Using Gmax, advice, tips and feedback.

[beash 8]

Mikeyb66, thanks alot, that worked.

Okay, but now I've got a question. I thought I figured it out yesterday but today I cant seem to duplicate what I did. How do I select both the window frame and the glass to group them? Holding ctrl doesnt work. I swear I did it yesterday but cant figure out how. Help...thanks.

And correct me if I'm wrong...the best way to have a door, is to make that wall with lines instead of rectangles, leaving out room for the door. Right?
Thanks again.

[mistered14ss 0]

Do you need Gmax to use BAT or can you just build lots with BAT alone??

[rubik3 117]

Do you need Gmax to use BAT or can you just build lots with BAT alone??

 

The BAT is a plugin for GMax.  So to answer your question...yes you need GMax.

 

How do I select both the window frame and the glass to group them?  Holding ctrl doesnt work.  I swear I did it yesterday but cant figure out how.  Help...thanks.

 

Well first off ctrl is the button you want to use, if you select your glass first make sure to click on the frame somewhere outside the boundries of the glass.  If you click on the part of the frame that overlaps the glass, it will simply deselect the glazing.  An easier way to select items is in wireframe mode.

Secondly you don't want to merge the glass and frame together.  The multi sub-object material doesn't work correctly so everything with a different texture needs to be a seperate entity.

 

[couchpotato 8]

This is basically all you see of BAT.   The rest of the program is all GMax

 

Lighting, camera, angles - that's all set up within BAT.    No need to even worry about them.  

[ApathyNinja 17]

OK, who can't pick night lighting textures from the dropdown in the BAT rollout?

[beash 8]

If I have already had Gmax...how do I go about downloading the BAT plugin? Do I have download all of Gmax from the discreet.com site again? Or is it somewhere else? I didnt see it on Simcity.com but maybe looking in wrong place.

[johnpratt 0]

I too do not have the BAT plugin, and I could not find it on Sim City or at the discreet web page. Where can I get it?

[brtim2 11]

ok, question for MaxisBrian. I am building a stadium, could i build one seat, array that wherever i want the seats, or would that be all for naught? right now i have what looks like long rows of bleachers, i could put seats on top of that, but i was just wondering what you guys did to do the minor league stadium. and the same for the steps. the steps wouldn't be too bad, just a bunch of boxes, arrayed up and away from the field. but then i thought that it might not show up, so i was thinking about making a ramp and then texturing a stair photo to that. which would look better?

this is what i have so far, minus stairs and seats. thanks.

[MaxisBrian 6]

brtim2,

Sure, go ahead and (instance) array the seats for the ballpark, but make sure they are as low-poly as possible. I built the major league ballpark for SC4, and there were about 5,000 seats. Those add up, even though they were just 4 polys each. Funny thing is that the seats accounted for about 5 times the file size of the rest of the stadium. I had to save them out as a separate Max file, then delete them from the stadium scene in order to not have the thing chug, even on our beefed up workstations.

As for the stairs, what I did was to make a stairstep shaped spline and extrude it to the width of the steps. This has the lowest overhead, though you could also just array some boxes up. If and when you want to edit the stairs, you may be better off with the extruded spline.

I'll look for the stadium I did and try to post a render.

MaxisBrian

[MaxisBrian 6]

Here's the major league ballpark attached. I'll take any chance to show SC4 building units in perspective!

[DarkMatter 21]

Hey Brian...I have a quick question. I've been making some roof-junk type stuff....exhaust vent fans, HVAC units, ducting, stacks and vents, etc. I've been making them to fairly precise scale...like 1.2 meters by 1.4 meters, etc. It seems like, when placed on a building, they look smaller than they should. Do you guys scale your roof junk stuff up a by a specific to compensate for scale-skew in SC4? Or did you guys just eyeball the scale and make your stuff accordingly?

[Pegasus 2,819]

A question for MaxisBrian and/or anyone who can contribute:

Rendering Times...

Can you offer some suggestions (or refer to related tutorial(s) or documentation) on how to design or optimize the models in GMAX to reduce rendering times?

I'm currently looking at 4-6 hour rendering times for certain large (very tall & wide Arco model) models on a fairly buff P4 2.4. Sorta takes me back to the old 3D Studio in DOS days. I'm not sure if its the sheer size of the model, the poly count, the mapping or just poor modeling methods that is accounting for the majority of rending time.

** Smaller, simplier models render in just a few minutes.


Background Rendering
Is there anyway to render in the background, allowing continued use of the computer?

I've noticed that if the rendering app/window loses focus the rendering process ceases and becomes non-responsive. Scheduled virus scans and Messenger pop-ups have crashed more than one rendering process.

Thanks in advance...

[geekdestroyer 1]

i have a questiong. How do u make the night light as if it shines on the building instead of changing the textures at night?? if possible please include pictures (i'm new to this)

Thz

[+Guest]

all I want to tell yyou is hi and this is the best web site ever thank dirk

[beachfrontproperty 0]

I have a major problem with gmax, take a look

[starmeister 0]

Hi beachfrontproperty =)

That is what happens when your graphics card doesn't
support OpenGL or Direct3D.

In gmax menu go to Customize > Preferences...

In the popup window click the Viewports tab,
and then click the Choose Driver... button.

You may want to set it to HEIDI if it's currently
set to OpenGL or Direct3D.

If it's set to HEIDI you may want to try setting it
to Direct3D.

OpenGL is usually only fully supported by mid-highend
graphics cards.

[Jasoncw 11,843]

Moved from BAT - Workshop Archive.

This thread is really valuable, btw.