BAT - Troubleshooting & General Discussion

[topcliff 1]

Yes, I have a question that's probably been answered many times. How would you go about making a glass-pane building, entirely glass. Actually, how would you make windows at all? Leonardo

[Jasoncw 11,840]

*poof*

mnmsimmer: Then reinstall the BAT?  I don't understand what your posting for.

Topcliff:  To make a glass building, you'd be modeling the glass facade and the mullions of the windows like you normally would.  And then you texture the windows as you normally would.  The tutorials in my signature should help out.  Do you have a more specific question?

[SimFox 802]

To make glass building you have to nail down the glass MATERIAL!! That’s the key! It isn't really difficult. you can either follow path of making Physically “correct” glass if you have access to say MAX , or fake it with creative bitmap editing. For the first method is in the reality far easier then the second. Most important thing is to be observant enough. Most people in their rush to make glass (when they say discovered ray-trace mats in MAX miss many key characteristics of it , as a result such glass looks nothing like glass! Yes it is transparent and yes reflective, but still most that links it to actual glass is just strong desire of creator to call it that name. Also one has to remember that such a material (not only glass, most not totally defused materials would look right only after they are set in realistic environment Just make it invisible for the camera. Nothing would be realistic while it is suspended in Black vacuum of the BAT render output window!

But that is the option only if you use MAX. If you do GMAX based BAT, then you would have to go through Bitmap imitation! I my mind this is far more challenging way. One that requires (in addition of observation) remarkable ability to create imagery out of basically nothing – the way Jason does! But this way with all the talent applied still have one major drawback. During export your model will not stay fixed in relative to the camera, but will rotate around universal Z axis. As a result your sunny/shaded parts will change places. And this will betray the best of fakes. As material like glass doesn’t react to either light or shadow the same what opaque and/or matt surface would.

But still, this is a way to go if other options are not available…

[chubbychicken36 1]

Sorry if this question has been asked many times, but how do you get night lighting to work for BATs? Do I have to download something? Thanks in advance.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

If you're talking about the night light patch, check the Mega FAQ at the top of this forum for a link to it.  If you want to know how to make nitelites in Gmax, also check the FAQ, but more importantly read the tutorials in the omnibus.

[ja/att 61]

Is there a tutorial that covers how to make your commercial BAT plopable and not growable?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yes, check out the omnibus, and the lotting/modding related forums.  This forum is only for making the BATs, and not anything beyond that.

The basic idea is though, that you will make a landmark in the plugin manager, and a growable in the plugin manager.  Then you will take iLive Reader (from the modds and downloads section of the site) to pick and choose certain properties from each one, and put them together.

[savior_25 0]

I got some problems regarding nightlighting... The lights work as intended when plopped east west and south direction.. but when plopped to the north no light is show at night.. Picture attached.. what am I doing wrong?

[skyliner22 16]

I refered to the BAT FAQ and i want to get signs to light up. I tried using night textures but it turned the whole sign as a light. Do you know of how to create neon effects and also should i just place an omni over it to make the sign glow?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

savior_25:  That's not a common problem as far as I know.  Try exporting it again.  But before you export it, read the BAT Essentials tutorial in the omnibus, and look through the lights section, and look out for something about checking a box about casting shadows.  You want to check that box so that your lights will create shadows when then hit objects.  It will make your lights look more realistic.

skyliner22:  Thanks for looking through the FAQ first. 

You're right, when you use that method of night lighitng you'll just get a blob of nitelite.  You're also right in that you'll need to use a real light to light up the sign, but instead of an omni, you should use a target directional light.  You want to use the near and far attenuation properties to change what area will get lit up (because you only want your sign lit up, not anything else).  There's more specific info in the lighting section of the BAT essentials.

Here's the link for both of you:  https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=140&threadid=78721&enterthread=y

[Shingure 56]

Where can you find more textures for facades.

[dk1 401]

How do I get the BAT command panel back? I hit a key by mistake and my viewports got wider and I lost my command panel. Thank you.

[Scaley McSlither 1,714]

I started a new thread without looking in here first. Sorry. I have a problem with texturing - textures show up correctly in my viewports in the BAT, but when I render, some of them have disappeared! Anyone know what I can do?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Shingure:  There isn't really a good answer to that question.  There are so many websites that could have a photo of a building that might be useful.  The best thing for textures though, is to learn how to make your own using Adobe Photoshop, or the GIMP.  Making textures is a lot faster, and produces better results than just downloading something off the internet.

dk1:  Go to Customize, and there should be stuff about the UI (User Interface).

mike_oxlong:  Make sure all of your objects have uvw maps.  Go to modifiers>UV Maps>UVW Map to add one.  Search google and Simtropolis to find more specific tutorials on how to use them.

[Scaley McSlither 1,714]

I found an awesome tutorial on texturing here -> http://airspace.uhk.cz/mlk/msfs/tutorials/gmax/part1/gmax_texturing_01.html

Followed by part two on multi-part texturing here -> http://airspace.uhk.cz/mlk/msfs/tutorials/gmax/part2/gmax_texturing_02.html

[SimsPlanet2 7]

Could someone tell me where can I download the textures from the Gmax tutorial on Simtropolis? The links won't work. Thanks!

[Smarty218 2]

I need help. I just downloaded the BAT and when I tried to install it, it said SC4 was not installed!?

[Scaley McSlither 1,714]

Got another problem - I rendered a couple of airplanes and the textures at zoom level 5 are really... odd. Anyone have any clues? Obviously it's a conflict somewhere, but I have no idea how to fix this.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Smarty, try reinstalling SC4.  You can save your plugins folder by moving it somewhere else or something. 

Mike, try merging your BAT into a new scene and re-exporting.  To do this, select your building, go to file>save selected, save it as something.  And then open a new scene, and go file>merge and merge the scene you just saved into the new scene.  And then save the file with a name and try re-exporting.  The problem is that the instance ID numbers are the same as something else, and merging and re-exporting will hopefully give it different numbers.

[JakeMD 107]

I have never had to remove my sc4 plugins folder when reinstalling, why does everyone else have to?

smarty: reinstall everything, sc4, and the BAT, then update and stuff. And do you have gmax or just the BAT?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah, you probably don't have to, the folders could still be there (I've only reinstalled a few times, and I always backed up my plugins folder, so I don't really know).  I'm just paranoid about loosing stuff like that when I uninstall things.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Hello, fellow BATers.

I was wondering...

how do you make multi-colored night lights on your BATs? For example, if you want to have bluish windows but an orangish top on a skyscraper or something (like the stuff NDEX and skyscraper do)? Thanks,

Yoshiisland

[Jasoncw 11,840]

There's a folder in your BAT folder somewhere about nitemaps.  You want to put other nitemaps in there, and then in the BAT you'll be able to choose from them.  NDEX has some you can download on the STEX (remember you put these in one of the BAT folders, not in your plugins folder).  That's how you change the color of your nitemaps.

If you wanted to, you could export what your building and what you wanted lit up separately, using the different nitemaps for each, and then you would essentially be using two different nitemaps on the same building.  You would need to make a custom LOD to make sure that the two things interacted properly in the game.  Making it wouldn't be hard, but you'd need to understand LODs (I don't remember if you do or not yet).

You could also use self-illumination in your material (there's a box about it somewhere near the opacity box in the material editor), but that will shine during the day too.

You could also use directional lights pointed at an object, and you could use the fall off and other options (read the essentials tutorial in the omnibus for the run down on lights) to control what gets lit up, but that would require pretty particular modeling, and might get tedious if what you want lit is complex.

So there are some options off the top of my head.  If you need any clarification just say so and I can clarify.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Thanks for responding, but now I have this weird problem.  Take a good look at the picture below.  Don't see it?  Look closer...you're getting warmer...

Notice how at the right, where there's supposed to be that pretty little toolbar with all the different options...it's not there!  I just went to modify an extruded mesh, and outta nowhere *poof* it's gone.  Could I have accidently hit a button?  Please help, it's greatly appreciated!

-Yoshiisland

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Go to Customize>Show UI, and check what's missing.  I forgot what it's labeled as (modifier pane?).  UI stands for User Interface.  There's some other stuff you can customize there which you might find useful.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Thanks, I think I keep hitting some sort of hotkey shortcut on accident when I'm editing the monstorous default extrude length of 25 meters.

-Yoshiisland

[ags8sf 0]

I need help with this too! Also, if I where to create texture files using Photoshop, how do I add them to Gmax?

Originally posted by: SimsPlanet2 Could someone tell me where can I download the textures from the Gmax tutorial on Simtropolis? The links won't work. Thanks!quote>

[SimFox 802]

well basically you don't need to concentrate on getting exactly those textures - there sin NOTHING specific about them. You can follow tutorial perfectly fine by using any other, your own textures. IT is very easy to find the lot of them just google! Textures are nothing more then bitmap images.

[nycc06 229]

Does anyone know of a quick way of adding the prefix "nite" to windows that doesn't mean that i have to individually name each window used in the buildings. For example if i am BATing a large skyscraper, adding this prefix to individual windows will take a considerable amount of time. Does anyone know of an easier way to add this prefix to random qwindows more quickly. Thanks.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

There's some kind of tool somewhere that will automatically randomize your windows and make nitelites out of them.  I think it's in the modds & downloads section, but I'm not sure.