"I'm So Sorry": a Working On V2 story

I made these assets a year ago when I had very little experience with 3d game dev, and I assume many of it's 128 downloaders (computer number :soypoint:) have noticed that.

- My strange idea of material optimization introduced all of the downsides of 1px-per-color materials with almost none of the benefits, and made every model load a hodgepodge of bespoke textures with 99% redundant color data. the workflow for creating/implementing them was a pain in the ass, there's no way to consistently measure things out, and the end result is painfully rigid. It also required nearest neighbor texture filtering, which is surprisingly annoying in... certain engines...

- "Low Poly" -- in what world??? these things have all kind of strange unculled geometry hanging around unseen corners, I couldn't make my mind up on which sides should be visible, and there are MODELED SIDEWALK BUMPS IN A SET THAT ADVERTISES ITSELF AS PERFORMANT. the basic straight piece is 240 tris... for a SQUARE OF ASPHALT...... we were too busy asking if we could, etc etc

Enter: the new crop

Now that I've fully committed to minimal textures (aka learned how to round UVs to pixel center), the flexibility is amazing. I had considered adding crosswalks to the original asset, but it would've been an absolute nightmare with the old material setup. Now? It feels like I'm back at my old dayjob drawing roads in CAD -- just make the shape.

Despite each color requiring unique geometry now, that straight road piece is down from 240 tris to 54!! Even the highest poly piece - that 4lane turn tile - adds up to 154, almost 100 under the lowest in the original pack. Since the workflow is smoother, it's been much easier to take the time to cull useless verts, and overall I'm actually taking the low poly philosophy seriously this time.

The distinctly flat sidewalk is now at Z=0, making it much easier to integrate into a game project where you're trying to place buildings on the cement. The curb is also shorter, at .25m in Blender. (i believe it was double that in the original, with the low points of the bumps at .4)

You'll notice there's way more variety, thanks to the flexibility of this setup and a desire to go above and beyond a simple remake of the original 4. This is for a couple reasons:
- Roads are a genuine hyperfixation of mine, ever since working that aforementioned dayjob. Brain chemical go good when stripes.
- Kenney has a way better version of those 4 tiles w/buildings, which comes as part of their City Builder Godot Starter Kit. If it existed before my original asset, I had never seen it, but now that I have -- I'm not just gonna put out an inferior version of the goat's work. Might as well distinguish myself with variety, along with the minimal textures.

However,,,, I worry that the set's starting to get bloated, and I haven't even added 4ln crosswalks or the planned suburb variants of the 2ln road tiles (no striping, sloped curbs). The simplicity of the 4pc set is very appealing if you just need a basic little city scene for a jam project or w/e -- you don't want to waste time sifting through 2 dozen road assets when you have a gameplay loop to finish by the end of the week. I'm considering putting out a basic 6pc set (the original 4 + xwalk and dead end) as the main offering, then separating the 4ln/suburb tiles out into booster packs. I'd also like to sell the source files for $2, and am considering paywalling some of those booster packs as well -- it feels more than fair for the hours put in on these and the years of experience that built my extremely specific skill of drawing roads..... but also im broke ;w;. Would be interested in taking requests for new tiles and adding to the bonus content package down the line, assuming there's interest (big assumption)


I guess all of this was to say: Redemption is possible for those who pushed amateur work out to the public out of a desire to Ship Anything, and if you'd like proof, keep an eye out for the new Lower Poly Road Tile Pack, coming out soon-ish unless I die tragically lmao