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- Feb 24, 2025
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So as I said in my introduction post I've been looking for a new hobby project after quitting Cities: Skylines modding years ago.
I don't like the direction the internet (and I guess society) has takenin the last 10-15 years so I've become a total recluse, but I still want some sliver of a "community" and a forum is imo a good format for it, so I decided to hunker down here.
I've tried doing financially sensible projects such as making 3d models for sale, and I also started modding GTA:SA with the intent of making it as realistic as possible but I realized I don't really like doing any of that and why don't I actually do something along the lines I like - something to do with old games including their primitive aesthetic.
So what is Temnograd intended to be? - I'm trying to take it slow but the long term plan is to do a total conversion mod for GTA San Andreas (both singleplayer and SA-MP) and make it into a sort of GTA Eastern Europe. I've seen people speculate what a GTA set in Europe would be like, and I always thought that some post-soviet shithole in the 90s or early 2000s would be the ideal place and time for a GTA style game - you could have low life crime, some kind of mafia, corrupt cops and politicians, all set against the backdrop of the gloomy and dark eastern european scenery with derelict commie blocks and shitty roads. I think it can have a lot of parallels with the "urban decay" theme seen in games like GTA III (my favorite game of all time) and Max Payne (also one of my favs).
Of course a total conversion mod is a monumental task, and there are very few proper ones out there, so I'm gonna try and take it slow and only focus on a few aspects at first - visuals, a small part of the map, and some cars. The fact that I'm going for a retro look - as if it was released in the 2000s makes the project easier, as I don't need to create things in high resolution or poly counts, and can be quite sloppy just like the old GTAs were. My main inspiration will be GTA III but I hope that I will develop a bit of my own style as I go.
The setting would be a fictional post-soviet eastern european country during the early 2000s in autumn, I haven't totally decided the name of the country(maybe Zabrovia or Zabrogia, kinda sounds like something abandoned in russian), but I know I want it to have the country code ZB (which I could put on license plates) because it's a sort of profane slang for "I'm sick of it" / "I've had enough of this" in russian, which I can understand quite well despite being latvian myself. This fictional country would probably be russian speaking because the aesthetic of cyrillic would add to the atmosphere, but the mod would be in english of course, I also considered doing some kind of fictional language in cyrillic for it, but maybe that's too complicated. The city name (and the name of the mod) is Temnograd - meaning Dark City, it's sort of symbolic just like Liberty City in GTA III and Vice City as well, and it's also not too hard to pronounce for english speakers. Even though the main theme is going to be kinda doomer aesthetic, I also plan to include areas with other vibes - such as a fancy old town like in Riga, or some plains with fields and farms, forests, etc, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself.
I have been studying SA modding for over a year now and have figured out quite a lot and tried to streamline the process of how to create things and get them into the game efficiently.
That's a ton of text so let's finally get some pictures in here: first up is a very rough plan of the map - on the left it's some kind of google maps collage, and on the right is a map view exported from Cities: Skylines which I am using as a planning tool, because it's easy to quickly adjust terrain and experiment with roads and buildings.
Here's a little piece of the map model I started:
I'm trying to make the map more interesting than old GTAs and especially some fan projects which are really flat and everything is in a boring straight grid, I'm trying to make an interesting layout with various angles and elevation differences, I especially like when infrastructure gets complicated with retaining wall, over/underpasses, bridges, canals etc. I'm still learning many technical and workflow aspects such as object definition and placement files, collision, day/night lighting, and other parts of the process so hopefully things will go faster once those things are figured out.
Here's the first car I actually finished:
It's inspired by some old Dacia and Skoda, I like the creativity of making GTA style cars by mixing together multiple references from real life to create something unique. And this one I modeled totally freely, without using blueprints or measurements, I'm surprised how reasonable it ended up looking in the end. You may notice it has quite a lot of grit on the texture - this is more akin to the visual style of cars in Vice City, the texture has some darkening on the panel gaps and exaggerated ao in the corners, and sort of glowing outer corners, I think it gives the model much more definition, as opposed to the quite flat looking cars in San Andreas.
Anyway so that's all I have to show for now, hopefully there are some people out there who are into old games and would be interested in such a thing. I intend for this to be a totally solo project but you could get a little bit involved if you want by perhaps suggesting interesting and relevant places from real life for reference. Or maybe you have an idea for some funny brand/business/store names with that old GTA sense of humor. And I'll also need plenty of graffiti to put on walls so maybe somebody wants to create some graffiti tag of their username and/or some easter egg...
I don't like the direction the internet (and I guess society) has takenin the last 10-15 years so I've become a total recluse, but I still want some sliver of a "community" and a forum is imo a good format for it, so I decided to hunker down here.
I've tried doing financially sensible projects such as making 3d models for sale, and I also started modding GTA:SA with the intent of making it as realistic as possible but I realized I don't really like doing any of that and why don't I actually do something along the lines I like - something to do with old games including their primitive aesthetic.
So what is Temnograd intended to be? - I'm trying to take it slow but the long term plan is to do a total conversion mod for GTA San Andreas (both singleplayer and SA-MP) and make it into a sort of GTA Eastern Europe. I've seen people speculate what a GTA set in Europe would be like, and I always thought that some post-soviet shithole in the 90s or early 2000s would be the ideal place and time for a GTA style game - you could have low life crime, some kind of mafia, corrupt cops and politicians, all set against the backdrop of the gloomy and dark eastern european scenery with derelict commie blocks and shitty roads. I think it can have a lot of parallels with the "urban decay" theme seen in games like GTA III (my favorite game of all time) and Max Payne (also one of my favs).
Of course a total conversion mod is a monumental task, and there are very few proper ones out there, so I'm gonna try and take it slow and only focus on a few aspects at first - visuals, a small part of the map, and some cars. The fact that I'm going for a retro look - as if it was released in the 2000s makes the project easier, as I don't need to create things in high resolution or poly counts, and can be quite sloppy just like the old GTAs were. My main inspiration will be GTA III but I hope that I will develop a bit of my own style as I go.
The setting would be a fictional post-soviet eastern european country during the early 2000s in autumn, I haven't totally decided the name of the country(maybe Zabrovia or Zabrogia, kinda sounds like something abandoned in russian), but I know I want it to have the country code ZB (which I could put on license plates) because it's a sort of profane slang for "I'm sick of it" / "I've had enough of this" in russian, which I can understand quite well despite being latvian myself. This fictional country would probably be russian speaking because the aesthetic of cyrillic would add to the atmosphere, but the mod would be in english of course, I also considered doing some kind of fictional language in cyrillic for it, but maybe that's too complicated. The city name (and the name of the mod) is Temnograd - meaning Dark City, it's sort of symbolic just like Liberty City in GTA III and Vice City as well, and it's also not too hard to pronounce for english speakers. Even though the main theme is going to be kinda doomer aesthetic, I also plan to include areas with other vibes - such as a fancy old town like in Riga, or some plains with fields and farms, forests, etc, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself.
I have been studying SA modding for over a year now and have figured out quite a lot and tried to streamline the process of how to create things and get them into the game efficiently.
That's a ton of text so let's finally get some pictures in here: first up is a very rough plan of the map - on the left it's some kind of google maps collage, and on the right is a map view exported from Cities: Skylines which I am using as a planning tool, because it's easy to quickly adjust terrain and experiment with roads and buildings.
Here's a little piece of the map model I started:
I'm trying to make the map more interesting than old GTAs and especially some fan projects which are really flat and everything is in a boring straight grid, I'm trying to make an interesting layout with various angles and elevation differences, I especially like when infrastructure gets complicated with retaining wall, over/underpasses, bridges, canals etc. I'm still learning many technical and workflow aspects such as object definition and placement files, collision, day/night lighting, and other parts of the process so hopefully things will go faster once those things are figured out.
Here's the first car I actually finished:
It's inspired by some old Dacia and Skoda, I like the creativity of making GTA style cars by mixing together multiple references from real life to create something unique. And this one I modeled totally freely, without using blueprints or measurements, I'm surprised how reasonable it ended up looking in the end. You may notice it has quite a lot of grit on the texture - this is more akin to the visual style of cars in Vice City, the texture has some darkening on the panel gaps and exaggerated ao in the corners, and sort of glowing outer corners, I think it gives the model much more definition, as opposed to the quite flat looking cars in San Andreas.
Anyway so that's all I have to show for now, hopefully there are some people out there who are into old games and would be interested in such a thing. I intend for this to be a totally solo project but you could get a little bit involved if you want by perhaps suggesting interesting and relevant places from real life for reference. Or maybe you have an idea for some funny brand/business/store names with that old GTA sense of humor. And I'll also need plenty of graffiti to put on walls so maybe somebody wants to create some graffiti tag of their username and/or some easter egg...
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