup of all styles of growable buildings. The number of total unique buildings is much higher!
The Community Kindergarten is found under the Administration menu.
Lineup of all Service Buildings.
Building blocks of a high density residential set in Blender (ground floor and roof units excluded)
The high density residential set in game.
Representative organic architecture in China (Shanghai Tower, Shanghai / Wangjing SOHO, Beijing).
Most of the facades in the organic High Density Office set are made from this single unit.
Blender modifier stack to construct the whole structure (except for ground floor and roof) with controlling spline and lattice displayed on the side.
The organic High Density Office set in game. The Peony Tower Signature Building also comes from this set.
Geometry Nodes graph to generate the shape profile of Skyline Palace and the custom implementation of shrinkwrap.
Geometry Nodes graphs to scatter frame units on the seed mesh.
Skyline Palace in game.
