Howling's BATs

[Howling 10]

Hey there!

Thanks for visiting my BAT thread. In it I not only BAT (though it is the main occupation) I also decided to visually research urban density a bit better. Looking at what leads up to a downtown area. By visiting three cities using Live Maps, Shorpy and other sources. The first installment begins with New York City.

Research:

A Look At Urban Density (part 1) on page 3

Currently working on:

- Thornbush National Bank (75%)

- Block 1879 (40%)

- W2W small shops (10%)

Released BATs:

- Frasier Building (STEX) 2007

- Hightail I.T. (STEX) 2007

Release LOTs:

- H Wolfensong Beach Bits v2.7 (STEX) 2003

- H Wolfensong School System (STEX) 2003

- H Wolfensong Huge Medical Center (STEX) 2003

---

First post:

I just released my first BAT. It's the Frasier Building. An imaginery W2W CO$$ with 260 jobs. Both growable and ploppable (functional landmark). Plop cost; 15,000. It's my first BAT so be gentle. I made the entire package a .dat file and created a custom icon for in the Landmark menu.

I hope to be releasing more (and improved) W2W buildings for your dense urban areas.

No depencies.

It's now available on the STEX.

Thanks!

[scotty222 549]

Thats great for a first BAT, the orange frames are strange but apart from that its great

[patriots_1228 51]

pics not showing, please post JPG.

[AsianEvolusioner 18]

very nice!!! but it would look better if you do some improvement to the roof texture and roofjunk.

[Howling 10]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 pics not showing, please post JPG.quote>

I am using Imageshack. Why can't you see .png's?

Originally posted by: AsianEvolusioner very nice!!! but it would look better if you do some improvement to the roof texture and roofjunk.quote>

Thanks! I know, I rushed it out a little. I might just very well redo the whole BAT, though I think i'll just start from scratch with what i've learned and can pick up from your comments.

Thanks!

[benvoliothefirst 36]

Looks pretty good, to me. I'd agree with the textures comments, but I can certainly understand wanting to just put something out on the stex and get some feedback rather than do six weeks worth of intensive texturing work. If there's gonna be a version 2, there's a fantastic photoshop "fake ray-tracing" tutorial, I think on the omnibus, that you should check out, if you haven't already. Pretty neat stuff.

Nice work! Any idea what you might tackle next?

[Howling 10]

Originally posted by: benvoliothefirst Looks pretty good, to me. I'd agree with the textures comments, but I can certainly understand wanting to just put something out on the stex and get some feedback rather than do six weeks worth of intensive texturing work. If there's gonna be a version 2, there's a fantastic photoshop "fake ray-tracing" tutorial, I think on the omnibus, that you should check out, if you haven't already. Pretty neat stuff.

Nice work! Any idea what you might tackle next?quote>

Hey thank you. Yep, i'm currently already working on a bank. Also a W2W lot, taller though and with far more detail and better textures. I'll check out that tutorial. I'm already doing a lot of Photoshop work to get textures that really suit the design. I hope to have a teaser soon.

The title: Thornbush Bank, for now.

[Jasoncw 11,934]

oOoO!! 

It looks great, I don't have much to say.

It looks like the edges of your sidewalls are visible on the front, which looks weird,

Also, if you want your buildings to line up with mine, I set my buildings back one meter from the edge of the lot.  Note that the tiles on those textures in the lot editor aren't one meter tiles.  To line up with one of my buildings, just take one of them (Wagner & Diehl, or the Sojot Building, would work best), and plop your building next to it, see how much it needs to go in whatever direction, and then go back into the LE and change it.

For some reason, .PNGs don't show up for people who use IE on Simtropolis.

[autoVino 26]

That building looks good !  The only thing I would suggest is making the bright white a bit darker...  Also your png images show up in ie7 as tiny dots, to fix this manualy specify their size.

[Howling 10]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw oOoO!! 

It looks great, I don't have much to say.

It looks like the edges of your sidewalls are visible on the front, which looks weird,

Also, if you want your buildings to line up with mine, I set my buildings back one meter from the edge of the lot.  Note that the tiles on those textures in the lot editor aren't one meter tiles.  To line up with one of my buildings, just take one of them (Wagner & Diehl, or the Sojot Building, would work best), and plop your building next to it, see how much it needs to go in whatever direction, and then go back into the LE and change it.

For some reason, .PNGs don't show up for people who use IE on Simtropolis.quote>

Hey thanks Jason! I love your old-style skyscrapers. The grey border you see on the Frasier building are not the side walls but a trim. Download the building and plop it in the middle of nowhere to get a good look at it - if you want I love blank sidewalls with a little grunge. So you'll also see a drainpipe and Frasier & Co. in worn type on one side. For some reason the little windows I had caused the texture on the wall to go all wonky.

I'll check out those buildings to improve the positioning. Though i'll be doing this with new buildings. Same goes for improved ray-tracing.

Originally posted by: autoVino That building looks good !  The only thing I would suggest is making the bright white a bit darker...  Also your png images show up in ie7 as tiny dots, to fix this manualy specify their size.quote>

Aaah I see. Internet Exploder's a nasty ol' bugger, isn't it? I'll keep that in mind and post jpgs from now on.

Thanks! Here's a taster of the Thornbush National Bank i'm currently working on.

[Mr. Glamazon 9]

I found your thread!  Ohgoodness, I love it!  I will be following this one for sure.  Your buildings have details.  Please, keep them coming! 

[SimRabbit 48]

Excellent work you are doing, by they way are you incharged of Simcity Hall of Fame?

[Jasoncw 11,934]

The new building is looking good.  Do a preview render to see how well the lines on the textures are showing up, you might want to make them a bit thicker.

Also, the gradient you add should go from the bottom of the building to the top of the building, not from the bottom of individual objects to the top of individual objects.  Check out the texturing tutorial in my signature for how to set that up better.

When you have things on the common walls of a building, and you reset the LOD, the LOD will make it impossible to make the building wall to wall.  So what you can do, is you can right click on the LOD, convert it into a editable polygon, and you have move the edges of the LOD back to the edge of the building.  This can also be done for things like fire escapes.  Look on the side of my Regal Theater building to see.

Buildings in the game are made out of your 3D LODs, with pre-rendered 2D images of the building overlayed.  In this way, you can think of the sillouette of your LODs (as seen from the 4 camera angles) as transparency masks.  So you can make your LODs any shape at all, as long as your building is within it's sillouette.  Or, if you want part of your building to not be visible, you can dis-include it by having it outside of the LOD sillouette.

For clarification on any of it, just ask.

Also, I just looked at your website, and you have the perfect skills for BATing!  Very exciting!  First, remember that you are making 3D models to generate what is essentially pixel art, and with SC4's low resolution, that perspective will help a lot.  Also, even though BATing is based on buildings, which are supposed to be realistic, it's just as much about realism as it is about graphic design.  Things like colors, and shapes, and composition, and things like that are also very important.  But you're working in 3D, so what you get will change with every rotation, so a good way to look at is "dynamic graphic design".  Photography is also comparable, along with any other kind of visual art.

[Howling 10]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw The new building is looking good.  Do a preview render to see how well the lines on the textures are showing up, you might want to make them a bit thicker.

Also, the gradient you add should go from the bottom of the building to the top of the building, not from the bottom of individual objects to the top of individual objects.  Check out the texturing tutorial in my signature for how to set that up better.

[...]

Also, I just looked at your website, and you have the perfect skills for BATing!  Very exciting!  First, remember that you are making 3D models to generate what is essentially pixel art, and with SC4's low resolution, that perspective will help a lot.  Also, even though BATing is based on buildings, which are supposed to be realistic, it's just as much about realism as it is about graphic design.  Things like colors, and shapes, and composition, and things like that are also very important.  But you're working in 3D, so what you get will change with every rotation, so a good way to look at is "dynamic graphic design".  Photography is also comparable, along with any other kind of visual art.quote>

Thanks for the tips. I checked out the lines and they completely disappeared. I redid the ray-tracing aswell. I do notice how - on some buildings - it seems that there seems to be a lot of grit near the edge of the roof, going down. While the light likes to fade upwards (ray tracing). I hope I explain that clearly. Though it does look better IMHO. Here's a picture:

This is just the bottom part though, the rest is going to be bricks so i'll make a brand new texture for that. I might fiddle with this bit you see now though

Thanks for visiting out my website!

[Jasoncw 11,934]

I think that's better.  Your preview render looks strange though.

[Howling 10]

It looks almost dirty, doesn't it? There's also text on the building saying "Thornbush National" and that gives a bit of a jiggly wiggly effect above the 1st floor windows. However I don't mind a little inreadible detail.

[Jasoncw 11,934]

I think the entire building has a jiggly wiggly effect.  At the top of the preview window, it should say (1:1), which is the scale of what was rendered compared to the scale at which it is displayed (this is not related to the zoom level, just how Gmax displays the preview render).

[Howling 10]

Does it? I can't tell. Perhaps it's the texture or just indeed, the preview. Your window tutorial is - btw - quite useful though it could really do with some images. I had been looking for a tutorial like that.

Thanks for your help so far!

[jacqulina 162]

some great progess here very nice

[Howling 10]

@jasoncw;

Yep, you were right. The image was not 1:1. My bad. Hadn't noticed that it didn't show it 1:1 though!

Alright, last update for now. Here's the entrance to the Thornbush National building.

Note: Those hideous thick lines actually show up decent when rendered. So ignore 'm.

Btw, the name Thornbush is a translation of Champcar Driver (and this year's champion if I can help it!) Robert Doornbos' name.

Thanks!

[Howling 10]

"Aaaaah, nooooo!" rebounded through the town last night.

I made a mistake somewhere BATting the Thornbush building. It was off by the slightest of margins and I could not retrace it far enough to fix the error. So...

...I made a new one:

Untextured of course. Not sure whether i'll do it in this colorscheme, very likely though.

Thanks!

[Howling 10]

Hereby I want to release a test release of my Forest Bits. Alike my old (and in need of replacement) Beach  Bits this is a set of fillers with pure Maxis flora. No dependencies (as I hate those). Though I'd like them to be tested, also with Maxis tree replacement mods if anybody could be so helpful.

The difference between these and other tree fillers is that these are done properly, based on ririri's Easy Forest lots which are nearly there IMHO. The Forest Bits are grouped in the park menu with custom icons and are nicely packed in one handy .dat file. The sizes are 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x2 and 3x3.

Please download them (see the attachment) and let me know if there are any problems. I suspect there are none but it could be that I made a mistake during texturing. The original ones by ririri had no textures and these do.

Thanks!

HOW_ForestBits.zip

[Howling 10]

Fourth reply by myself (no critique or comments?) and show hereby a new BAT. It's the result of an excercise. Been polishing my handiness in gmax. What do you think? It's called the Hightail I.T. building.

front

back

Amongst friends

[autoVino 26]

That looks amazing!  Love the roof texture!

[Sim shady 12]

Looks lovely. My only suggestion would be, for purely cosmetic purposes, to extend a black trim along each corner to give the building a little more distinctiveness. Another thing i that i think should be in there is an old, rusty fire escape to one side or the back. Not sure if that would do much for you, but there you go

[spa 970]

Looks good. The roof crown is a great bit of batting. I don't know what it is though but the rest seems rather plain. Still this is looking good.

[patriots_1228 51]

dont worry, i remember posting five commentless updates once

nice work, all the buildings look nice, the forest lots thing has already been done though, same exact trees

[Jasoncw 11,934]

I thought I posted something, but I guess not.

Anyway, for the building from the 21st, it's having style conflicts.  The top looks like it's from the 1940s, while the bottom looks like it's from before the 30s.  If that's what you want to do that's fine.

For the tree lots, I haven't downloaded them to look, but are the trees prop families, or just trees?  Prop families will randomize the trees for you.  Also, merging things into one .dat isn't usually very good.  You should have it divided up so that people can choose which lots and versions they want to use.

The floors of the newest building seem short for some reason.  Also, I think a whiter wall, with a blueish hue to it would look good with the black at the top.

In general I recommend looking through flickr.com, searching for certain buildings to find inspiration, and also references for certain styles.

[Sim shady 12]

o lol sorry i didnt realize you had 4 updates in a row with no comments, shame on us viewers

[Howling 10]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it I needed that feedback! Sorry if i've been nagging about it.

Here's an update. I changed the windowsizes, added a fire escape. I didn't like white bricks which I tried before so I went for a more grey-blueish tone instead. I hope you can see the texture a bit.

It's a Wall-to-Wall building so the sides a bit boring perhaps. Fits like a glove though! Not happy about the window texture though - changed a lot of the trimming too. What you reckon?

About the building I want to create; they are not these semi-European ones but those fabulous Manhattan, Soho like wall to wall buildings. I'm not from the US so I spent some time on Flickr. Man what detail those houses have! Lots of inspiration!

C&C Welcome! Thanks!!