SimFox's non-Asian BATs

[SimFox 802]

hm...

through the number of tricks I've managed to get the pavement texture rendered in a bated grounds look exactly as it does in game applied in LOT editor.

But the grass is a bit another story altogether. The very same manipulations make it significantly darker and what is strangest - much more contrasty and sharp looking...

here it is pasted over the game capture:

Of course what should be clarified here is that game is altering appearance of the ground textures. What you see in Lot editor and what you'll see in the game are two VERY different things.

here is an example of the transmutation:

as you can see the difference is very noticable... The square texture is a direct extraction from SimCity2.dat. It will look the same in Lot Editor...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

That's really a problem. I often look for suitable textures and end up liking one that looked totally out of place in the LE, but perfectly all right in game - in most cases, of course, it's the other way around.

[SimFox 802]

OK, here are latest night views, truNite of course

To see the proprer Zoom5 size click on the respective images.

What left to do is the lighting of the Lobby (as well as some interior design there, also lighting of the lot. and it is ready to go...

If someone (T Wrecks - hint, hint) would be willing to do Lot Editor LOT I will make LotLess tower as well. Otherwise lot will be bated.

[Sim shady 12]

Comeon Twrecks ya know ya wanna

Amazing amazing job Simfox. No one can make a modern skycraper like you.

[autoVino 26]

A thumbs up without a doubt. I would go for the whole lot modeled/bated in 3ds though... just my prefrence.

[mightygoose 92]

whats your source for the stuff in the windows?

[zzazzmatazz 3]

The night view is very spectacular.....im speechless

[bixel 1,223]

Exceptional!

[SimFox 802]

thank you

As for the the windows... well, this time those are done without night library. In stead I've kept the same original glass like in the day view and just placed the "lights" inside. I put lights in "" because those aren't lights per se - it would make the render much slower and wouldn't really give any additional benefit, not the one that would be seen and work in SC4 universe at least. Interior lighting is done with self-illuminated material. It fits perfectly for a role of even floodlight of an open plan office. The key point here is of course FG Final Gather. But similar result cold be achieved with other indirect illumination solutions with say V-Ray. This method is blazingly fast in Mental ray. In fact night render (barring the real lights on the roof and central tech floor) is 2,5 times faster than day one. Adding 50 odd lights does even the render time however.

One thing to keep in mind when using real lights is that it is VERY important in terms of time spend on calculating light distribution to set far attenuation. It effectively kills the light at certain point and save tons of calculations of exceedingly weak light that will be absolutely unnoticeable anyway. That is with a use of some sort of light decay - preferably inverse square to mimic real world conditions closer.

back to windows. to give the appearance of something inside (well just a hint really) just texture the ground with any chaotic image. Key here is to avoid repetitions from floor to floor. It doesn't mean that you have to use new image for each floor. It would be enough to simply alter UVW map -turn, move, scale, rotate it...

Of course, with closer examination it is obvious that it is a fake. But so is almost anything you see on the cinema, tv, and computer screen.

[autoVino 26]

well that's one way to do it... I'll have to give it a try

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Nice Bats Simfox. And thx for commenting.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

You are one seriously amazing 3D modeler Simfox, that is without a doubt, the coolest night-lighting I have ever seen here on ST.

Where did you get these amazing skills.

[Sim shady 12]

My understanding is that he taught most of this stuff to himself. Crazy huh?

You should read is old BAT thread and watch how his works progress from good to this unprecedented level they are at right now.

[SimFox 802]

he he, that's true, basically.

it is a best way to learn something. And in 3D information, although scarttered, is a plenty, and Experimental learning is easy and practical, so...

anywho, here is a little update of the Naberezhnaja tower. Basically night lighting is done. I know it isn't all that traditional, but ...

[Godzillaman 21]

Woah! That looks spectacular!

[patriots_1228 51]

The nightlighting is probably the best in the sc4 community simfox, and the roof and entrance are very well done.

[ianpaschal 77]

Is there a tutorial for that kind of night windows?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's amazing. 

[____----____ 37]

that is beyond sick!

[ilikehotdogsalot 308]

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I think I'd like to try my hands on a lot for a version without BATted ground.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Omigosh! Just the night lights alone makes this the most astounding skyscraper BAT yet.

Drools...

[panthersimcity4 162]

Wow, that is amazing. I can't wait to see it complete in all of it's glory

[sEAhAwk fAn121 0]

Oh my god...

[Howling 10]

My word... that looks so good at night (and day)!

[SimFox 802]

Thank you, folks, for your kind words.

Scipio, JasonCW:

 tutorial… well I’m not sure. Basically this is reversed Night Library approach. The light is provided by them (interior lighting in the tower), but you don’t really see them in the picture. Light that is seen is a reflected light. I’ve chosen against direct night library lighting cause with large floor to ceiling glass curtain wall it didn’t look quite as good as it does in the case of smaller traditional windows. Result is rather flat. Besides it would be quite difficult to achieve necessary variation (including in brightness levels) needed for realism.

Night library (self illuminated materials) are complimented by “real lights” - those on the roof and “stars” on the ground.

Of course this method requires FG (Final gather) to work.

I made a special concern to match both illumination levels (although given that this is a truNite render it is a “weighted” level) and also hue of the game. Due to the original discrepancies of the game (hue shift between the buildings rendered with the lighting system of bat (or whatever that production team had used) and the very different hue of the game itself it is a difficult task, but I think it worked rather well.

I’m in a process, albeit slow of writing some sort of memo in that hue matching method I used. It isn ‘t really tutorial, just some thoughts. I would be really interested to hear what other people have to say on that and the approach they take – most notably Jasoncw.

T Wrecks:

I’ll make one without the lot. For a long time I was thinking of making some sort of series of props. I would like to hear you ideas on that subject as for what is needed and missing and also the dimensions of the stuff.

Also I remember that Jason had found the way to get shows onto the Lot Editor added props. It would be very nice to hear more about that…

[bixel 1,223]

If I gave you a building can you do the TruNight thing to it????

[SimFox 802]

Bixel:

You mean lighting and exporting it for you?

If so, then yes, partially... what I mean is that the process as it is now does involve certain amount of menial manual work. I've sort of gave up on redesigning the script to do truNite render and do it in 2 turns. Both are technically day renders, just one of then is set for a night lighting. Of course 3rd one is needed as well one that would generate the XML structure needed in .SC4Model file to accommodate both day and night FSHs. But this last one is a breeze as all it has to do is to create the structure. It could be done with empty LODs. For instance for this tower it took mere 6 minutes (all lights , including sun and sky are off, FG is off AA is off etc, etc...).

Such a two(three) tire approach also significantly diminish the possibilities for errors, as those for a WAST majority occur at day/night break, as well as are linked to all sort of night lighting issues. Add to this the total control over the night look of the building! Also in stead of bogging you computer for grate many hours or even days with one huge export, you break in in smaller much better manageable tasks, hat could almost always be done during the night. And to top it all such a export is shorter when all the time is combined, as totally pointless night mask render pass is skipped altogether.

So far is all peachy, but here comes nasty bit. The manual and menial one... at the end you end up with 3 sets of rendered and cut images. Now prior to converting them into FSHs and assembling into SC4Model it is necessary to put them into same folder - one generated by third (technical) export. Day ones are simple - you just copy them from "day" export and replace original, but nigh ones are another story. Remember, they're in fact a day ones, so the folders names are wrong. All the difference is a "0" in place of "8" in the name of them. Unfortunately so far i wasn't able to find a script of software that would rename those folders, meaning that files from each of them have to be copied into "tech export" folder manually. Depending on the size of the building it could be a mammoth task. This is one thing that sort of keeps me from bringing One Silver Sea to export stage - given it's size...

So to cut looong (but i hope educational) story short I can do rendering but you would have to do reassembling... Alright??

[bixel 1,223]

hrmm, I will talk with my friend Dave, I think I can write a Batch file to rename those folders, if the only thing that needs to be done is to turn a 8 into 0. A batch file should work. Tell EXACTLY what it is that needs to be done, me and Dave can write a batch file quick that will do it for you.

[EDIT]

HEY HEY HEY !!!!!

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwfilerename.html

download the renamer, its a simple but powerful tools that quickly renames huge amount of files or folders. Its free!! DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!

[EDIT#2]

or this one

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

[mcarch 15]

Beautiful! Thats all that needs to be said