simmars-forum-threads BAT Workshop

[AndisArt 2,066]

This is the place to showcase your BAT and lot creations!

Below is a to-do-list of what kinds of BATs we need. Below that are the BAT & Lot Guidelines as well as tutorials.

For textures particularly useful for SimMars models go to this thread.

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BATs needed for Beta 4:

updated May 8th 2010


Civic

Large Information Center (library function) - IN PROGRESS

University 

generic Museum (we have a Mars Settlement museum already)

Observatory (with museum function)


Utility

Microwave Power Plant
Hydrogen Power Plant
Magneto-Hydrodynamic Power Plant (see here)

new Power Lines (Poles)

Recreation
For Parks and Rewards there is a separate thread, please see here.


And everything you come up with

[AndisArt 2,066]

BAT guidelines Updated May 8th 2011

All BATs require nitelites/-windows (unless it can be justified to leave them out).

All BATs need to be rendered in high quality. Should you have trouble rendering large buildings in please ask for help.

The design style defined for SimMars is called the Utilitarian design (from: utility, to utilize).

As the name already implies it's main characterisitc is functionality. This style is defined by its simple and minimalistic building approach.

Generally, buildings should have a modular and technical look, especially smaller and lower wealth buildings should look like you can staple/connect them.

The color concept is to have an earthy + natural look. All colors are accepted as long as they are toned down and not overly bright (i.e. a bright pink) and the spectrum of used colors either contains some red, orange, brown tones to match the rest of the SimMars buildings.

Keep in mind that Mars is all red, so there won't be blue reflections in glass like on Earth.

Buildings should have external utilities such as pipes, tanks, and antennas. The higher the wealth the more hidden they are and the more decorative buildings can look.

Because of the hostile atmosphere (no air, low pressure, no protection from sun) open glass-fronts and see-through glass on buildings should be used sparingly only for higher wealth and special buildings. Standard windows should more have an airlock/hatch look and be very small for low wealth BATs. The higher the wealth the bigger the window can be.

Nightlighting for low wealth should be little and decent, for medium average and for high wealth generous or even spectacular.

Here some visual examples for Utilitarian style:

A great example of the modular look:

Additional Tips for BATing

- when creating a BAT make yourself familiar with what the purpose of your BAT will be. Let's say you want to make a fusion reactor, find out what defines this building/structure, what functional features it needs to have, how it may look in real life and how it may look in future on Mars.

- regard the size of your BAT. It later needs to fit on a lot which has 16 meter steps. So say your BAT is 17,5 meters long it might be better to fit it into 16 meters. This may not be applicable in all cases, depending on what you have in mind to create with the lot.

- also important to keep in mind is the scale of your building. It needs to have the right proportions and neither appear to large or too small.

- it's fun to make references to other Science-Ficition areas, but they should be subtle and not too obvious, i.e. it wouldn't be very SimMars to put an X-Wing into your scene

- mass building will bring more variety to the mod. Changing the textures and/or moving/adding parts, roof junk, utility stuff etc is a very fast way to get more than one version out of your model! Using pieces of old models to make new models, changing the buildings height, width, depth, etc. can save a lot of time when creating new models.

DOWNLOADS

Here some files for anyone who wants to create some stuff for SimMars:

(rapidshare downloads)

- some roof junk by Outdoorsman03 for gmax

[AndisArt 2,066]

Lot Guidelines Updated August 10th 2009

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When creating Lots the files have to be named with a prefix in the following way:

Example:

SM_R$$1_1x2_Modul Homes

Breakdown:

SM_ = short for SimMars, will allow all SimMars Lots to be grouped in the same area in the Lot Editor

R$$1_ = Lot type (see list below) followed directly by growth stage (1-8, for growable lots)

1x2_ = Lot Size (first number is side with street connection)

Modul Homes = Name

Be careful to include the _ inbetween

Lot Type Abbreviations:

CO$ = Commercial Office low wealth

CO$$ = Commercial Office medium wealth

CO$$$ = Commercial Office high wealth

CS$ = Commercial Service low wealth

CS$$ = Commercial Service medium wealth

CS$$$ = Commercial Service high wealth

CV=Civic

I-Ag = Industry Agrar

I-d = Industry Dirty

I-m = Industry Manufacturing,

I-ht = Industry Hightech

LM = Landmark

Park = Park

R$ = Residential low wealth

R$$ = Residential medium wealth

R$$$ = Residential high wealth

RW = Reward

Trans = Tranportation

Utility = Utility

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Lot Guidelines:

- The SimMars Beta should NOT be in your plugins folders when creating new .desc files with the Plugin Manager. The Beta mods (like Maxis Blockers) are messing this up. Best is to have only the SimMars textures and props in the plugins folder when creating new content.

- For setting the values of the lot (i.e. jobs, pollution value + radii, power+ water consumption) take MAXIS building values as guideline (those can be viewed using the SC4Tool, download here).

- see notes on Lot values two posts below

- for growing BATs please put the correct name in the name field of the .desc Exemplar (this name will appear ingame). See post below for instructions.

- if using base or overlay textures that are NOT part of the last Beta release you have to include the texture in the upload (as seperate file please), otherwise the textures will show as missing

- if possible make several lots of the same BAT with different sizes to help variety

[AndisArt 2,066]

Tutorial – Item Name property for growable lots

Growable lots need to have the property "Item Name" in the exemplar of their .desc file.

This property contains the item name that will be visible to the player in game.

To add this property, open the exemplar of the .desc file in iLiveReader.

On the right side, where properties are listed, right-click and choose “Add property”

A new pop-up opens with the details of the new property.

In the drop-down menu under “Name” search for and select“Item Name”

Then in the drop-down menu under “Data Type” select “string”

Important: This has to be selected manually even if it was preselected, otherwise it will not work properly

Under “Values” an empty text field appears. Enter the in-game name of the lot and click “Apply” at the bottom of the window.

Important: click “Apply” at the very bottom, not the one on the right side

The new property should now appear in the exemplar.

Note:

The property “Exemplar Name” should have the SimMars naming format. This is the name the .desc will display in the Lot Editor.

The property “Item Name” will display the name of the lot ingame.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Notes on creating growable lots

When creating .desc files in SC4 Plugin Manager or .lot files in Lot Editor make sure that you don't have SimMars Beta 2 in your plugins folder (The MAXIS content removal mods would mess things up). Suggestion is to either use a Plugin folder with only SimMars textures and props (rename folders to switch between SimMars). Alternatively delete/remove the Mods folder from SimMars (using delete and then restore is only two clicks)

As a reference on how to set values MAXIS ingame buildings should be used to keep a good overall balance.

The easiest way to look up MAXIS building values is by using the SC4 Tool.

SC4 PLUGIN MANAGER VALUES:

It is important to check and set all values correctly for lots according to MAXIS reference building values.

BUILDING VALUE: Determines how much tax income this building will produce. This can throw off the income balance ingame when a value too high is applied, or when the value is not reduced significantly for small lots (ie. 1x1, 1x2).

Example: A BAT placed on a 2x2 lot with parking lots and props makes 250$ tax income. If I create a lot with the same BAT on a 1x1 lot, only containing the BAT, it will still make 250 tax income, but requires a much smaller space to do so. The larger lot produces 250$ per 4 tiles (2x2), the smaller lot procudes 1000$ per 4 tiles (4x 1x1). This is what makes it so easy in Beta 2 to make money, the cause are mostly CS lots. Most MAXIS low stage CS BATs sit on relatively large lots, therefore if you want to create small CS lots for SimMars you should set the building value much lower than in the referenced MAXIS building

CAPACITY SATISFIED: Industry lots should have twice as many or more jobs than MAXIS BATs to reduce industry zoning ingame.

EXEMPLAR NAME: This is NOT the name that will be displayed ingame, but the name of the BAT building in the lot editor. Use SimMars naming format.

MAX. FIRESTAGE: This should be set to 5 for all lots. Since we dont have fire anymore but decompression a longer time is required before a building is destroyed.

POLLUTION: These should be set a bit lower than MAXIS values to take in account better technologies of the future.

POWER/WATER CONSUMED: These seem to be not so consistent in MAXIS BATs, particular for large capacity BATs. Sometimes a building consumes water half of it's capacity, sometimes only one fifth. I tend to set the usage of both,

power and water, lower than higher, again taking in account better technologies / better handling of resources in the future.

LOT EDITOR VALUES

To ensure a .lot file is correctly modded, open it in iLive Reader and go to the Exemplar File.

EXEMPLAR NAME: This is the name the lot was saved under, this name will display in Lot Editor (not ingame). Use SimMars naming format

GROWTH STAGE: The value here might be different from what you intend for the lot (not 100% sure but I think the Lot Editor assigns growth stages by LOD height/volume. Change to what you intend. Grow Stage 1 should be very small buildings only and have one story. Building over two storeys should be set from stage 4 upwards.

LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation: This indicates from which slope level onwards a lot foundation is used. A lot foundation means the complete lot will be flat. This should be used for most large BATs and all lots that feature parking lots to avoid weird effects if the lot grows on a slope. To ensure lot foundation is used at all times set value to 0. If you use any other value than 0 make sure that the lot looks ok when growing on a slope. This can used well for low stage residential lots

LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes: This determines which zones the lot will be assigned to. Needs to be set to correct value as below.

0x00=None

0x01=Low Density R

0x02=Medium Density R

0x03=High Density R

0x04=Low Density C

0x05=Medium Desity C

0x06=High Density C

0x07=Agriculture/Farming

0x08=Medium Density I

0x09=High Density I

0x0A=Military

0x0B=Airport

0x0C=Seaport

0x0D=Spaceport

0x0E=Landmark ( I'm unsure on this one...)

0x0F=Civic/Plopped

LotConfigPropertyWealthTypes: Needs to be set to correct wealth level.

0x00=None

0x01=Low

0x02=Medium

0x03=High

LotConfigPropertyPurposeTypes: Needs to be set to correct purpose type as below:

0x00=None

0x01=Residential

0x02=Commercial Service

0x03=Commerical Office

0x05=Agriculture/Farming

0x06=Dirty Industry

0x07=Manufacturing

0x08=High Tech

[AndisArt 2,066]

----PLACEHOLDER---

[AndisArt 2,066]

----PLACEHOLDER----

[AndisArt 2,066]

Alright, I got a chance to take your skyscraper model into the game for testing. It blends well with the rest of the buildings and it's a beautiful BAT! Here's the pic:

It will take a while though until the mod will be able to actually grow it. We don't have enough small and medium BATs so far.

Anyway great work 2ch! Also I wanted to say again how beautiful your space ship is! Do you know how to replace it with ingame airplanes?

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

Bingo!!!!!!

and... hm, it seems we need a Mars high school.

I'm starting to BAT R$ 3x3 high density "Huoxingzhou"

There will be normal blue window version for terran use, and orange window version for Martian use.

I think, what should be done now is to have a look around, and list up currently available scifi BATs. Sim Mars can include such BATs.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Indeed we do need a highschool

As long as they fit in the SimMars concept somehow other Sci-Fi BATs are definitely a great help!

Anyone up for going on a hunt?

How bout your group, 2ch? Can you show me stuff that you guys did that we could use?

[AndisArt 2,066]

Here some files for anyone who wants to create some stuff for SimMars (rapidshare downloads). I will create a Download section in the first post of this thread.

- SimMars Prop pack v1.0 (contains various rocks, yard junk, underground storage + parking, a space shuttle, some cars)

- basic base & overlay textures created by Sarg

- the red terrain texture

- some roof junk by Outdoorsman03 for gmax

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

This is so useful!!!!

Btw, where do we drop our BATs? There are quite a few in the pipeline.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Send them by eMail as before. Preferably with lot if you want to do it

By the way: if anyone converts the gmax files in 3DSmax files, please share them

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

New building, 3x3 R$ high density

[Glenni 1,444]

Andisart, i seem to still have a few of my Sim mars models. if you want i could send them.

So far i did manage to dig up Zaibatsu foods, and some smaller industrial building, i also managed to find the college i made, but not yet that tenement. i'll try zipping up the files i have, later on today!

That is.. if you still want them.. they're my older models.. so they're a bit crappy yeah...

Zaibatsu foods.

Fat benny's

Tenement ( i have yet to find it )

The college:

[AndisArt 2,066]

@2ch:  Nice building! The domepark on top wouldn't fit to low wealth though. I'd rather put it as medium wealth. Or maybe you're up to making two versions? One without the dome for R$, one with the dome and maybe a more fancy texture as R$$? The texture of the outer shape looks like it needs to be increased in tiles, looks to close up compared to the height of building. Keep it up!  

@Glenni:  Sure, send them and I'll have a look. They don't look crappy to me I'm just wondering about the function of the buildings. The first has hazard signs but is supposed to be a food factory? Would you mind if we change the function? The college has all this technical stuff and those 2 hightech towers, I would use it as a HT-Industry lot. You'd be ok with that? How bout Fat Benny's? Is that an industry BAT? What is produced there? I like the green spilling Adds some fun element, hehe.

Bye the way, we do need all kinds of lots in general but at the moment the most urgent are low wealth/low stage commercial and residential, the school & library. If you feel like batting those kinds of BATs that would be great. Anything is welcome though

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

If you take out the dome, the whole building will run out of oxygen probably

[Glenni 1,444]

Use em for whatever you want i wasn't too sure myself anyway

(pm with link sent)

[AndisArt 2,066]

Ok, thanks Glenni. I'll try to render them when I have time. Would you mind if I work a bit on the models?

@2ch: To be honest I think the design works better without the dome. It doesn't make sense apart from that anyway, why would the ventilation need to be under a dome? You know what I mean? In general in the Utilitarian style (which is the defined style for SimMars, see BAT section in Contribute-thread) does not include domes (there are exceptions when necessarry though, like the farm-domes). Why don't you give it a try without the dome and see how you like it?

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

I originally designed this as R$$$, but.... maybe R$$ now? (4x6, about 320m tall) "Tour Noakis"

 

[AndisArt 2,066]

Wow, looks wonderful!!

Thanks for the highschool file, can't wait to put it ingame!

I was working myself on models as well over the weekend: primary and large primary school.

Small

Large

Apart from that I remodeled the highschool model and made a small version out of it, about 1/4 the size. Next is the library.

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

Randomly made on-spot...

CS$ Rover Depot

(model only)

http://www.yuhisa.com/cgi/c-board/file/RoverDepot.zip

[jacqulina 162]

wow this is awesome work going on here

[AndisArt 2,066]

Hey cool, we need those kinda BATs! There are only a handful low commercial lots so far. One of them is a rover dealer though... lol. Would you mind if we change your lovely little BAT to another buisness? Please send the file so I can put it in BETA 2, thank you.

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

ok, different business

Now the download link is http://www.yuhisa.com/cgi/c-board/file/KaseiChindougu.zip

It is a DIY tool shop.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Great, thanks

[AndisArt 2,066]

2ch, here's the DIY Tool shop ingame  

Also left of it a new BAT from me, Bob's Oxygen. 

[Blazerhawk 162]

Office Module CO§§ Stage 1

Preview

Photoshopped "ingame" photo

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

hmm.... more roofjunks and details?

[Blazerhawk 162]

Could someone lot and mod this for me?

OfficeModule.zip