NEBB BAT thread

[patriots_1228 51]

what? i tried to get the best pic of the thing possible. also, i have this sucurity thing that usually blocks the page so i cant read your comments. after i can finally get in i read them. chill out im not trying to insult anyone if you look at the last couple pages ive been doing everything people suggest. sorry but i dont understand why you think im not listening.

[gerAndi 29]

that looks very cool man

[SimFox 802]

Ok, if I have to spell it out to you...

1.   You have been asked better pictures - read AT LEAST bigger ones - so people could see what they are supposed to comment on. So what do you do? Where are "better" pictures? I guess one issue here is the whole concept of better and bigger may be also of "big enough". Could you yourself try to define them in words. and preferably such that would be understood by most people here - mind you there quite few non-native english speakers so try to use more standard language.

      My opinion is that pictures you post - especially the last ones are , in fact, WORST possible. and here is why: first of all the structure they suppose to show us is still WAY to small! Second those are viewport grabs... Why on earth? There is way to much irrelevant rubbish there – lights, etc…

      Then there is that background there!! What for?? To show to everyone that you’re a Celtic fan? Great, but how is it relevant to what you ACTUALLY do!? It s fighting with your building for attention and, I must say, wins. Don’t you see it? God, you are 13, not 5!!

      Another thing why on earth do you show us all the rest?? I mean programs interface? Are we suppose to comment on your chose of GUI colors? Or be terribly impressed by them? On your last pictures the actual model occupies about HALF of the picture width! HALF!! What the heck are you wasting the rest 400 pixels on??

      Picture is reduced in size and it is done in way WORST POSSIBLE! Details, or what ever those are on your building are completely eaten away! Shadows… what shadows? To crown all this on the second picture lower corner of building is altogether cut off, while 40% of viewport space above occupied by the mascot face and on the left empty altogether, when on the right your building almost collides with the GUI frame. And you say these are the best you could do!? Do you actually respect your own work? The hours you’ve spend making it, that you post such a presentation of it?

      This is only my comments on the actual picture you’ve posted.

      Another issue altogether is the choice of what sort of picture to post. Why is it viewport? Or thumbnail preview? What happens to normal Zoom5 or at least 4 previews?

2.   I seriously doubt existence of “this security thing”. This site was simply not working a lot of the times. So you don't have any particular problem. It is common to everyon.

3.  Respecting others doesn't mean doing everything they say you to do. Slave does everything that Master says - does that, in your mind, mean he RESPECTS his master?

[patriots_1228 51]

no i have some stupid Mcafee thing that blocks it, when my sister leaves herself on so theres two accounts on it gets messed up and doesnt work, so thats when i read.(no more problem we are on page 7 now , musta been somthing someone said. as for the veiwport, I cant get the whole thing to fit into a zoom 4 or 5 in the preview render. The celtics thing is there because the celtics play in there, so i just thought id make the pic a little less ulgy by getting rid of the gray background. sorry i dont no if you no, but its a little harder to take nice pics in GMAX than 3ds or wutever. As for the english thing, i cant help that, i dont like to sound all proper and stuff online.

oh and as for the celtics thing fighting for attention and wins......the celtics are the worst team in the league and have only won 3 times in there last 30 games

anyway once i get the rail tracks transit enabled ill start taking ingame pics for you guys.

[SimFox 802]

Oh My!! You’re sharing you computer with your sister?? That’s weak!!

Anywho, can’t help you with McAfee don’t use it myself, but I’m sure there are some ways to set it to work right. Simplest, I bet, would be to log-on to your own account…

About your whole building not fitting into ANY zoom preview render –is utter and total rubbish! Preview render window is automatically created to fit the structure you’re making so it will be as big as necessary to cover the whole scent you’ve created.

Adding unnecessary junk (sorry if it hurts if you’re Celtic fan, but here this logo is a junk) doesn’t make anything look any better. Grey background is a best you can have as it is neutral and doesn’t clash with anything. Remember you’re not doing presentational shot here. It is a technical one for people to see elements of your work and comment on them. When you’ll be done you can present it in anyway you want and I wouldn’t comment on the method then.

May be if you would stay away with rubbish words like “wutever” (I know you’re 13 and it seems all so cool, but trust me it isn’t) you would find that way. But speaking and thinking this way you mentally accept that there isn’t a solution. This way you’ll never get anywhere. What’ve happened to “if you don’t succeed at first - try and try again!”. And notion that you “can’t help” something doesn’t help either. It is all so common excuse for not even trying. I personally find nothing wrong with expressing yourself creatively – in what ever form you may find fit. Including verbally. But there is one big BUT. Creativity doesn’t mean inability, in fact those two are just opposites.

For you information it is much easier for YOU to make a proper preview of your model in GMAX then for most people in 3ds MAX. All it takes for you is to press one button and then sit and wait – no brain activity required. Fro people on MAX there is a need to determine how and what to do to get things right size as same buttons as in GMAX do not work – scripts running then haven’t been adjusted.

Again – that absolutely pointless info on Celtic… to be honest I don’t give a flying … about them.

 

BTW your up awfully early, or should be - awfully late???

PS just leave it now rendering Zoom5 day and night preview (two takes about same time as one unless you use lots on lights in the scene) and then I could help you to get in into the right size to publish here.

[patriots_1228 51]

wutever.........lol. actually im on february vacation(for one more day) and its 8:26 for me.

one more year till i get the computer by myself thank god!

and this whole celtics thing is getting taken a little to seriously see the thing about boston fans are we get overly obsessed with are teams and try to fit them in our lives however possible, and usually end up getting really depressed when we realize we wasted a whole year only to watch them lose.

so um.....lets get back to BATting.

[lrfox 2]

Simfox- I understand your frustration and i tend agree with your comments on the pictures and the logo. I think you should probably take it a little easier on Patriots- he's improved greatly on the BAT, and is still very young by most Simtrop users' standards. I've read your posts in this and other threads and you clearly know a great deal more than myself and probably many of the users on here, and you make MANY good points.

In my opinion the Simcity and the BAT are games, meant for the user to enjoy in whichever way they please. While for us, the logo on the back may not be pleasing, for Patriots, it is. It's his project, and being so, it's his choice on what he uses for a background. Again, I agree with many (if not most of your observations), but some of what you're saying is borderline rude if not offensive. Constructive criticism is important, and is half the reason BATers create threads, but you have gone slightly overboard in expressing your annoyance with this BATer. If you feel your constructive advice isn't being heeded, and you don't like what's happening with this thread, then you're more than welcome to not read it/ post in it. It would be a shame if Patriots lost your support completely because you clearly have an extensive knowlegde of the BAT, but you may want to consider showing a little more patience.

-Lrfox

Patriots- The Garden is looking good, and despite some of the rudeness, Simfox is right at about much of what he said. I can't help with Mcafee, i use Symantic (it's total trash). setting up your own account (assuming your using some version of XP) would be a good idea to create your own settings,... you can even go onto your own account while your sister's is still up. keep it up, looking forward to more updates soon... cheers!

[blahdy 21]

SimFox:  Please, chill out.

I agree with a number of your comments regarding the merits of BAT and picture contents, but everyone has to start somewhere.  You are an experienced modeller, while patriots_1228 is new to this and improving, so give him a little break, eh?  It's nice to hear your constructive criticisms many times as they are helpful to consider, but there is no need to go overboard and turn it into yelling and screaming match.

[lrfox 2]

Hey Patriots- I didn't see the last BankNorth Garden update you posted on page 6 before i posted earlier (sorry for not looking hard enough). MAN! it looks really good. it's funny when i go back to page one and look at your 111 Huntington, and then look at this; you've clearly progressed a lot. Nice work, looking forward to more updays.

[patriots_1228 51]

wow i finally(after 3 days of browsing the forums, turns out the answer was in THE TUTORIALS THAT WERE ONE CLICK AWAY FROM WERE I ORIGINALLY LOOKED, the help section of the sc4tool. anyway it works , i think i may go back and change things on the model, plus make some props that are there in real life. The lots pretty much like the real one, i made a version with all the parking lots, a road that connects to the park garage and of course the rails, than a version with just the building on it. 

lrfox(1)- thanks, that pretty much  said everything i was thinking. 

blahdy- thanks, even though its in a little rude (i cant beleive im using that word! am i turning into my parents??) i understand what he means and i finally have some better pics.

lrfox(2)- yea i think its not that ive got any better, its just that im putting more effort into detail and stuff. a month ago, i woulda uplaod the td the minute i had the shape down.

on to pics the first is far away, sorry bout the power plant but i had for the cars to show.

little closer

heres the front up close

just looking at it i think the writing on the side needs to be less bright, and the entrance thing needs to lose the awning. heres the side with the tracks, i need to put up a fence around the outsides of the parking lot and make the white things neater.

maybe i should bat them out as props, those look a bit ugly. heres the side, with the bud ad and all!

and.......oh boy.....big problem. bet you guys can find it easily.


and finally heres another pic.

o and it looks like the cars are parked under the wall!

please comment!

[lrfox 2]

Patriots- I think the building is looking awesome. i also like the platforms pertruding from under the station. One simple request... could you leave out the parking lot on the South side of the Garden (the side opposite the train platforms)? Again, it's your building and you should do what you want, but i would like to be able to create my own parking in the game (i'm trying to create my own accurate Boston replica). if not, it's fine too.

Suggestions: not too many, you've done an awesome drive, but on the West side of the station, where you have the "North Station" sign... 1) could you make the writing a little smaller. as it is now, it looks like the letters ate like 15 feet high. maybe half or 1/3 that size. and also, on the same side, a couple more doors would be nice. if i remember correctly, there are a lot more entrances over there. in anycase, it looks awesome.

One more question lol: is this going to be a functioning station, and are there gonna be jobs? basically, how do you plan on setting this up?

Finally, nice work w/ the pics, i can really see a lot of detail in there.

[patriots_1228 51]

sure i actually should do that, it just takes up space. writing smaller, defintely, doors should go where? next to the little green awnings? it wont function as a station, cuz i have no clue how to do that, and if i learn how ill add a version with jobs.

[teemu_om 47]

It's looking pretty good! The train tracks seem to stop awkwardly at the walls, I think you should put rail road textures under the building and the same goes for the road too. You can do this easily in the lot editor, just cut the "floor" or whatever is that thing under the building before rendering the model. Also, if you want cars to show up when they go under the building, you need to cut a hole in the LODs in the area where the road is. The easiest way to achieve this is to use boolean.

[lrfox 2]

Yeah, doors next to the green awnings in a couple of spots. i know for sure there are doors on the right hand side of that facade (i used them to pick up my girlfriend coming from Porltand, ME on the DownEaster' a while back). i also agree with teemu_om's comment on the tracks. i didn't even notice until he said something. in anycase it really does look good. nice work.

[patriots_1228 51]

i fixed every error i think. now im going to do some things ive never done before. custom UI(the window that pops up if you click it with the query) a version with Jobs, and ........thats it. btw i made a threat to sue anyone who uploads it on sc4.com on the lot description, i dont think they are gonig to realize im thirteen and dont have a lawyer I just get really ticked off when i see myv stuff uploaded there.

[lrfox 2]

that sounds like some good stuff. people shouldn't be allowed to upload other people's stuff w/o permission, i dunno if "threat" is the right thing to do, but asking them not to is smart.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Those pirate kids on simcity.com won't mind anyway, neither will EA. However, you can prevent them from uploading your stuff there (or at least make it considerably harder) by simply deleting the XML transcriptions of any exemplar files...

[nofunk 1,933]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks Those pirate kids on simcity.com won't mind anyway, neither will EA. However, you can prevent them from uploading your stuff there (or at least make it considerably harder) by simply deleting the XML transcriptions of any exemplar files... quote>

 

I thought that simply deleting the .bmp and .jfif files from the model was enough to accomplish this?

[Jasoncw 11,841]

The way things overlap is because your LODs aren't fitted close enough.  On the right pane, there is a tab with a hammer on it (where you go to take your preview renders).  Then there is a rollout named "parameters" that you need to click on.  From there, there should be a button called "refit LODs" or something like that.

For your building, you are making good progress on it, but I think it's far from being done.

First, if you haven't already, download Google Earth (you can search google for it), and use the measure tool (in the tools menu) to measure the dimensions of the real building.

You can use photographs to find out the proportions of the building and its details, and from google earth you have the measurements of certain parts.  Together, you can judge the dimensions of other parts of the buildings.

Also, pay attention to how big you model some things.  You'll need to exaggerate certain details a little bit (window frames need to be a little thicker than in real life or they don't show up), but for most things, modeling them accurately will look better.  And speaking of window frames, make sure you put them in!  They're often overlooked, but buildings always look better with them in.  Double check the proportions of the signs, and roof junk.  Some of the details look too big and blocky.

As for the car props, you won't be able to make anything better.  Making new car props would be a project by itself for me, and I know it would be for you too.

But you're doing good.  Just make sure to keep pushing yourself on some of those core things (proportions are very important), and everything you do will get 10 times better.  And of course if you ever have any questions, just ask.

[patriots_1228 51]

30 minutes till sox game! anyway im not going to do personal replys that would take an hour, basically, thanks to everyone for the tips and comments.

im pretty much done, just a few things left to do, ive fixed most of the problems.

my next three projects will be quincy market, and some office parks(2)

[scotty222 549]

Ive decided to move away from the boston buildings for a while

so my next builiding is from providence rhode island

Its Textron tower

[lrfox 2]

Scotty- looking good so far, i like it. I actually used to live in Providence (on George St. right accross from one of the Science buildings at Brown Univ.) so i'm very familiar with it. good to see some Prov. representation on here. and pretty soon, Prov. will have a new tallest building... the 110 building downtown is under construction and slated to be the tallest by 2009. keep it up w/ this one though nice work.

[patriots_1228 51]

hmm nice to see the New England part of NEBB getting some attention. good luck.

what do you guys thing for jobs. 1000 good?

[lrfox 2]

1,000 is plenty. somewhere between 700 and 800 CS$$ (or like 100-200 CO$$$ if you want to pretend it's for the bruins/ Celtics officials or players) either way sounds good.

[patriots_1228 51]

well sad news, i cant get the jobs to work or the custom UI. Good news: i broke a personal record for longest work on a Bat, 11 days lol.

i may upload now or tonight if i feel like it. then im going to probably start working on my first office park tomarrow if its a snow day.(which hopefully it will be).

[patriots_1228 51]

tis up!

[lrfox 2]

nice work... already downloaded it, i think i'm the first download actually. Which office park are you doing next? 11 days is getting up there, but i think you're seeing that good things take patience. JBsimio, Jasoncw, and the other BATers take forever tweaking and perfecting their buildings. but i like the garden... looks awesome.

[patriots_1228 51]

thanks the first office park will be based on some ones near my home.

thats nearby, cant get a good pic.

this is my favorite building in my hometown, may do it also.

[patriots_1228 51]

where theres the curve im putting a big galss entrance.

[lrfox 2]

looks like a good start w/ can use more suburban offices in the game.