BAT - Troubleshooting & General Discussion

[Jasoncw 11,949]

You could remake the roof.

Try making a plane, and moving the vertexes up to give it a slope. And then give it a UVW map and texture and get that one right. Then clone it, rotate the entire object, and then move the vertexes to make the new piece out of it. That's what I do when I make roofs like that, because I've had the same problem.

[WillG_75 19]

How do I turn the dang shadows off?

You may think that this is a black shape, but it's actually supposed to be bright red, the shadows are just too heavy..

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Right click on the viewport label, and go to properties (I think), and then go to configure. Change the lighting to either one or two light lighting. It's in one of the menus somewhere.

[patriots_1228 51]

When I try to launch BAT i get "Unable to launch application [gmax.exe] [2]"

[Trace 0]

Hello all,

Ive made some lots with fences around them, but when I render them in the BAT they come out to dark to look like shadows from fences. Is there a way to get shadows brighter in BAT?

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done. 

The same thing for glass.  Even if it is only 1% opaque, it will still cast the same dark shadow as if it were completely opaque.

[Trace 0]

Ive managed to solve my fence problem. I rendered the fence as separate props, so now the shadows dont "blur out" all over the ground like they did before and it looks much better... 

[WillG_75 19]

That didn't work, so I tried "Default" lighting, and it worked. Now I have almost no shadow, which is good for me lol.

[DragonofRobare 0]

I'm not a computer person at all ( I once followed every single step in a Visual BASIC guide to write a temperature-conversion program--litterally copying them from the book--and it would only work for Farenhieght to Celsius, never Celsius to Farenhieght) and so I won't bore everyone by asking question after question about every little detail.  Instead I'll ask this: is there a good step-by-step tutorial out there?

[Jasoncw 11,949]

In the omnibus (there's the link to it at the top of the page), there's a tutorial called "BAT Essentials" which sounds like what you want.

[Xstyles 0]

i have a application error when i go to texture a model on windws vista with gmax is there a way to fix it

[JakeMD 107]

Um.. Can you show a pic of the window that comes up? Is it every file format like .jpg, or .png or even .bmp or .bump? What method are you using to texture?

[KingTitan 6]

NO NO NO......Do not go to that site as stated above...registration does not work and you will get the run around... Zegeldis has made it available on in the forums under "Get you Maxis Files Here"

go there friend...you will more pleased.

[JakeMD 107]

Oh, this is so easy to fix. Go to the official sc4 website [http://www.simcity.ea.com/index.php] and get the sku ep1 update, and the Sc4 BAT update. This enables the nightlights to light up at night. And keep adding the prefix nite and nitlite.

[City Planner 121]

Hi,
I've got a problem with night lighting with my models.

I create a model and create windows in them using the normal methods.  These windows are then named nite_window01 or 02 or 03 etc etc etc.

I have enabled the nite lighting in the BAT parameters too.

I render the building and I see that it is rendering the night scenes okay in BAT.  But when in the game the windows just do not light up at night.  I see plenty of other buildings where the windows light up so Im not sure what I could be doing wrong.

I've no problem getting the spot lights to light up at night by renaming them nitelite_Spot and enabling the Nitelitespot. target item so Im lost as to why my windows are not lighting up at night.

Any clues?

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: KingTitan NO NO NO......Do not go to that site as stated above...registration does not work and you will get the run around... Zegeldis has made it available on in the forums under "Get you Maxis Files Here"

go there friend...you will more pleased.quote>

 

WOW, it took me a while to figure out where my question had been moved to, would be great if the forums could keep a redirection thread for stoopid people like myself that don't ask the question in the right thread.  

Anyway...

I've been registered already with them for many years now, so it's not a problem getting in there but... Which files do I actually need?

I installed the game, then installed Rush Hour, then updated the game from their website to version 1.1.638.0 then installed the SC4Update4BAT.exe update too.

If those are the two things that I needed to install to get night lights to work then I've done them already and then my problem must lay in my not doing something right with the models nite windows.  Perhaps they have to be a certain type of object like a plain, or a rectangle, or a box, and perhaps they need to have certain qualities that mine don't??

Anyway, I've already got the two updates so that part I should be good to go on and need to find out why they light up in the preview renderer but not in the game.  If there were a problem with either one of the two updates that have already been installed then I would think that I wouldn't see all the other custom content buildings that I've got in my plugins folder lighting up at night, but I DO see almost every *quality* custom content building made by other people light up at night.

But also, my spotlights don't seem to work properly either, I name them nitelite.Spot01 etc etc and while they do light up at night on my models they also light up during the day time so something seems wacked on my system with this regard.

Any way to run it down on what I skipped and or didn't do properly?

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I PM people when I move their questions, but I just moved yours a few minutes ago and hadn't gotten to sending you a PM yet.

[brtim2 11]

Originally posted by: City Planner

...

I installed the game, then installed Rush Hour, then updated the game from their website to version 1.1.638.0 then installed the SC4Update4BAT.exe update too.

If those are the two things that I needed to install to get night lights to work then I've done them already and then my problem must lay in my not doing something right with the models nite windows.  Perhaps they have to be a certain type of object like a plain, or a rectangle, or a box, and perhaps they need to have certain...

quote>

quote>

So I wasn't sure what your problem was, until I read a post somewhere else on the forums that may explain your predicament.

Maybe. It's worth a shot.

If your building/prop/model is too close to the edge of a lot, it won't light up. It's a limitation that has a workaround (off-set rendering) but you won't actually know it's a problem until you get in game and the building doesn't light up.

Is your building close to the edge of the lot? If it is, try making the lot 2 tiles wider and longer than it has to be and then test it in game.

[WeekendCityPlanner 19]

i was wondering on how do you get sims, or more specifically, modelled people, into gmax. I'm in desperate need for this or my BAt will not have the intended effect I wanted.

[SC4BOY 21]

Use the beginning of THIS THREAD to set up SC4.. all the way down thru installing NAM.. after that its a bit dated, but it gets you off to the right start without skipping any of the necessary stuff.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Originally posted by: Nemesis666 i was wondering on how do you get sims, or more specifically, modelled people, into gmax. I'm in desperate need for this or my BAt will not have the intended effect I wanted.quote>

You'll need to model them unfortunately.  You can probably find some people models to download off the internet.  But they'll probably be proportionately accurate, so they won't look like Sims (although you could modify them to look more like Sims).

[City Planner 121]

Hi,

I don't know what's happened but all of a sudden, when my Gmax is no longer exporting the imported LOD's  to the sc4model file.

I highlight the three lod files in 3dsmax, ad export selected, then close 3dsmax, I then open gmax and import the file that I just exported in 3ds, and i choose merge with current scene and uncheck the checkbox to change the units (size?  I can't remember the exact phrase), and the file imports fine.

Then I do nothing but go to the toolbox, and choose to export the file, it asks if I want to save first and I choose yes, Gmax saves the scene and goes to export it to the sc4model.  It then sits at 13% and never gets any further.  The last time I tried this I got a code error=6 message.  But every other time I've tried it today it's just sat there at 13% and I quit Gmax after 20 minutes.

When this use to work (just the other day) it would take no longer than about 4 to 15 seconds to export the lod files but now, it wont'.

Any clues to the problem?

[SimFox 804]

^^

I would say that your model is too big.

GMAX BAT for some reason can't handle too large of an object. It seems to have some ceiling on memory usage. When it reaches it export crashes. Long time at 13% (first rotation zoom5) is a very good indicator of that problem.

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: SimFox ^^

I would say that your model is too big.

GMAX BAT for some reason can't handle too large of an object. It seems to have some ceiling on memory usage. When it reaches it export crashes. Long time at 13% (first rotation zoom5) is a very good indicator of that problem.quote>

 

^^ I would say that in this case you are correct.  After screwing with things for quite a while longer last night I finally decided to try to scale down the model and see if that helped anything.  And sure enough it went through okay.  While the grid setup was set to Grid Spacing: 1.0m and Major Lines every Nth Grid Line: 16, Apparently I was still designing at a higher level then I should have been, so my model was like 587m wide and 285m deep.  After scaling the model down it came down to 280m wide by xxx deep.  And it exported okay, although it was substantially smaller then I had designed it to be and thus looked not what I had intended in the game so I guess it's just another model to scrap as it was supposed to be a very large building and now it's only a medium building.

Shame that with the size community that SC4 still has, nobody's been able to circumvent this or fix it.  It would be great to actually be able to build a building as large as the lot editor will allow a lot to be..

[Jasoncw 11,949]

The problem is probably with your system units.  Go to customize>Units Setup, and then go to System Units Setup.  Make sure all of the units in 3ds Max and Gmax are Meters.

People have exported massive buildings (I know of at least one that fills up an entire 21x17 lot).  That is within its abilities.  But if the units were wrong and it was actually a 210x170, obviously that would be too big for it to export.

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw The problem is probably with your system units.  Go to customize>Units Setup, and then go to System Units Setup.  Make sure all of the units in 3ds Max and Gmax are Meters.

People have exported massive buildings (I know of at least one that fills up an entire 21x17 lot).  That is within its abilities.  But if the units were wrong and it was actually a 210x170, obviously that would be too big for it to export.quote>

 

I'm a bit confused on that.  You see I think I have the settings all correct but sometimes I don't see to start on a low enough zoom level so Im drawing out boxes and what not on the grid=16 zoom level instead of the grid=1 zoom level.

Screenshot 1:  System Units setup.  I think this is correct, let me know if not.

Screenshot 2: Grid Settings.  If incorrect let me know please.

Screenshot 3: This is the little notifier down at the bottom of max that tells me the size of the grid.  Apparently Im constantly starting to work when it's in the 16 size instead of the 1 size.  I wonder if there is a way to stop it from zooming into the grid=16 zoom levels to prevent my drawing at that level and thus have huge buildings that won't export properly.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Those look fine to me.

When you import the LODs into Gmax, and there's the checkbox about converting units, try doing the opposite of what you did before (checked or unchecked).

Also, if you have a ground plane, and you automatically create the LODs, the LODs will be huge, so make sure that your LODs only surround what they need to.

[savior_25 0]

I have for some time messed around with alot of road things such as barriers lights for motorways etc. And then yesterday I finally got it working correct with the lights... Or atleast for 2 bats. 

As the screenshot shows the big lightpoles have the light working in all directions... which is pretty much is what I wanted or else they are useless... 

But then i wanted to scale them down.. also shown at the pic.. but then the problems is back. Now they only light up in one direction!!!! Why??? The only thing I did was.. 

Scaling the bat to a smaller size refitted lots.. And reset the camera's and lights.. 

What did I do wrong? Cause no matter what I do they wont light up in a smaller scale... And yes I have nightlights eneabled, they are selfpowered due to the solarpanel on top.. and therefore I cant figure out what's wrong due to the fact the work perfectly in a larger scale. Any suggestions to what I did wrong? Also when I preview they work fine. But not when implanted to the game.. Its really a pain in the A..

[nic49548 16]

How do texture faces on a object as opposed to whole objects?

[nic49548 16]

Could you please show me? The "Apply" button on the Gmax Material Editor only textures whole objects.