boarding school

[cowkilla 12]

so rather then continuing to post in the wrong forum iv packed up and moved here!

hello neighbors!

he is my boarding school

as of sat

and as it stands right now

not much real change just numerous details.

and ideas suggestions critiques or other info appreciated

[Jasoncw 11,940]

I'd have to say it's looking good!

[MarcosMX 222]

Looks very good.

BTW What 3D program are you using? (ex. Gmax, 3D Studio MAX)

[yoder7652 21]

hey that looks good, i could see that building being alot of different things, but boarding school works. are you going to bat additoinal buildings for a boarding school campus kindof thing or just the one bat. is this your first bat...if so great job...if not...still a great job

[6459978. 106]

Looks good! I can't tell, are those roof textures custom or do they tile? (Well if I can't tell, I guess it doesn't really matter.)

[Spike345 20]

All I can say is wow, I love this

[cowkilla 12]

MarcosMX: max... gmax is crap

yoder7652: i think for now its just going to be one building, i dont want to get to far out for my first

6459978.: the center one is defenetly custom. i wanted a long skinny one to fit that part of the building. they rest are custom but i got lazy on the mapping and just sloped it around.

Spike345: thank you

[bixel 1,224]

JUST NOT COOL ENOUGH!!!

no really great start, awesome design.

[spa 970]

Looks promising. I particularly like the front entrance. It seems that all institutions that were built in this style have that kind of steps up to the wooden front door that is surrounded by a stone archway. You've nailed it bang on. The one thing that I'm not sure about is your large arched windows. I think they fit fine but windows that big are generally broken up into pieces and aren't one big slab. You need to add some framing.

[cowkilla 12]

these are low res images, the windows are broken into 3 main parts and then inside of those there are many small pains of glass

[mightygoose 92]

this looks interesting, i might drop by later

[tag_one 133]

wow mighty building, I wished my school looked like that

[cowkilla 12]

so someone explane props to me. can i make my own? how do they work? can i just use the simcity ones and rase them to add trees to the back grass area?

i would hate to use xfrog trees

[yoder7652 21]

you can create your own props (BAT) them and use the plug-in manager to put them on your lot in the Lot Editor, or you can use existing props from any of the prop packs on STEX or from SimCity and place them on the lot with your building. You can download both the Lot Editor and Plug-in Manager from the SimCity website. Read the tutorials for both (they are pretty short) and you'll understand how to use them...you can add props, place ground textures, overlay textures, trees, water....you name it and you can place props at different heights if you want or add simcity effects...there is alot you can play around with. The first step though is exporting your model and using the plug-in manager to create a desc file so that you can create a lot for it in the lot editor and save it as a lot file. Once done you can play with it in the game.

[cowkilla 12]

its been a while since ive done anything massive to this building... working two jobs can really suck the life out of you.

never the less here is the latest update. have not started night items yet, but soon

[Kwakelaar 92]

This looks mighty good, your last update is starting to look like a photo of the real thing.

About adding trees to your lawn on the back, like the model is now you will need to make some custom LODs to be able to place the trees as props in the LotEditor.

I think you are doing a great job with both modeling and texturing.

[freedo50 1]

omg that looks like a photo! this is brilliant work! have you done any BATs before?

[cowkilla 12]

Kwakelaar: im not sure i quite understand the hole LOD part of BATin and i plan on using props in back, making trees in 3d sucks

freedo50: this is my first bat, everything in 3d ive done befor. but exporting to the lot editor is going to be interesting

[mightygoose 92]

your textures are amzing great work, i hope my first bat can be as goodas this

[jacqulina 162]

wow that is awesome work such great detail

[cowkilla 12]

thank you both!

i plan on puting in a half day on this tomorrow so stay tuned!

[cowkilla 12]

!!! i need sugestions on more things to add to this!

i already went above and beyond my reference photos, i need to add some night items but after that im not sure

[mightygoose 92]

some outdoor chairs on the balconies and i think apart from that your pretty much done, just needs nitelites and a tree or two

[Kwakelaar 92]

Hi again cowkilla

I think as your models is at the moment you will not be able to place any props on the lawn behind your building without making the LODs yourself.

After rendering, the model is displayed onto the LOD. In gmax the LODs are always boxes that will be as big as the biggest measurments of your model (widthxlengthxheight). You can not place any props inside the box of the LOD.

Making your own LODs is really not very complicated. You just need to make a shape that will hold your whole model but not the areas where you would like to place props later, like the courtyard of your school. You can make a box and then subtract the courtyard area. Rename the box LOD3, copy the box two times and name the new objects LOD4 and LOD5 and that is all.

[cowkilla 12]

so 4 and 5 are not less polygon versions of 3?

in know how LODs work in regards to a 3d "shotum-up" game but not in the way simcity works

are 3, 4, and 5 used in the different zoom levels?

[Kwakelaar 92]

Sorry, I can't really answer these questions without speculating/guessing, but there are more than enough people here with knowlegde of how the LODs work in SC4.

But for what its worth after reading about LODs around here on Simtrop I am guessing:

Question 1 - as far as I know, no they are not.

Question 2 - yes, I think the different LODs have something to do with the zoomlevels.

[cowkilla 12]

bah... so ive wasted a hole day yesterday tring to fix a vray problem.

red dots! red dots everywere! so it seems that vray 1.47 dont do glossie refractions very well and i was tring to find out why.

seems it was a problem with the code, not my building. so now i have a new version and im tring to make up lost time. working on the night lighting setup now... seems to look somewhat cool, no renders to speak of yet but soon.

[cowkilla 12]

ok so here are some renders, i need to add in some generic desks to the rooms that have lights in them. im not going to add anymore lights because its a school and should not be operational at night <> im not sure how the night tint works so the last render i just droped in another enviro light. may prove to be unnecessary

i now understand the hole LOD thing so once i whip out the desks i can try to export it, then i enter a strange new world of confusion and hatred

[6459978. 106]

Well 3DSmax certainly always impresses me. Curious to see how it looks in game, though.

[david1314 44]

'clunk'

*picks jaw up off table*

JEBUS that's good.