Slow at BAT but getting there

[Odainsaker 2,137]

I shudder at how many months this modestly sized building has taken, but it is finally reaching the point where major model edits are slowly wrapping up.  But before I force-feed it through though my poor processor for 8 hours of rendering, I want to test the waters for any areas in need of adjustments.  So here are a few previews of San Antonio's Tower Life Building.

Lot size will be 4x4.  I have decided to do a bit more tinkering ground pavement texture to make it match better in the game.  Or I may ditch it entirely and use generic Lot base textures, as those will keep some prop shadows, but I am fond of nightlighting under the canopies.  For those familiar with the building, the real entrance portal has been altered over time and the ground level storefront windows were walled in.  I have thus done a bit of virtual restoration.

Though I really wanted the large blank party wall to work as a wall-to-wall Lot, coordinating the completely irregular geometry of the 8-sided tower and 6-sided base all on a roughly triangular lot made that impossible.  The real world building was envisioned as wall-to-wall, but when it opened the neighboring lot served instead as the ground parking lot.  Today it is a large attached parking garage serving the tower, and the building's modern HVAC systems are located atop the this neighboring structure.  I opted not to model the garage, and have shown the wall with its original valet stand and exterior firestairs.  The vertical duct and machinery is a mistake I made when misreading a photograph (I think now it was really a temporary chute dropping to a dumpster for interior renovation), but it looked good so I kept it, as the original building did not show much exterior machinery.  The world's first fully air-conditioned building was introduced in San Antonio in 1928, barely a year before this tower opened.

But we need an ingame shot, so here is a cut-paste mock-up around similar themed buildings by cool artists here on the Simtropolis.

Such a pleasant urban scene, even if it is all plopped!  I admit to doing something here which I would normally strongly advise against--making a side face directly towards the viewer.  This can really flatten the visual appearance of that side, but it solved a problem of that angled wall rendering particularly horribly when seen from the other viewing angles.  If you look at the very top image, that wall is now angled so it is not shown from that viewing angle, otherwise, it kept coming out as yellow and black vertical stripes and checkerboards  I learned quite a good lesson modelling an irregular octagonal tower on a skewed trapezoidal base....never do it again!

As an aside, I will point out that my bulding came out taller than Seattle's Smith Tower, which we can see peeking up from the bottom.  Though the Tower Life Building was sometimes called the tallest building west of the Mississippi when it was finished in 1929, Smith Tower and San Francisco's Russ Building were actually slightly taller.  I was not exacting in the total height measurement, though the floor count and proportions are accurate.  I strongly feel Maxis's Smith Tower looks too short anyway.  My appeasements to our Seattle friends here.

Those of us in Texas should now recognize this building, as it has the most glittery gothic crown in the state.  A true terra-cotta wedding cake from a flamboyant era.  Architects Ayers & Ayers actually had one of the upper terrace floors devoted completely to their design offices, with 360 degees views from their gargoyle-festooned observation deck.  Despite our city journals, that just doesn't often happen.  The Crash and Depression struck soon after this was completed, and these days we just don't build them like this anymore.

Is the light too strong?  I was trying to capture the way the real life building gleams in the floodlights, but I am not sure if I overdid it compared to other ingame buildings.  Hmmm, I wonder why the light of the first terrace did not pass through opening in the parapet of the forward facing wall.  Oops, I think I know now.

Anything else anybody sees?  After so much time, you can get too invested and enamoured with a project that you miss obvious things.  Though some of us on the boards have seen glimpses of this already, I still can't give a timetable for completion.  Touch-ups, rendering, Lot editing, Query work, adjustments to the LODs, etc.  I've downloaded so much from all the awesome artists here, I really want to give something back.  Why must real-life include Work!

[mattb325 28,891]

Oh my god. That is truly beautiful. Well done. This will make a really elegant addition to any city skyline. The detail in the bat is just incredible. Magnificent!!!!!

[Spike345 20]

OH MY GOD, wow ok officially my favourite building.!

[spa 970]

This is just excellent excellent work. I can only imagine how many months this must have took as older buildings like this are hard enough to do without dealing with making them a non-square shape to boot. My hats off to you. A definite 10 and a definite download for me when you release.

About the lights, I think they're fine but if you're going to turn anything down turn down the ones that shine on the very top green roof. The rest is just right in my opinion and nicely shows off the detailed work you've done up there on the top section.

[thatmonkeysim 8]

completely awesome! it has to be on of the best complete works on ST ever!

[6459978. 106]

My God! When I saw "Slow at BAT" in the title, I thought this was a newbie thread, but now I bow before you!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I've told you before how great I think your building is, I'm glad to see that you're finishing it.  I think this the best building of this style on the stex, if not the best building on the stex period.  All of the modeling and every texture is perfect.  Except for the BATed sidewalk which always bugs me, even if there is a nice light effect at night.  I think the lights at the top of the building are placed perfectly, but they're too bright like you said.  They're so bright that beyond a certain point, places become pure white, which limits the detail of shadow that's cast.

I don't remember what you said about the LODs before, but imo they need to fit the building, since this is one of those buildings that you accidently bulldoze when you try to bulldoze whatever's behind it, especially with that antena.

Your building makes my free press next to it look so clumsy and cartoonish.  When this comes out, I'll make an entire city around this BAT.

[bixel 1,228]

Not enough detail, I need to see people in side working! And sound, I don't hear anything! Wheres the fireworks during the national celebrations? And where can I park my car I have to eat some nachos. How much is the office rent? OMG just ignore me.

No seriously its awesome. I luve the green top and the nitelights are amazing.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

I was expecting to see a box without textures, and what did you do to me? HOLY COW, what a BAT! I will bulldoze and zone, bulldoze and zoen, bulldoze and zone, until I get this beauty! Maaaan, this rules. Tone down the lights a bit, adjust the LODs, make sure props can be added at ground level and that's it!

Quick, any mod/admin please do a traceroute on his IP - I bet it leads straight to the Maxis headquarters.

[tag_one 133]

ow wow, this is superb!! those details and those nighlights... really wonderfull!

[ramvid01 0]

im still trying to close my jaw after it dropped on the floor. What a beautiful Bat you have there. Just tone down the lights slightly and fix the lods, and then it should be set. Great work.

[jacqulina 162]

awesome work you have done well

[MarcosMX 222]

that looks very beatiful, beatiful.

You are truly awsome.

[hamsterTK 93]

i do think that you should tone down the lighting on the crown, you get some sort of overexposure with a few parts and that looks odd.

But my biggest complaint is why you have deprived us of this magnificent BAT for so fricken long

[Franz Ferdinand 14]

That Is .. Just awsome .. id tone down the night lights a bit tho mate

[Alkaola 18]

*************DROOL********************

drooldrooldrooldro....dr......aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

[lrfox 2]

incredible. the title of your thread is most certianly decieving. i agree w/ the general consensus on the lights, but really it would be hard to criticize anything about this. nice work, can't wait to download it.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Didn't I see this in a BAT Workshop thread? If so, I was amazed at it, wondering what it was, and where i could see more!

Looks really great. Any clues to how you got the spot lights on top to look right? I can't  seem to get the hang of those yet.

Seriously, this thread is quite deceptively titled. It may be going slow, but you're already high-quality material!

Keep it up and hope to see more of this beauty  soon.

[Hanson784 165]

Every one of your creations has been a masterwork. You are the undisputed custom content king and a devoted member of the SimCity community since SC2000. Thank for a decade of excellence.

Glad to see your finishing this up Lee. The wait is worth every second. I was very excited when I saw this building in your previous thread last year because the detail was awe inspiring. The night lighting is so beautiful.

Your SCURK of the Tower Life Building was an instant hall of fame winner (along with most of your other SCURK's) and I know this will be a STEX classic. It is quite simply a BAT masterpiece built to perfection. In fact, it puts to shame some Maxis buildings.

We're excitedly anticipating the release your first creation for SC4.

[don_suvanto 0]

how i can download bat,in another web not in simcity.com

[mightygoose 92]

this is officially the win

[paulvmontfort 617]

looks incredible!

[JBSimio 152]

Much like Bixel was saying... I guess it's alright if you like that kind of thing where the building just sits there looking better than any other BAT ever made.  I suppose I would probably give it a 15 out of 10... give or take.

That's amazing... and great... and wow... and other similar words!

JB

[tzotzil99 2]

breathtaking, i can't even imagine how long this took you, just stunning!!

[bewilder2 2]

[SimFox 804]

Stunning!! Extatic!!!!MORE THAN THAT!!!!

[CitySeeker 0]

Ownage man!

Originally posted by: T Wrecks I was expecting to see a box without textures.quote>

And now I go to try and texture my box.

[Odainsaker 2,137]

Eeek...finally start a thread, and then I let real life impact and go virtually incommunicado for 3 weeks.  Ah well, rest assured I tried to stay busy, but I did say I was slow!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments, as I took each into consideration in weighing several changes.  Somewhat dissatisfied with the brightness of crowning lights as well, I spent quite a great deal of time reworking them.  Toning them down was not as easy as it sounds, using arrays of spotlights and omni lights sometimes has the seemingly counter-intuitive effect of making the sides of rows of columns and pilasters brighter than the main faces.  Dimming the lights lowered the brightness of the main pilaster face by some percentage, but only dimmed the sides by a far lesser percentage.  Hence, the dimmer I made the lights, the brighter the sides got!  Yes, lots of parameter plucking....and head bashing...and keyboard bashing.

Okay, enough gabbing, here is the reworked version, cut-pasted into the earlier image for better comparison.

There is some tinkering yet here and there, but it actually looks much better, and much of the over-exposure effect is greatly reduced (though some of it still needs playing with).  Incidently, the increased shadows on the buttresses and parapets more closely resembles the shadow pattern of the real building.  My thanks again for the comments and prodding, as the results are that much better.

I finally ditched the ground pavement, as it makes the LOD far more complicated than necessary.  Fortunately, I found a series of base and overlay textures buried in my plugins folder that achieves a closely similar effect as the original modeled paving (eventually I'll get us a finished LOT screenshot).  I have also taken some liberties here, as the real building does not light the base at all, which is too bad as the real building has great gothic sculptures, twisting columns, and gargoyles to show off on its ground levels.  Still, the base lights balance and ground the glittery crown at the top.  Also, the real building does not greatly light the entry portal, and the lobby beyond is kept relatively dark like the interiors of older romanesque or gothic cathedrals.  I still must laugh, this does not look like any building most people would expect from South Texas.

My estimates of 8 hours export rendering time apparently wasn't too far off, but I did not realize that would be 8 hours exporting on low quality, lol!  Much of my time away was thus spent working on the home computer bringing up its paltry RAM from 512MB to 2GB.  Should have been an easy procedure, so of course something had to go wrong.  One of the memory sticks was defective, and I only figured that out after watching Windows commit suicide over and over again at startup.  Feared I almost lost my most recent work, but all is well, and I a working on 1GB RAM at the moment until I get my replacement.  It truly is nice not having to wait 1 hour and 45 minutes for each high-quality preview just to inspect minor changes.

Okay enough teasing, better get back to working, as there is still much to do.  The next building is so going to have to be a planar International-styled box.

[fukuda 351]

Uncredible, gorgeous, unique...WoW

[Odd from Sweden 129]

This looks fantastic! One of the best worked-out BATs I have ever seen!! JUST GREAT!!