Nofunk's BAT Thread

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Modeling wise I think this is outstanding.  It's very detailed, but the details are still visible.

For the clock, You'll need to vertically scale it to get rid of the squash, since right now it looks like yokozuna sat on it.  I'd also extrude it less.  While it looks good in the front, on the side it looks too deep.

Another thing, since this has a clock on it, it would be cool if it was functional.  Simgoober did this on one of his train stations.  I think it's only a matter of making a set of seasonal props, that each show up during a certain time of the day.  I don't know how that works but I don't think it's very hard, more of a matter of rendering the clocks and asking someone how to mod them.  A custom ringtone would be cool too.

And ANOTHER thing (and I know you're going to hate me for this one ) is I think you should model some of the inside of the clock tower.  Nothing too fancy, but just enough stuff to give a hint that stuffs back there.  I think it would add a lot to the tower overall.

For texturing, follow the lesson(s) about texturing.  Even though there aren't really any special cut blocks of limestone that you need to specially make, there is still the gradient and some general wheathering that warrent a custom texture.  Plus, using photoshop to make a custom texture gives you a lot more control over things like the size of the bricks, and how intense their color variation is, and stuff like that.

[JBSimio 152]

Really looking good, Nofunk!  I like the ribbing on the roof... nice touch.

Alright, fine.  Crack IS whack.  All you kids at home... drugs are bad, m'kay?

JB

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull work with the clock that really sets it off very nice detail

[nofunk 1,933]

JayStimson: Thank you!! It's a great building, isn't it? Probably my 2nd favorite in Ann Arbor. (I really love the law quad.)

Jason: That is a HUGE compliment, thank you!! I'll look into making the clock functional... but that might be a little advanced for me at this point lol. Maybe I'll pm SG and see if he can advise. I'd definitely be interested in a custom sound upon query, but I don't have any recordings of the carillon. Of course, doesn't the Maxis church have a bell? I could probably use that, right?

JB: Thank you, Mr. Mackey.

Jacqulina: I'm glad you like the clock! Thank you so much for your support!

UPDATE

All right, I've finally got the chance to work on Burton Tower some. Here's what I've done:

1. Scaled the clocks vertically so they don't "look like yokozuna sat on [them]"

2. Designed a (very simple) base -- in real life I think the base is pretty simple. (Haven't actually walked by the tower in over a year, so I'm going by memory and bad pictures.)

3. Designed a "carillon" to go inside the bell tower. It's not very detailed, but it doesn't have to be, because you can't really see it anyway. However, the little bit you can see makes a real difference, I think.

4. Textured. And I'm pleased with them. Although if I could find a better aged copper texture for the roof I'd totally change that.

OK, so you can probably see the one thing I'm not happy with -- the nightlights. I seem to remember someone saying (I think wolverine way back in the day) that they keep the lights on the 2nd and 8th floors all the time, but of course now that I've done that, I think it looks kind of weird. So I tried lighting up a few "rooms" in the tower, but not sure that really helps. (For the record, I did illuminate both sides of the corner.) I'm just not sure how to tackle this, because it really isn't an office building, so it's not like a bunch of floors are lit up all the time. Also, the building's not really wide enough to light up only parts of floors. Any ideas?

Also, I'd really love to put some spotlights on the belltower, but I designed this for 1x1 lot and there's no place to put them. Unless I can put them off the BAT... can I? In real life, either there are no lights on the tower at night, or they're on the roofs of surrounding buildings (Hill Auditorium and MLB).

In other logistics, I plan to make both a museum and a landmark version. I think a museum would be the closest thing to what it really is. Also, this will be a first for me, but I want to make a custom query and custom sound upon clicking.

Oh one more nightlight thing: Is there a way to create a red blinking light on the antenna? I wonder these things.

In any case, this will be done soon I PROMISE... I've just been bogged down lately with Real Life:

[hamsterTK 93]

Oh one more nightlight thing: Is there a way to create a red blinking light on the antenna? I wonder these things.quote>

there's a maxis flashing red light effect prop in LE

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull work great detail

[ACEfanatic 7]

Yes, you can place lights outside of the render. Lights don't affect the size of the LODs, only geometry does.

Looking good...

-ACE

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's looking really good!

I think the real building is a bit lighter though. The copper does look funny, but I don't think I have anything better. I think it'll look better if you lighten the stone. Also, it looks like your gradient is all towards the bottom, it would look better if it was spread out more. You should also have a gradient on the ridges going down. The contrast looks nice, but I think there is too much contrast and it becomes distracting.

I think the clock still seems too deep though.

I need to start looking for a place in my city for this, heheh.

[budweiserdude23 80]

As for your texture on the roof, there are some in the Official Texture Thread that might work. Modification might be necessary but they may work for you. If nothing else, it proves a good resource.

I like the clock..I feel it needs to be that depth and it doesn't look squashed. I think if you inset or reduce the depth it will lose the effect. If you made functional it would be the cats ass.

Good luck with the quadratics drinkng Diet Coke...lol.

[nofunk 1,933]

hamsterTK: Thanks, man!! By the way, I like your icon.

jacqulina: I hope you can find a place in Paradise Falls for Burton Tower!

ACEfanatic: Thanks! That's good to know. Spotlights here we come...

Jason: I agree with you on the building textures; I'll lighten them up. I'll work on the gradient too.

budweiser: Y'know, I actually looked at the texture thread and saw some copper roofs. At the time I didn't think they'd work, but let me take a look again. Also, I agree with you on the clock. With all due respect to Jason, who BATs things I couldn't dream of making, I'm afraid if I reduce its depth it will be even less distinct than it is now. We'll see about animating it.

Oh, and I only WISH it was quadratics I was doing... that would be easy. Instead it's upper-level statistics.

[nofunk 1,933]

UPDATE

All right, last preview before I render. I lightened the wall textures and added a little yellow to make it warmer (it was too gray before), tweaked the copper roof texture a little (not sure it made much of a difference, though) and did some work on the nightlights. What do you guys think of the spots?

Now for the modding... this might take me a little while, b/c I've never made custom queries or added sounds to a BAT before. But I'll get it figured out. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe I can release my first BAT by the end of this this weekend!

                        ^ Before ^                         > After >

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It looks great!

It'll make an outstanding first upload.  JB has the BSP querry and you can talk to him about that and the description and stuff.  and of course, remember to put "BSP" infront of the title when you upload it to the stex.  I almost forgot to do that when I uploaded the Detroit Free Press Building.

[nofunk 1,933]

Jason: Thanks, man. Too bad I can't figure out all this modding junk.

UPDATE

OK, so this really isn't an update. I haven't done any work on my BATS since last time. It's due to a HUGE dose of Real Life, and not so small dose of modding frustrations. I've got iLive Reader but can't get it to load properly. It keeps telling me I'm missing files... files that I don't know how to find. And honestly, the official thread is none too helpful.

So then I downloaded DatGen. And I'm about as clueless on that as I am on iLive. So here I am... two good BATs I'd love to upload, and no idea of how to mod them properly. I could follow the iLive tutorial on the omnibus... if I could get the program to work properly.

So I guess this is where things will sit, until I feel like spending an entire weekend trying to figure out how to mod these. Until then... I guess they'll just remain unfinished.

But hey! Here's a neat picture I took in downtown Ann Arbor on Wednesday:

Yay!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I get the same error I think. It doesn't seem to matter.

The thing to keep in mind, is that SC4 files aren't true files, they're just "containers" that hold little tidbits of information. The lots and models and things have ID numbers that link those tidbits of information to them (that's what it means when you hear things like "instance conflicts"). When you mod something, you're just copy and pasting those tidbits of information to your own lot. For example, if you wanted the tower to make big bens sound (for example), you'd copy that tidbit of information from the big ben lot to the burton tower lot. Once I understood that, everything made more sense.

If you send me the stuff I can try to figure out how to make it work.  It'll need to be tested first though, incase I do something wrong.

Nice picture too.

[wolverine 12]

The tower looks amazing!  I love the lighting. 

Glad to finally see a major U of M landmark released soon.

BTW I hate those tables next to the mural.  I'm usually flying by on bike, nearly taking all of them (or taking me) out.

[budweiserdude23 80]

Most of the sidewalk cafes in AA are a pain in the ass. The sidewalks are not large enough for them and they take up 3/4's or more of it width wise. I understand having storefront property to make the extra buck but give me the pedestrian a break.

Hey, nofunk, good luck on modding. i hope you update as you make it through. I used DatGen way back when and it was easy as pie to figure out how to change the instances but the rest was cumbersome and not enough info to make sense of. Hope you make sense of ILive...

[6459978. 106]

Nice model! And even nicer textures! I really like that style of BAT.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hm... if Jason doesn't get it to work, I can mod it for you. That's my specialty anyhow, so why not?

[jacqulina 162]

i am sure there will be a place for it somewhere in paradise falls my friend. i like the new texture colour it does look warmer excellent work

[JBSimio 152]

Looks really good, Nofunk! Good luck with the modding and such. Let me know how you want to do the queries. I can do them for you or just send you the BSP stuff if you'd like to do it yourself.

JB

[wolverine 12]

BTw, just thought I'd post a little extra info on nofunk's Burton Tower.  I found a historical image just after the tower's construction.  I can't believe there were houses up next to it at one time!!

And here  is what the tower was supposed to look like.  Unfortunately, during that time there wasn't a whole lot of money around to construct it:  As you can see it's about 2.5 times taller than the actual built structure.

[nofunk 1,933]

Wolverine: I think I'm glad they didn't build that original design. Sheesh! Talk about overkill.

In other news, everyone who is helping me with Burton Tower rocks my socks and it just might get released before Christmas!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Or in a week or two, lol.

So what exactly is it that you'd like for me to do with Burton Tower?  I didn't notice the name getting cut off in the game (although I might have missed it).  I finished the custom icon.

[spa 968]

Nice tower. Night lighting looks good. To my eyes it looks ready to go.

[nofunk 1,933]

Jason: I'm not sure there was much that needed to be done with it. The custom icon is fantastic, and I know we were talking about a custom query. (Did you talk to JB about it? B/c I pm'ed him a while ago and never heard back.) I figured out how to get it to play Big Ben's audio on click (did you notice?), and think I tweaked all the parameters right for both. I guess if everything looks good to you, then all it needs is the custom query.

In my game the title cut off on the museum plop, but maybe it's just my game? It was just that last letter.

I think what I really need help with is the Borders. That's where I need to create a Cs$$ ploppable and am having problems figuring it out in iLive.

spa: Thank you! Yeah, the model is done, it's just the in-game stuff that is still being tweaked. Hopefully you'll be able to download it very soon!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Originally posted by: nofunk I think what I really need help with is the Borders. That's where I need to create a Cs$$ ploppable and am having problems figuring it out in iLive.quote>

PM me.

[nofunk 1,933]

UPDATE

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I last updated, but over the past week there have been some major developments. Simtropolis MVPs Jasoncw, JBSimio and T Wrecks have all stepped up to help me get Burton Memorial Tower and Borders Books modded and ready for upload to the STEX. Keep your fingers crossed: these might be available for download by the end of the week!

 

The other big news, although perhaps a little premature on my part, is that I've begun work on Detroit's Cadillac Tower! This, along with the Burton Tower, was one of my first two BAT attempts. And just like the first Burton Tower, there really isn't much worth salvaging from the first Cadillac Tower. So I start anew!

Here is a sneak peak. Granted, it's not much, but it will be!

And here is what I hope to achieve:

A brief history: the Cadillac Tower is a Beaux Arts skyscraper located in downtown Detroit, Mich. It was built in 1927 and stands 40 floors (437 ft; 133 m) above Cadillac Square. At the time it was built, it was the first building outside of New York and Chicago to have 40 floors. However, it is probably most famous for the 14-story mural of Detroit Lions player Barry Sanders. (The mural was retired in 2000.) It now houses Detroit's Planning and Development Dept.

Shockingly enough, the building will stand on a 2x2 lot in Sim City. I wasn't sure my calculations were right on this, but Jasoncw confirmed it:

(Image courtesy of Jasoncw)

[T Wrecks 10,209]

And here are some shots of the lot design I came up with - I thought I might as well post them in public. I took some liberties to get the lot to look less bland, and I moved the building back from the road a bit to gain some space. There are also people standing around, but they hadn't appeared yet when I took the pictures.

            

 

 

Let me know what you think...    

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull news about the tower its excellent,t wrecks the building looks really great in game

[cammo2003 20]

nofunk: Everything's looking really good. I really like that clock tower BTW, it'll definitely find a place in my next region.

T Wrecks: Great lotwork! It's simple, but gets the job done. You need to get a *touch* more patient with the peds though...

I really like the look of that Cadillac building btw, nofunk. What are you going to do about that blank wall though?