BATs Currently in Progress

[ngeeves 5]

wow................... that is incredible! Thats actually shocked me. Especially the textures!

[Alien_397 8]

Very nice work El Burro. I can see where a couple of the textures are stretched, but most of them look great. Here's a little RRP Project I've been fiddling with.

Chris

[renemone 15]

That building is great.

Look my building.

[Yoman3 5]

Why is the blast cover open? Planning on nuking someone ?

[BurroDiablo 222]

Originally posted by: Yoman3 Why is the blast cover open? Planning on nuking someone ? quote>

Dramatic effect Obviously, theres a closed version too... can't have the ICBM's sitting out in the cold now can we?

[mightygoose 92]

nice work renemone burro and chris

The London IMAX is back

[SimFox 802]

MG:

thats pretty good... question is how would it look from game perspective... you shouldn't be able to see the "lattice" but i think you may try to still have some paltes separtion throuhg assigning to them different materials (2 may be enough on check pattern) which would be totally identical apart from , say a very slight bump...

[JakeMD 107]

Thats great MightyGoose!

As for me, I can't decide between the left or the right :

(click for full resolution)

Im pretty sure I got the color pretty close to right, but cannot decide on window transparency. (I know I know, windows are totally transparent)

Thanks for your input!

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Egads...everyone has some stupendously cool projects in the works.

Meanwhile, I am busily trying to teach myself the BAT4MAX system and convert/rebuild various models into a form useful in MAX.  I thought to test run the export process with a small basic model of a column I downloaded somewhere, but I soon realized I'd rather work with my own monumental column.

It's the leviathan Alexander Column, of which the real one stands before the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.  Eto ochen bolshoi i krasivi!  There is still much work to do, and I am slowly feeling my way around setting things up to work with the MR renderer while getting results passable for SimCity.  Hmmm, my winged angel looks more like a winged harpie posing for Saturday Night Fever.

The sad part is, I got so caught up poking at the model, I never tried my dry-run export, which was the original point of the exercise!

[jayo 44]

Yes mightygoose,yes.

Please get round to finishing this.

please!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Odainsaker, it looks great, and I'm super excited that you'll be using 3ds Max.

[patriots_1228 51]

small little factory on the boston waterfront:

[SimFox 802]

Odainsaker:

great model!

Did you model the angel yourself?

btw, funny associations with it are a common place and started right after the thing was erected. Fom many points it statue looks like it is missing the head. So....

one little suggestion is to model column itself a bit more accurately (with Lathe). it should really be simple cylinder. And on such a large on this is quite noticeable. It should narrow somewhat to the top and bulge a bit on the lower 3rd part. It really isn't all that difficult but would add tremendously for the realism.

PS

and they say Russians aren't fond of NATO...

I give you Nordstar tower from Moscow:

[xxbydesign 1]

OOOooo, I like the skeletel...ness (?) I dont care if its not a word, Nordstar is cool! Its not done yet, is it? Tell me there's going to be more facade detail on the right hand side and will there be anything on the roof of the lower portion??

[patriots_1228 51]

everything you do is awesome simfox. Someday, i will have a whole skyline built out of your buildings.

[SimFox 802]

He he thanks

Nordstar is an ACTUAL name of this building that is under construction (close to be finished in Moscow)

[bigskelding 12]

You people and your 3ds max lol, everything looks great guys.

what do u think so far, its a convetion center, theator in windsor ontario

[SimFox 802]

I'd say it looks pretty good. Of course more work is needed on texturing, but as shape goes it's fine

[bigskelding 12]

Ya i just started to texture, but i thought it might be a good idea to see what everyone thinks thus far

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Grumble, grumble, forum downtimes...

A bit of progress, mostly with crudely modelled but still cute candelabra lampposts.  Too bad SimCity makes them so tiny.  Like all the great imperial capitals of Europe, St. Petersburg has wonderful streetlamps.  Next up is to poke into adding MAX night lights.  In this setup, the more accurately arranged column lot will be 2x2, but I think I will also make a 1x1 plain lot without the fence and lampposts.  It seems large, but then the real fence is almost as tall as a standing person, and the czarist-scaled streetlamps could easy match a 3-story suburban home with pitched roof.

@SimFox:  thanks for suggesting the Lathe, hopefully there is a bit of a noticable taper now.  I will have to cross my fingers and hope that when exported to SimCity, the anti-aliasing for the tapered edges do not become to clunky.  Hehe, and I can see what you mean about the statue...in one of the reference photos I have, the angel's upturned hand with index finger pointing back to the cross instead looks more like she is defiantly giving that universally-recognized middle-fingered salute.  In my clunky version, she was just a chunky Gumby-like caricature whose vertices have been pulled and pushed into something resembling the right shape ( I think more pulling is still in order).  True character modelling is still alien to me.

And wow, the Nordstar tower is really striking with its skeletal cage, and the Russia Tower in your thread is breathtaking!

@bigskelding:  the convention center is coming along great.  Though I do not know what the real Windsor building you are following looks like, I am somehow itching to put stylized nitelit signage all across the roofline tiers!

[Gn_leugim 853]

what an amazing work show here gratz to everyone!!!

[mitch88 0]

So I'm kinda new to BAT-ing and I've started off with this:

The only problem I'm having is the bottom floor, the building looks like it's being held up by skinny sticks and I have no idea how to fix it? Any ideas?

[bixel 1,223]

Odainsaker: I think its looks good But.... you are missing a couple things.

1. Master Chief from Halo jumping from a Covenant Ship onto the statue.

2. Master Chief fighting off hordes of aliens.

3. Lots of laser and explosions.

4. A hamburger and some fries (cause I'm hungry).

mitch88; I think you got a good start there, try this experiment, take the entire building and move it up the z by 10, then model 2 new floors in that space using a different window/facade design, that might solve your problem.

[ianpaschal 77]

As part of my rail prop pack that I'm working on (also included will be ticket machines and sign boards and time tables and other crap)

[SimFox 802]

Scipio... I'm just curious, why don't you install Bat4max?? I mean your work is fantastic, but we never saw it from games point of view... For instance I'm a bit perplexed as to how those fine details will survive that transition...

[ianpaschal 77]

Simfox: I've tried several times, and never managed to get it working. If you'd like to render stuff for me though I'd really appreciate it.

I don't expect half the detail to ever show up but I put it in for two reasons; for starters, to me a model needs pixel mash, it doesnt matter what, but there needs to be something there to IMPLY detail even though what it is is utterly indistinguishable. To add this its much easier to make realistic details though than contrived details, even though both will create the detail implying mush. Secondly, my primary purpose in BATing is modeling, and so I put a lot of work in my models. I don't really care if it doesn't show up in the end, for me the pleasure is in making it.

As for the wires, I play to also put verticle spacer cables between the two wires, but make it all an alpha mapped plane between the rigs. This should allow me to make the cables a little thicker than realistic and have them show up anyway. (For simcity purposes the 2 cm wires will probably be more like 10 cm thick.

[SimFox 802]

^^

will the be completely ready for render? How about materials and lighting?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Woah, I'm liking that station, I love those small, simple platforms. Odainsaker: I like the lamp posts, I think they make the whole thing look great! Everyone else: Keep it up, its looking good!

[ianpaschal 77]

Originally posted by: SimFox ^^

will the be completely ready for render? How about materials and lighting?quote>

The lighting I don't know about.  You use mental ray right?

All my objects are UVW unwrapped, and 1 map per object, so it's just "apply Large Electrical Box.png to Large Electrical Box and go".  The only things that need a little more work are metal things that use the mental ray brushed metal material, and glass things that use the mental ray glass material.

I don't know what else you need though.  If you're willing to render please let me know what I need to do to make your job as easy as possible

[WeekendCityPlanner 19]

Progress on my office building. I believe that I'm near done with the modeling, except I still have to fix the framing. I don't know what I'm gonna do with the two walls in the back though. Leave them as slabs?