BAT - Troubleshooting & General Discussion

[SimFox 802]

Well, I don't thing that are any (tuts) but then again, you shouldn't limit your search to BAT tutorials only. You don't slice BAT, you slice piece of geometry with a slice modifier, for instance...

Only special point comes when you have to export that piece. There are few considerations. These are obvious to me:

1. would it be single lot or multiplr lots plopped together (building of that size wouldn't be growable, now, would it?

2. internal shadows. eg shadows cast by building on itself. If there are such how should this be dealt with.

3. in case of multi lot approach should all the lots be same by type and function?

[patriots_1228 51]

Delija, you should probably wait for someone a little more familiar with the topic to answer, but i think to slice it into peices you just have to split the LODs in half or fourths, (in other words, look at your BAT, make 4 quadrants, then create a set of LODs for each quadrant, and render those.) then once everythings rendered, you can just put it back together in LE.

[jayo 44]

I was very happy today when i lighted and exported my model only to find when i oppened LE,this happened-There was bug like this in philipbbo's tutarial tips and trick appendix section and i did what it said and re-exported and still...What do you suggest is happening-I think its something to do with the lighting rig.

[JakeMD 107]

If I remember right, its a LOD issue. Make your own, and re-render it.

[SimFox 802]

I don't believe it is a LOD issue.

What it is IMHO is a ID conflict/mismatch. To remedy it if you are making your BAT in GMAX merge all the contents of your scene bar TB2 handler into new one and export it again - you'll get brand new set of IDs. If you making it in MAX then just delete old LODs make new one export them to GMAX and make New SC4Model file.

[madhatter106 3,905]

I'm a newbie to gmax, and I've been searching through the threads for a while, but haven't found any info as to my current problem...

I'm attempting to create a roof which requires modifying intersecting planes.  I've stumbled around trying to get rid of the portions of the planes that I don't want, but haven't been able to figure it out.  I'm attaching a screen capture in gmax and a ref pic of what I'm trying to do...





So I've created two spline rectangles, attached Edit Spline and Edit Mesh to them.  How do I get rid of the portions A and B, while still retaining the portions 1 and 2 of these two planes?

Many thanks to all you gurus of BATing and gmax....I look forward to a reply...

[SimFox 802]

Well you just don't do roofs, or for that manner anything from the planes. Plane is good only for , well, plane... Anything what has a volume you do from standard primitives that do have volume in a first place.

For instance you roof would be much much easier to make from box. Create one, convert it into either mesh or poly and then collapse top vertices and pull them. And voil

[madhatter106 3,905]

Well, after I posted, I was messing around with the Editable Poly vertexes, and was able to basically do what you described.  In hindsight, I agree it would be easier to work with a standard primitive rather than a spline, but since I was going to add roof edging to add to the appearance of volume/thickness/extrusion, I just stuck with the edited splines, UVW mapped them, applied the texture, and went about creating my edging...

Thanks for the confirmation - now I'm back to the roof! :-)

[nihonkaranws 88]

I created a nice detailed Asian block building to be part of my upcoming NipponCityBlock pack. I saved it, and then closed the BAT. When I opened the file, it read: "Failed to open file." What's up, and is there any way to get it to open?

[Jasoncw 11,933]

Not that I know of. Look in the BAT - Mega FAQ to see how to avoid this in the future.

[jayo 44]

Hi

Thanks for the help all-

But i've had a tiny problem while learning to use lattice-Well i've done everything but i don't actually have a mesh settings roll out.What do suggest has happened and how should i fix this.

[SimFox 802]

Nihonkarawans:

GMAX or MAX, whatever you're using does save back-up files. so if your project file doesn't open you may try one of those. By default there are 3 stage of them and those are saved every 5 minutes and they are located in .../autoback folder. So you should have 15 last minutes of your work there. It might be a good idea to go and set bigger number of saves (in Preferrences->Files), say 5-7...

Lattice modifier - is a great EVIL! One of those gimmicks created in Marketing departments. Stay away from it! the mess it creates is unjustifiable. All the same could be accomplished by other tools in times comparable and cleanly!

[KurtangleTN 10]

I have a quick problem, I found this pretty awesome .3ds file that I imported into GMAX, put on a nice park, and everything looks great, but the problem is that it's not visible from the first level zoom (furthest out) It's fine on the 2nd level, but as soon as you go to the furthest out it just disappears.

Any reason?

[Jasoncw 11,933]

KurtangleTN: Select everything in your scene, go to file>save selected, and save it as something. Then start a new scene in gmax, and go to file>merge and merge in what you had saved. Then re-export.

[KurtangleTN 10]

Thanks for the reply Jason, it didn't seem to work.     

Just to give a visual with my description I uploaded a picture of it.

[Jasoncw 11,933]

It looks like you made it as a prop in the plugin manager. By default, they don't show at the farther zooms, because props were intended to be things like planters and benches. To change this, open the prop in the plugin manager, and there should be a property somewhere (you might need to look through the different tabs) about displaying at certain zoom levels.

[KurtangleTN 10]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw It looks like you made it as a prop in the plugin manager. By default, they don't show at the farther zooms, because props were intended to be things like planters and benches. To change this, open the prop in the plugin manager, and there should be a property somewhere (you might need to look through the different tabs) about displaying at certain zoom levels.quote>

Ah you are correct! Thanks a ton! I forgot all about that.

[Jasoncw 11,933]

KurtangleTN: No problem.

3ds Max conversation: I moved it to the 3ds Max troubleshooting thread.

[DarkEldar 6]

We don't really have any how-to threads about planes and trains. There are some tutorials on tutorialized.com on planes, and if you search google for one about trains you should find one. A lot of the MS Train Sim fan sites might have a tutorial on modeling trains.

[Gahagan 0]

I've been looking for the better part of the day, but I can't seem to find any tutorial threads for how to create new car/train/plane and other "odds and ends" graphics within SC4.  I'd like to get into some car and train detailing, to replace the defaults in the game with more realistic and visually pleasing models, but I don't see any how-to threads.

Anyone got some links, or if there aren't any, some pointers?  I've got BAT, gmax, and the plugin manager, and I'm somewhat familiar with how to use them.

[Jasoncw 11,933]

Do you want to make automata (the 3D vehicles you see in the game, some of which you can drive in U Drive It), or do you want to make props, like what you see in the Lot Editor? You might want to look for "automata" in that case.

Either way you'll have to model it using Gmax. As far as I know, Simtropolis doesn't have any tutorials about modeling those types of vehicles. The method you'll want to use is called "polygon modeling" so you'll want to search google for "polygon modeling in gmax" or something along those lines. If you want to you can search for vehicle specific tutorials. Planes and cars and things are pretty common subjects for tutorials.

If worst comes to worst, you can search for 3ds Max (the non-free version of Gmax) tutorials, but keep in mind that those tutorials may use tools which aren't available in Gmax, or which might be at different locations in Gmax.

[Skyline19952006 1]

I was wondering how you would make a car or train in Bat and how you would be able to use it in the game. If anyone could show me a page in the onmibus or tell me how i would really apreciate it. Thanks.

[jayo 44]

I belive its called polygon modeling-Type something into google like polygon modeling in gmax and you'll get a tutorial.

Also i think you should look around for similar threads as theres one just down the page

[Cockatoo 2,257]

Hi guys, I've just got two basic questions about lighting and shadows that have been bugging me for a while and I'd really appreciate it if someone could provide me with an answer.

1) As you can see in the picture below, the smaller cube is casting quite a dark shadow onto the larger cube. Is there any way in Gmax to totally stop selected objects from casting shadows onto other objects?

2) I've got an Omni just sitting off the top right hand corner of the smaller cube, but as you can see, it's also illuminating the cube behind it. Is there any way to totally exclude all other objects so that the omni only shines on the objects that I want it to.

Thanks.

[Jasoncw 11,933]

You can do those things in 3ds Max, but as far as I know you can't do them in Gmax.

[Cockatoo 2,257]

I'm starting to really hate Gmax ... compared to all this stuff I'm hearing about 3ds Max anyway... Might be time to get a copy.

Anyway, are you absolutely sure, I'm sure I read somewhere that there's a way to make the light only shine so far... might that be a good alternative way to get what I'm trying to achieve?

[Jasoncw 11,933]

You can totally do that for problem 2, but not for problem 1.

[Cockatoo 2,257]

Okay then, how would you do that to an Omni light?

[KurtangleTN 10]

Hate to bug you guys again but I decided a nice touch would be to add some nighting effects on the model, and so far so good, but when I export it to SC4 and place it in my city, it doesn't light up. I have power to it, and I export it and place it as a building (not sure if this matters) am I missing a setting in the Bat, Plugin manager or Lot Editor?

[Jasoncw 11,933]

Cockatoo, I could be wrong, but I think it's the same as for other types of lights. The BAT Essentials tutorial has a list of all of the properties.

KurtangleTN, it sounds like you're doing it right. Is it only your building that is not lighting up? If all BATs (even ones you download from the STEX) are not lighting up at night, it means you need to make sure you get all of the updates from the official website.