hkabat-forum-threads Bixel's HK/ASIA Residential Construction Showcase

[jacqulina 162]

wow thats some beautifull progress

[jacqulina 162]

wow thats some beautifull progress

[Gecko_2006 1]

Looking good. And thanks for the window textures btw.

[Sim shady 12]

lol u sound a little frazzled from all this texture changes for the grass. i think it looks great now! really beautiful building

[SimFox 804]

hm.. grass is better now - more alive.. but trees... well I think brown one is not at home here... BTW do you have plans for the garden? or some photos of it??

I could try to give you a hand with it... The way I've made my trees for the CandyGarden and for my residential that is on hold at the moment probably wouldn't quite work for your case as CandyGarden had in excess of 2 million polygons. But I have couple of ideas to get it done a bit different way...

Plus if I may be so bold to suggest that you make your paths with lofts this will solve that odd texturing you have on them. You can use same technique to do all the trimming on your structures for same reason - texture patterns will follow the shape because now at the zoom like in picture in your last post it doesn't look right. I know some will start picking on me for saying this, particularly those who basically have nothing else to say, but I feel I must. You should grow and develop! If you 're not familiar with it - read article on it in MAX help. One of the coolest thing about Loft that it creates great UVW Map for you at no cost - it will exactly follow all the curves and bends you may have! here is a picture to illustrate what I mean:

BTW did you have floor plans for the towers??

[bixel 1,228]

Ahh thanks...yes I will correct that funny looking brick texture work on the trim...I know what you are talking about. So that I didn't know...paths made from lofts have mapping coordinates plugged in!! Thats great because I was workng on a highway peice just like the one you posted several months ago and I couldn't texture it. Do you have any links to a tut on that? I've looked for Max tuts before but its gets boggy after a while of looking.

[SimFox 804]

Tutorial for Lofting? Not really... I think help in Max is quite good... take your time do it step by step... You'll get it!! I have no doubt. but here is another picture to motivate you - this is illustration (from same help) to show how's Mapping created

PS Some info on loft and it's mapping is in CG-Academy Mapping and texturing tutorial DVD.

there are few free tutorials on that site as well that could be of help take a look!

[bixel 1,228]

Huzzah!!! Excellent! Hey I have been siting on a highway peice..ardecila was collaborating with me on it...he might path it...but would you like to have the max file? Maybe you can finish it or work off it.

[Skyfire2275 23]

Looks good bixel... I kind of like the brown tree.

My only suggestion is to makes the edges smoother around the water... they seem a little bit uhh... as though there are not enough polygons.... smooth with the occasional sharp edge. Other than that, it looks A+ awesome.

[SURUMI 2]

Much better bixel and I agree with skyfire about the edges.

[dmscopio 225]

SO much better now, lovely details! I wouldn't mind those edges, you can hardly see them in game. But I know you always want things to be perfect.

[SimFox 804]

Nathan, I'm not sure I've understood you... what do you want me to do??

[bixel 1,228]

@ Simfox So far right now I haven't had time to mess around with UMV Unwrap...so I cannot texture correctly my highway peice...since you seem to know how maybe you can texture it?

Anyhoo...FEEL THA LOVE

Yep...its Harbourside Version 2!!! Of course it has not been textured yet and it is mostly the same model but several things have changed.

1. Its wider actually 7x4 to be exact. I really wanted it to be 7x4 so it will grow uniquely...T Wrecks should be able to move the props accordingly on the old LOT than rather make a new one.

2. More space between the towers and closer to the real deal.

3. Roof and Park will be altered A LOT, now with more photo reference its going to be much nicer and more interesting.

oh..and its not textured yet..but be sure it will really be whiter than the last and windows will be much deeper in color like the real thing.

[toxicpiano 125]

will it have reflective material on it? I would surely like to see that!

[SimFox 804]

one thing...  real Harbourside isn't quite as straight as yours is (no pan here). Tis is how it looks from the side - as you see it is sort of arch.

So if you're making ver2 may be you can address this issue as well???

also your bases tend to be not quite high enough..

For instance Harbourside base is about 10-11 normal floors tall...

[bixel 1,228]

I wanted to make it taller anyway so yeah I scould add a couple floors to the base.. as for the shape..yup I could also make it curvier since the roof needs A LOT of attention it was incredibly flawed in the 1st version. I am also going to change all the frames, or some of them. I used simple single line splines in the past while I think it would benefit from an actual frame shape rather than a 4 sided spline.

Meanwhile I am rendering the Sorrento...I started it last night while I slept its about 27% done so far...it will be about 34% done after work...so another day I suppose. This is the 'nice' render i.e. the same render I have been using for my latest editions of the tower packs. The shadows and colors on this render are particularly pleasing to me as the full color and detail of the textures are not lost like the 'default' camera system would have done so. So its worth it. Should be worth it. I understand T Wrecks have been sitting on the LOTs for quite some time now. So it should be released soon hopefully...mid or early DEC. Keep your fingers crossed!!

A Lot of things are going to be done to the Harbourside...the above version is me spending 4 hours cleaning up the old version and re-sizing it. Back then I was pretty bad at modelling and thinking ahead at the same time so I made a lot of mistakes. To let you in that model is about 26 megs...downscaled from the monster 59 megs of the original. I will try to make this version as beautiful as possible...I will make sure it fits in 7x4 since that is a good zone unique to the game, so if you only wanted 1 Harbourside in your city you would have no fear of another growing accidently.

In the future over Christmas I might do a 'nice' render of the Chelsea Court..I noticed that some of the textures tend to bleed into each other making a mottled look to it, besides..all the buildings would benefit from a better render anyhoo

[SimFox 804]

yeah..

Chelsea Court is my personal favorite! I'm sorry to say but I was somewhat disappointed by last version to my eye it didn't look as good as first sketches of it. Color was on thing but also some modeling didn't go quite the way it should have... If you have any chance try to take a longer look at the relative positions of both towers, I think it isn't as in the original and not to the better side of it. Also its base is a bit to small in all dimensions - it is also about 9 -10 normal storey high.

As for Harborside – please make it a bit turned on the base – so that it is at an angle to the road. This way the entire complex will have much mode dynamic shape to it! Just like in the real life – only left most tower is actually parallel to the road. You could save quite a bit time on it too. The entire building seems to be set of three nearly identical towers with only minor difference. To save space (in Mb – use instances whenever possible, to save on viewport speed and also in render time – as little objects as possible 1 000 000  of 1 polygon objects will me MUCH slower in any respect then 100 objects of 10 000 polygons each together.

All in all I wish you great success, of which I’m certain!

[bixel 1,228]

yeah I lowered objects from 37,000 down 6,000 and faces 700,000 down to 360,000. As for turning it towards the road.. wow I didn't notice that the 1st time...so will do!

As far as the Chelsea base goes I was very very complimentary to the reference photos, perhaps I could have done levels a bit higher..but 10 stories high is unrealistic and there is not 10 stories in base that much I am certain.

[your_adress_here 11]

You're my hero

[SimFox 804]

Nathan! You know I have utmost respect for you… but I’m afraid may want to take another look at Chelsea base…

I wouldn’t say anything in the first place unless I was quite certain of it…

Here is picture to illustrate my point – that is same rectangle – layer copied in Photoshop and moved up.

Count the number of normal floors… I could agree that 1 floor could be in dispute, although I’m pretty sure of the size of my rectangle but….

[bixel 1,228]

Check the photo references in the beginning of this thread...that photo is misleading. Great photo though...I want to know what the yellow and blue striped building is behind it.

Sorrento 65% render completed thus far.

[Sim shady 12]

lol i hate waiting for buildings to render. seems to make time slow down

[st louis dude 6]

Hong kong is a very cosmopolitan town,with great high rises.

[SimFox 804]

Can you like point to specific picture that you think isn't misleading? I on my part very much disagree with that assessment of the picture above - I think is is one that misleads the least as view point is virtually exclude perspective distortion.

[bixel 1,228]

I may have missed a story or two...the building is on pillars...which the model has...though I am not too sure if you can see them...can't remember. But overall I am satified with the Foundation...in fact I think it one of my best.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Some pics of the Sorrento. I remade the lot from scratch, changed the size to 16x5, and went for a rather simple, sleek and modern look.

 

Does that look ok?

[WeirdOne 0]

Great work bixel and T Wrecks.

Someday I'll show off my city made entirely (or mostly) with your residental creations. It's stunning, but I'm really crossing my fingers that The Sorrento is going to be a R$$$-type building. I think that more of those would be super since I keep running into demand problems and abandonment due to the large number of R$ and R$$ building made compared to the few R$$$ around. I can't support my commercial services as well.

Anyways, thanks again for the super work. You make SimCity a JOY to play around with :-).

[SimFox 804]

hm... Something gone very wrong with lights...

Have you rendered both base and towers together or separately?? Why don't they (towers) cast the shadow to the base?

Actually come to think they don't cast any shadows at all...

	1.  There are no shows at the top of the tower at all! Or if therer are any they can not be seen which means that they are directly behind the object casting them, If so that means that Sun’s position is wrong and allied to camera, while it suppose to be at 45o angle
	2.   Tower doesn’t seem to cast shadow onto the base. Instead something else is casting shadow both onto base and on the tower.
	3.   Side of the tower that is suppose to be entirely in the shadow is strangely divided into two parts. Right part is in sort of shadow, far to light one at that.
	4.  Base elements do not cast shadow onto other base elements. Then again there is strange and this time very-very dark blob of a shadow from apparently unseen object, NLO???

It seems like again lights got disconnected from the camera set. You better check your rig and also the way it is brought into the scene for rendering. I believe the problem is right there.

Check also settings of the lights. It seems like some of them are not generating shadows.

[SURUMI 2]

I guess, that will be a six-star model.

Great work !

[bixel 1,228]

ooh! I see what you mean T Wrecks...well I used a new camera rig system on this one. I think I wouldn't mind re-rendering this week. It might have something ot do with the sun have area shadow properties and not raytraced...but I am not sure...Frankly I have no idea what is casting shadows LOL

that is odd...the foundation does appears to be not making shadow while the towers seem ok in my view...I do not mind that the shadow-side is not particularily strong...but yeah I see what you are pointing too...very disconcerting. I will do a test render with a different camera system and see what it looks like

[edit] I think I know what is going on....there is shadows...but It is like the sun is very low..like in the morning notice the position of the shadows under the Tower Base...it set far back meaning the sun is low and the shadows are long...the LOT is fabulous, the 'modern' look fits perfectly with the bare base. While I am re-working Harbourside I will do more test renders of the Sorrento and then when I am satisified with the render we can release.