hkabat-forum-threads SimFox Construction & Research

[ILL Tonkso 1,238]

Just a quick question, what window texture have you used on the second and third pics in this thread, its very realistic?

[ILL Tonkso 1,238]

Just a quick question, what window texture have you used on the second and third pics in this thread, its very realistic?

[SimFox 802]

Well, Ill! The trick is and a major reason my projects are stalling now – I’m terrified of textures and texturing… So there isn’t any, none what so ever. All you see are just MATERIALS. With sort of proper physical properties, Glass on Those down-up PERSPECTIVE shots of One Peking road is clear, slightly green tinted glass with Fresnel reflective properties and with IOR of 1,5 – just as glass is suppose to have. In fact it is very same material you see on (as all other as well) as on two pervious pictures! So that was sort of exercise in LIGTING. Light in 3D is of paramount importance. Scene is light by one and only HDRI –High Dynamic Range Image, which is also used as a backdrop – so it is quite literary WYSIWYG! And glass looks realistic, cause it is physically realistic and render – Vray can handle it rather well. You see real reflections of the light produced by cloudy sky without open sun difference in intensity and color creates this realism. And , of course proper camera placement and the fact that this is PERSPECTIVE camera. When you switch to orthogonal camera in MAX all is ruined  - and this is how Simcity is made – with orthogonal cameras. What they do to make lines parallel is also causing all normals being parallel so any point with normal pointing in same direction would reflect exactly same PIXEL in the environment –destroying the effect you saw on those pictures. Only way around this at present I know of is to create real environment, not a virtual one, then we could get proper reflections. Another point to consider is placement of cameras in Simcity – what you’ll see in reflective windows will ALWAYS be ground! And ONLY ground since reflection happened at the same angle only with negative one! So if you look from up you’ll see down! In fact the material on the last picture in this thread is also same (different tint, but otherwise very close) reason it doesn’t look quite as “realistic” is cause it has much less or nothing to reflect when all windows and glass railing on the balconies point down to nothingness plus it is orthographic camera, so all windows on the same side of building would reflect same very point in virtual environment. There are some reflections in them but shot is too small for them to be noticed. But is you look at preview shot which was done also down-up with perspective camera, you see the effect. In those I didn’t use and HDRI, but just VRAY simulation of sky – another Virtual environment. As you see windows pointing to the direction of Sun (which is sort of setting) are yellow-orange and those facing to the different side are bluish. They are reflecting that sky, which is naturally colored by the sun in it.  Look closely at the glass railing on the balconies. You’ll see the complex mix of reflections – of blue sky on glass panels facing to the left (second and third panels) plus corner of balcony above – ever so slight but it is there- since glass is just somewhat reflective – it isn’t a mirror, on first panel there is ‘t so much sky cause it and two panels on the right side are shielded from sky by respective corners of the building itself. On the right side on first panel you’ll notice faint reflection of window on the corner, but not orange of the sunsetting sky, glass is shielded by the corner…  With right angle of the camera in newer version of Vray it would be possible to have the very Sun disk as well! I very much recommend you to download it (demo version 1.5 RC2 from Chaos Groups website) ant play with it. here you can look through the manual of this latest version and things you can do with it: --CLICK ME--

Sorry for long and may be cumbersome answer. But it would be great if we put on our collective thinking caps and come up with the way to simulate ground on a cheap!

[bixel 1,224]

Excellent roof design on the residential tower! as far as texturing goes you will just have to build yourself a library...I spent hours and hours just google image everything on the net and sometimes making my own. Good luck!

[SimFox 802]

He, he, I’ve spend months collecting them – so now I’m in other extreme –I have soooo many I don’t know which one to choose! Anyway I’m in such a state, cause I haven’t done it before, so just naturally I have my reservations…

That is a penthouse in works... It will be main focal point of the tower/s and be counterweighted by base which is still very sketchy in my mind...

[Skyfire2275 23]

Looks good SimFox... I can't wait to see it with textures on it!

[SimFox 802]

Skyfire: I hope i could!! (I mean that it would be too scarry...)

Is imgcity gone for good??

Hm, could you recomend any alternative?

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Why not ImageShack? It has that nice thumbnail function, and someone even wrote a tutorial how to use it in the "Show us how you use HKABT content" thread.

[SimFox 802]

Thanx T... I should look for it..
Actually I used Imgcity only cause it was right there in the examples of how to post you pic online. and it isn't a big deal really for Simtropolis, I have all i need here on my HD, but i was foolish enough to put on Imgcity few other pictures i don't have copies of.. and It would be next to impossible to find them again...

I wonder if any of the monsters offer similar service (likes of MS, Google) just to be sure thing wouldn’t go under in couple of months, although I think I heard about imageshack for years now..

[SimFox 802]

Restoring all the pictures will take some time, I think I’m gonna split my thread in two parts – one of Bating and another for Rendering and Lighting.

But for now here is a progress on YelloW residential tower

Tower will have base of some kind, not necessarily the one in this pictures – this is sort of place holder, to test how would it look together. I think I’m satisfied with height of the base. It will house car park and may be some sort of retail/Gym, on top – naturally landscaped garden with swimming pool.

Any comments / Suggestions?

What do you think about color, I kind of like this Yellow-Green combo…

[bixel 1,224]

Very good....I like how the tower overhangs on the base a little.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I second that. And I also like how the tower never touches the floor wit all its footprint, but rests on columns, just like most buildings in HK seem to do. The base as it is now looks rather bulky, but even without making it smaller, I guess there are ways to make it look less "heavy" and solid. Some glass, some windows, some landscaping etc... This is definitely interesting to watch, especially since -unlike in a recreation of a real-life building- we don't know what the result will look like.

[SC4Noobie 5]

I think that building is awsome! I think that what T said needs to be done. I really imagine a small complex of these, near the DT, instead of the HK "suburbs" I think the base should be very minimal. But, it could be part of those huge complexes in the suburbs.... Just wondering on what your plan of these towers were. Good work.

[dmscopio 225]

awsome, lot of potential can go into that base.

[SimFox 802]

I had a little work done on the base or Y tower, take a look, what do you say?

[Skyfire2275 23]

It's looking good... by the way, what are you planning on putting on the roof? Grass and trees or a pool or what? I'm curious to find out...

[bixel 1,224]

pretty cool! looks very german or netherlandish on the foundation. I dig it!

[SimFox 802]

Bixel: yeah!! Koolhaas was here! :-)

Skyfire: actually all of that!

[mightygoose 92]

that looks awesom simfox, although in HK a base that size would probably have two of those towers on it lol...

[SimFox 802]

Mightygoose: let's say this tower is in Shenzhen or Shanghai :-) Actually my original plan was to create complex with 3 towers. I think I mentioned it before but at first (actual tower design) it was based on a building being built in Moscow. But it hit me right away that it has very strong Chinese/Hong Kongese design to it. But as I was bating along, it has changed very much - rooftop, base etc...

I may actually do that 2-3 tower complex as well, as soon as I sort of the technical and general design points. This was right from the start meant to be modular - number of floors - anything up to 50-60, base, entrance group.

BTW guys do you think I should add technical floors in-between? I mean original in Moscow will have central aircon, to get away from that sad practice when all buildings in a city are covered with aircon units like with pimples. Tech floors in original design are 1st and roof top, but I changed it so to be right and deny people they aircon shelves outside windows I probably need to add tech floors - one for every 15 or so occupied floors. One is actually could be managed into the space between top floor and rooftop penthouse, but should i put one in the middle of the tower? Or just skip it?

Another thing to consider – placement of entrance to the garage…

[Skyfire2275 23]

I say put the entrance to to the garage on the left side of the tower in the first of the last two renders you posted... on the flat section of blank wall. As for the tech floors, I say skip them all together and just put some large A/C units on the roof. If you want one, make it the small floor in between the tower and the roof terrace. That's just my 2 cents.

[SimFox 802]

Progress is slow ubt steady…

Here is the state of the base of the residential tower:

[dmscopio 225]

as always!

[Skyfire2275 23]

Wow, the glass looks amazing.

[mightygoose 92]

that looks fit

[SimFox 802]

Thank you guys!

Have been, so to say, planting the seed today…

It is quite an interesting thing to do

 

But at the same time a challenge to keep things real, and to the poly budget – first trees were in excess of a million poly each… Which as I soon discovered didn’t make then look better, actually it make them look worse – less realistic. I have learn a little trick which I’m happy to share with anyone interested – make small tree with small number of polygons – 20-40 000 and then just scale, bend rotate etc… And never use any texture or God forbid Alpha transparencies on trees!! Vertex color will do just fine! If this suggestions are followed one can create quite a forest without waiting days for render to come out!

So what do you say? Is it overcrowded? On lower deck – roof of the foundation…

Modeling itself is done now (with the exception of that yellow round thing – still pondering what sort of thing shall it be –purely technical or will it also carry some sort of offices/clubhouse…

[bixel 1,224]

WOW!! That is gorgeous! Did you model those trees? I will have to start laerning how to model like that.

[marc 13]

Hi SimFox- GREAT work!!!!

I apologize if you've answered this already, but which CAD program/raytracer are you using? The photorealisitic renderings are of POV-Ray quality!

Edit: Oops, I see you're rendering with VRAY. I'm going to have to try that one out!

[Skyfire2275 23]

Looks good from on top SimFox, but can you post an SC4 angled view, or something similar so we can see how tall these trees are? And, are they in pots or in large planters built into the deck?

[mcarch 15]

OH my, I LOVE THAT BASE... *calms down* No seriously, I do, I do, I DO! LOL