NEBB BAT thread

[patriots_1228 51]

okay lol i just woke up, its 7:54 am for me. good luck with the render, and for the jobs check out simgoobers making functional landmarks tutorial.

[benvoliothefirst 36]

Hey NEBB! (Yeah, I'm addressing the whole team here, I guess!)

I'm glad there's a New England team! I'm originally from Manchester, NH, now living in Keene, and I'd love to see more stuff like this.

I have one major complaint... I am a GROWABLE fanatic, and very rarely use ploppables or landmarks... sounds like the team is still hunting for a modder, but when and if you do, I'd love to see more growable lots. Seeing Shaws...'s pop up all over my cities would make me very happy!

P.S. That 111 Huntington is coming along great! I think the windows are a little too blue, myself, but it's hard to tell until it's in a city backdrop.

[patriots_1228 51]

thanks, nice to see a new (or old, maybe this is just the first time you stopped by) fan. if you want i can tell you how to make growables outta the old NEBB uploads. it takes about a minute all it requires is the plugin manager. all of my future uploads will be growable, but only if they are small enough. some of my uploads have been too big for growables!

were doing okay at the modding spot, i can do things like TE or add jobs, and scotty said hes going to learn it, but it would be nice to have a full time modder who could do some custom querys. yea the windows are hard on this one. some days its pure blue, other days a really reflective light blue, and some times almost navy. im going to do a draft export just to see how the texture looks in a city.

thanks for stopping by!

[Jasoncw 11,841]

The include/exclude feature in Gmax is broken.

You can only have one color nitemap, but you can have an unlimited number of colors for normal nitelites. 

Patriots, you made the window frames by checking the "display mesh" box on a spline, right?  Above where the checkbox is, there are the thickness sides and angle settings.  Sides is how many sides it has.  Angle is the angle it is rotated.  For some reason, by default, at 4 sides, the spline makes a diamond shape, so you need to rotate it by 45 degrees to make it a square shape.

[patriots_1228 51]

ooo darn. i convert everything to editable mesh once i finish the frames. wut should i do?? can i still do wut you said?

[scotty222 549]

Render sucessful ill try to do the lotting and modding today

so it might be out tonight

[patriots_1228 51]

sweet. so by tonight you mean like 12 hours from now?

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 ooo darn. i convert everything to editable mesh once i finish the frames. wut should i do?? can i still do wut you said?quote>

Nope. 

I would redo them (just the thick ones), but that's me.

[scotty222 549]

that would probably be sunday morning for all you americans

[scotty222 549]

Found render problem gonna have to wait two weeks as models on a different PC

heres what i mean

zoom 4

as you can see its fine

zoom 5

u can see the problem

its only at zoom 5

[patriots_1228 51]

yea that happens to me sometimes. if you want you can send me the model and i can export it and send that back

edit :  Did u ask a mod about this problem? or post it in the troubleshooting thread?

[patriots_1228 51]

111 huntington- ive fixed the track, done some tidying up to the frames, mostly extending them so they cover the whole area they are supposed to. Ive also done the light brown things that kinda connect the tower to the base. ill show a pic soon, once i get the shape of the base done.

[cogeo 960]

@scotty222: The rendering problem is caused by model/texture IDs conflict with the ingame (or other) models/textures.

Here is how this works (I assume you know what the Type/Group/Instance IDs are):

- For a brand new model, BAT will generate a new Group ID, based on the model name and date of render. The instance IDs range will be 0x0003xyzw where x is the daytime/nightmask bias (0=daytime model, 8=nightmask), y is the zoom level (0-4), y is the rotation aspect (0-3), and w is normally 0, but there can be more instances (1,2, and so on) for large models, when BAT needs to split the textures into more than one parts.

- If you export again, the same Group ID will be used, but the instance IDs will now be in the 0x0004#### range, then 0x0005#### and so on. If this is left as is, after many exports the range will finally hit values like 0x0020#### or 0x0030####. At this point this can cause conflicts eith the ingame Maxis stuff. The TGI IDs are contained in the exported model's filename, so you don't need to open the model in the Reader to see the IDs.

The problem is that BAT appears to have problems determining whether a model is "brand new". It is often the case that exports of completely new models just keep increasing the Instance ID (Group ID remains the same) instead of starting over normally.

To overcome this, Maxis has released a new ID generating script (available on the simcity site). This new script generates a new Group ID for EVERY export. However this "solution" can actually cause more (and worse) problems than it was supposed to solve: as the instance IDs will always be 0x0003#### (the Type IDs are fixed anyway), the ONLY differentiating factor is the Group ID, a four-byte integer. That is conflicts are much more likely! Indeed, just take a look on the various BATs and prop-packs on the STEX, most of them have an instance ID of 0x0003####. With all these BATs and prop packs, it is very likely that you will encounter conflicts sooner or later. It's insane that a whole Group ID is used up for even the tinyest prop (btw have you seen how many props SimGoober's and jestarr's prop-packs contain). I tried this new script and reverted to the original, because despite its problem with IDs, this CAN be controlled.

Have a look at my prop packs on the STEX. They use IDs orderly. Each one has its own Group ID, and instance IDs use up all available ranges, 0x0003####, 0x0004####, 0x0005#### and so on (no gaps). Furthermore, as most models on the STEX (made by other BATters) use the 0x0003#### range, I'm considering not using this range at all, instead start with 0x0004####, so as to avoid conflicts.

How can this be done:

- The IDs to be used are recorder in the registry, so open the Registry Editor and got to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Maxis\SimCity 4\Tools. There are two entries there, User Group ID and Model ID. The former is the Group ID and the later the instance ID of the new (next) export. You will notice that for each export Model ID is increased by 0x00010000.

- By changing these values, you can control the IDs to be used.

So, for a new model:

- First of all go to your Plugins folder and delete your older model files. These are conidered "garbage", possibly causing conflicts, so you may want to get rid of them.

- Open the Registry Editor, go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Maxis\SimCity 4\Tools and delete both the User Group ID and Model ID entries (don't just clear their values, delete the entries completely).

- Now run the Gmax/BAT program, and start exporting your model (scene). BAT will generate a new Group ID (unique), but the instance ID will be 0x00010000. This is wrong, so cancel the export (as Gmax is not responsive while exporting, you would better kill the gmax process by using the Task Manager). Don't wait for your model to export, it's gonna be scrapped anyway.

- Go to your Plugins folder and delete the (partially) exported model. It will be easy to identify it, by the export time and the instance ID in its filename.

- Go to the Registry Editor again and check the new IDs. If you hadn't closed the Registry Editor before these may not show up. In such a case just move to another key and refocus on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Maxis\SimCity 4\Tools key again. This is not a bug, just the screen is not updated automatically, so by refocusing on the key they will show normally. Do not change the Group ID, just set the Model ID to 0x00030000 (or better yet 0x00040000, as I explained above).

- So now you have a new Group ID and the model ID id positioned at the "correct" range. Open your scene and export normally. You should get a model that works correctly.

I would advise that you don't let the IDs grow continously, istead if you want to export the same model (after some optimiziations), reset the Model ID to the desired range. This way you can make prop-packs with all props using the same Group IDs and use up all possible instance IDs (no skipped IDs). If you are making single (main building) BATs, again you can use the same Group ID and having only the Instance IDs to make the difference. That is use the Group ID as yours. While BSC keeps Texture ID and Prop-Family ID indexes (ranges are assigned to texture/prop-makers) this is not the case with model IDs (there is no centrally-kept registry). So it is only an act of responsibility if you manage your IDs yourself, and not claim new Group IDs unnecessarily. As explained above, the Maxis "solution" is about to cause problems now or in the future.

Hope this helped. Please let us know the results.

Don't hesitate to ask again or PM me if you have any further questions.

Regards

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Very interesting!

To restart the initial #, could you just merge the model into a new file instead?

[patriots_1228 51]

wow that was an essay!

[ianpaschal 77]

Looking good, but is it just me, or the BAT that makes it look as thought the back area is bent up?

[hydra 4]

What the hell happen there Scotty222?

[patriots_1228 51]

 i did the basic outline on the base, fixed the track, and made the main frames more like they are in RL.

NOT A MOSIAC^^ PIC OF BOTTOM AND  PIC OF TOP

[patriots_1228 51]

new plan- thurs-sat work on base, i want the base to be great, than i work my butt off to get it done by tuesday

[scotty222 549]

i hope you can get a great base on this one and find a good glass texture

it was the biggest problem last time

[patriots_1228 51]

scotty-hows Lincoln coming? wut about Hancawk?

and franky-hows 60 state street?



ive done all the awnings and entrances and worked on the center oval thing a bit, but this is my most recent pic.

scotty-this is the hancawk base. its just the awning pictured and a few revolving doors under.

[scotty222 549]

wow super good stuff man looks great

goin to render lincoln again on wednesday or thursday

thats pretty much wat i got for the bas so far on hancok

cant believe how great huntington looks

Edit: if yore really really  lucky hancok might be tomorow

[jacqulina 162]

great progress here guys

[patriots_1228 51]

scotty- i no im suprised at how well it came out. most of my BATs dont end up any where near wut i visioned. cant wait for hancawk and lincoln to be out. ive reserved a special spot in downtown preston for hancawk and 111 huntington, and im going to use lincoln in the other big city in my region. 

"Edit: if yore really really  lucky hancok might be tomorow "

uploaded tommorow?

jacky-thanks for stopping by!

---

sugestions? all i can think of is to straighten out the big center lines, add window frames all the windows, o and i smoothed out the center ovular part so you cant see the edges sticking out, it looks round now.

[patriots_1228 51]

i finished the base/mall! finished all modeling and texturing! id love to show a pic but i dont have the time im trying to finish this thing ASAP because tonight is my only oppurtunity all week most likely to do a high quality render.

[scotty222 549]

Nevermind it won't be uploaded today i never got round to rendering

its ready to render though

that mall looks way way better than last time

[patriots_1228 51]

uhh i never showed the mall. its that big long glass thing running down the left side. anyway i ran out of time for a high render, so i tried on medium(good quality, doesnt take too long to export), but then my computer froze so i tried it on low(my preview renders are low) and i got a pop up and then that froze it(those who export no that you cant do anything besides walkaway and wait for the render to finish). so im going to do some more nightlighting while i wait for a chance to render.

[scotty222 549]

whooops i mean the base

[scotty222 549]

im gonna try renderin lincoln again fingers crossed

[josefmayor 8]

DANG this is comming out extremley well!