BAT - Troubleshooting & General Discussion

[penguins87 21]

Hello, I am new to using the boards so I hope I posted this in the right place, if I didn't please tell me where to post. I am not too familiar with gmax or the BAT but I have created a building. It is supposed to be an actual restaurant from a restaurant chain and I am wondering how to put the company's logo on the building. I am looking for an example to add the logo the way, for example, Kevdan25 puts the logos on the restaurant chains. Thanks for the help.

[Karkus 0]

Hello everyone. I have a question, Is it possible for me to just download other buildings that other people have made? I'm interested in getting the really tall office and residential towers. PLease help me as i am new to simcity 4. Oh, P.S. I'm not playing rush hour, just simcity 4.

[nihonkaranws 88]

@penguins87:

To apply images (known as 'textures'), simply open up the material editor in Gmax (the red sphere), choose 'new', and pick bitmap and then your image, and click apply. To adjust the position of the texture, select your object and go modifiers > UV coordinates > UVW map. From here, you can use the 'gizmo' or simply the predefined editable settings.

@Karkus:

This isn't actually the right topic, but... Do add a BAT to your game: download the file, right-click it and choose unzip. Then copy all files in that folder, and paste in My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins. But unfortunately, you must have Rush Hour or Deluxe for these addons to work in your game.

[kelvinylv 0]

Hi,

Which Gmax version are you using? As after I installed Gmax v1.2 and BAT, A pop up message said that gmaxloc environment variable is not found when I open the BATlauncher. Anyone encounter this problem before? Pls help...

Thanks.

[penguins87 21]

Hi, I've got another problem.  I finished my model which looked nice.  I scaled it down due to the fact it was huge.  I centered it on (0,0) and Z on 4.  When I exported it, it will not appear in the lot editor.  In its properties on the plug-in manager, it is very large, but gmax won't let me scale it down any more.  It is about 42 by 71.  If I look at other plugins, the dimensions are all 0.  why is this happening?  Could someone tell me how to scale this to the right size and make it so it appears.  Thanks

[nihonkaranws 88]

Can you show us an image?

You might have made it too big... Click on one of your BAT's objects and see how big it is. One SC4 Tile is 16x16 meters, but you might have accidentally used 256m.

If you continue to get this problem, you can close Gmax and re-open into a new scene. Then choose file > merge, and select your BAT. Then save as something else, and try again.

If it still doesn't work, you are most likely making a mistake.

[JakeMD 107]

@penguins87:

I suggest you make sure that you are using the right scale. You must resize the lot in order for a large building to appear in the buildings menu as well.

[nihonkaranws 88]

@Kelvinylv: You need to browse for the Gmax program directory.

[kelvinylv 0]

Problem solve...Thanks

[_Atticus 10]

I have a really *****ish question, but whatever, here it goes.

I'm still learning the BATing basics, and I've done a few tutorials and stuff. But whenever I extrude my splines they stay transparent. I the tutorial I'm following, as soon as they are extruded they become solid. What's wrong. Thanks in advance.

-Pingangster

[Jasoncw 11,840]

This means that some of your vertexes are not welded together.

So, let's say you have a pen, and you're drawing letters to extrude. In order for it to extrude and be capped, it needs to be a closed shape. So if you draw the letter "o" it will extrude and be capped off. If you draw the letter "c" it is not closed and won't be capped off. The c isn't really a shape, it's just a curved line. Now lets say that you tried to draw the letter o, but your pen didn't go all the way to the starting point and there's a little gap. Since it's not closed, it's still technically a c shape, even though from a distance to us, it looks like an o.

So you need to weld all of your vertexes together to ensure that it is a closed shape. So, go into your spline, select all of the vertexes, and then in the right pane menu there is a button called weld, and a number next to it. If you click that button while you have vertexes selected, it will weld together any vertexes that are that number's distance from each other. By default it's .1, so if you have unwelded vertexes within .1 meters of each other, they will be automatically welded.

[JakeMD 107]

If you extrude any spline, lets say a line, you must turn it into an editable mesh and flip its normals to see it.

Nevermind, looks like jason has you covered.

[nihonkaranws 88]

Make sure that when you want to change a spline to a solid, you connect it up. You can't extrude a spline with no connection to itself. Make sure that, when you draw the spline towards its beginning, that you say 'okay' for the pop-up 'close spline?'.

[_Atticus 10]

Wow thanks for all the quick replies! It makes sense now.

-Pingangster

EDIT: My splines are closed. The problem is that they extrude (they become 3D), but they don't become solid (they're still see-through).

I made a rectangular spline as a test in a new file, and the same thing happened. It became 3D, but not solid. I'm confused.

[penguins87 21]

How come after I export, mymodel is floating in the lot editor? If I bring it down to zero on the z axis, is cuts off part of the building?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

pingangster: In that case, in the right pane menu, for the extrude modifier, below where you enter the extrude height, there should be some checkboxes about capping. You want it to be capped.

penguins87: Move it to where it should be, and then refit the LODs. Near where you go to preview your BAT, there is a rollout named "Parameters" and within that there should be a refit LODs button.

[_Atticus 10]

Jason, thank you for your help. It is highly appreciated.

-Pingangster

[kingmak 0]

I'm trying to download my BAT but it says I need Gmax. I go to the link www.discreet.com/products/gmax/ and it redirects me and says that it isn't available anymore. What can I do?

[nihonkaranws 88]

Go to turbosquid.com: A site where you can get Gmax for free. Just make an account and click on the download button.

[penguins87 21]

You will have to get it from www.turbosquid.com/gmax. You need to register but it is free.

[penguins87 21]

I am wondering, what is the eastiest way, other than to use the prefix "nite" to lite up only text on the side of a building?

[madhatter106 3,903]

Originally posted by: penguins87 I am wondering, what is the eastiest way, other than to use the prefix "nite" to lite up only text on the side of a building?quote>

Do you want the letters to be lit up, or the whole wall with the lettering on it to be lit?

If it's the letters you want to be lit (like neon or whatnot), you can't get any easier than adding "nite" to the object's name...

[penguins87 21]

All right, I think I will just use the prefix. Thanks for the help.

[kant01 5]

So I seemed to have screwed up gmax somehow. Or at least, I think my cats might have done it - i.e. stepped on the keyboard and pushed some buttons.

In just gmax, my right mouse button has been completely disabled. If I right click on a view port, it will not even select that viewport and no menu comes up at all. Its like the button doesn't even exist.

I have looked under Customize--->Preferences and found nothing. Someone suggested to me that I try the "Viewports" tab under Preferences because there is a "Mouse Control" section there. But there really aren't that many options and I tried several of them but with no change.

If anyone has any other thoughts I would really really appreciate it.

[Gn_leugim 853]

Originally posted by: andisart I have a problem with the night windows: If I apply different intensities to the windows, only the ones with intensity 1.0 light up in the render... All windows with other than 1.0 (i.e. 0,6 etc.) do not light up at all. I reinstalled gmax and the BAT but it didn't help.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks

quote>

I find my self with this issue too..

[littlewhitebutterfly 18]

Hi, I'm trying to build a round wall with arched holes for windows in it, imagine some sort of colosseum. I tried the "bend" modifier on extruded splines and meshes, but the wall gets partially distorted. I resorted to put side to side small straight sections of the wall at different angles, but of course this method takes much effort and doesn't give great results.

Could someone please enlighten me? Thanks a bunch!

[nihonkaranws 88]

You can create a curved wall, or a tube, and make a box/extrude in the shape of your desired window. Then choose your wall, and go create > compound objects > boolean > pick operand B, and then click on your box. You can keep doing this with more boxes, but you have to do the whole process over again.

[littlewhitebutterfly 18]

Wonderful, that's so much easier and quicker now, I made it! Thank you very much!! 

Now I've got a little problem with lighting. I followed GaryRaggae's advice on making text with self-illuminating material that glows at night, but I'm unsure with bottons to hit when adding the texture to it. Ambient? DIffuse? Color? Looks like any way I try, the texture will not glow. Of course if I add the prefix "nite" the text will glow, but of the usual white light, whereas I want to make it green. Could you please tell me step-by-step how to add the green texture? This time I need somone to enlighten me in the very sense!

[penguins87 21]

Here is a question about nightlighting. I want to shine a direct light onto text on a wall, because "nite" prefix distorts it. Everything works well with this, but is there a way to prevent the light from actually shining on the wall, and just on the text? I tried using exclude, which I am confused with anyway. Can someone tell me what exclude does and how to use it?

[SimFox 802]

Penguin:

in case you are using GMAX it wont work. It must have something to do with how render for BAT is scripted by Maxis, because basic setting (same as with bump-maps) is there in GMAX. but both are in fact render-time effects and that is controlled by Maxis render.

Far better solution would be to use self-illuminated materials. Those, despite common perception work not only only MAX but in GMAX bat as well.