How to download overlay images for Real-world Cities (in the easiest way possible)

The part one of my already-existing Guide on how to build real-world cities in Cities: Skylines at the easiest way possible while retaining its accuracy to the real-world versions.

Many requested for this guide to be created, but due to me building many Philippine cities per week, I don't want to rush it as it'll look bad so I had to complete all my remaining cities before I finally started working on this guide.

NOTE: As I always build Philippine cities in this game, please expect all screenshots and videos on the guide below to be from the Philippines. If you are interested, feel free to search the city's name on Google. It's a single-click, don't worry with wasting time.

Step 1: Downloading the map terrain

Step one would be opening your internet browser, and go to terrain.party[terrain.party], and from there you can select which city you want to recreate into Cities: Skylines.

We'll be using Tarlac City[en.wikipedia.org], Philippines as an example.

Now download the terrain, but do not move the square box or close the tab, as we'll going to use that square box later to perfectly align the overlay image.

Step 2: Downloading the overlay image

Open this website on your browser[www.chengfolio.com], where you can customize your overlay images with the use of hex colors.

Now go to the location of the city and make sure the center of the overlay image is on the exact location of the first starting tile.

Resize it to 5,000x5,000px.

On this image below, you will notice that the center tile is on the city center, so focus the overlay image there.

Now download the overlay image with the use of screen captures on your browser.

Afterwards, you can download the overlay image now.

Step 3: Modifying the overlay image

Now open paint.net on your computer.

Change opacity settings to 150, so that way it appears as transparent while still retaining most of the image's features in-game.

Resize it to 10,000x10,000px.

Now save it to your computer by clicking the "Save as" button.

Now you can put the overlay image into the following folder: (C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Cities_Skylines\Files)

Rename it to "Overlay.png" so the mod could read it when you launch the game.

Done, you have a overlay image that you can use for building real-world cities. While it may be not high-quality, it still has enough quality that you can temporarily use while only building roads and other map features such as rivers or lakes.

Be sure to check out the part 2 of this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1683092617

View the Philippine Cities series here on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_wkws2T_uYLb7oaWUN1Hr_-vAR7kMTvZ

View the Philippine Cities city journal here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/philippine-cities-a-cities-skylines-project.1113915/

And don't forget to check out my Philippine Cities savegame collection here on the Steam Workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1453876976

[Meesmoth]

That's because terrain.party is permanently down. I use a different website now when comes to downloading heightmaps.

[Reggeli]

Terrain.party throws application error when exporting :(

[Meesmoth]

@jasonmaynard I plan on doing a more updated guide using the new site as I have been using it for recent maps after terrain.party went down months ago.

[Meesmoth]

@jasonmaynard The original Image Overlay still has that function. Plus, this guide uses OverLayer mod instead of Image Overlay, as I found out it's easier to load "one large overlay" unlike Image Overlay where it loads the overlay automatically after map load, causing the "load screen" to last longer.

[Elder Brother]

Since this guide is now pretty much defunct, I thought I'd add a few updates:

Terrain Party is no longer functional. However, Cities: Skylines map generator [heightmap.skydark.pl] is a good replacement.

Instead of using graphics apps to edit images, I recommend the mod Image Overlay 2 by Mbyron26 . From within you can increase/decrease your image opacity from 0% to 100% as needed.

Hope that helps!

[Lenskha]

what are you talking about ? All mods on the steam workshop are absolutely free

[edieppa]

this is cool but is there a way to do it without having to pay for mods???

[Stat1c]

Alright so i have the image that i took with fireshot. I put it into paint.net and changed the opacity to 150 and saved it. It's in the right folder, when i open it from the folder it's half-transparent. In map editor it's opaque. And now i tried it ingame and it is still opaque.

[Stat1c]

Ooooooh thanks alot i'll try that

[Meesmoth]

Overlay images for me only has differences when in map editor, but when I use the same image now in-game, it is semi-transparent.

Idk why in map editor it goes opaque for no reason.