Crownstelers' BATs

[crownsteler 31]

***Important***

The BATS below have all been lost, unfortunately. I'm not working on any of them. Just new projects.

Okey, my first tries at BATing were quite disasterous in that I got the scale completely wrong, but now I have a few buildings worth showing. A few were already shown in the "BATs currently in progress" topic, but I decided to make my own topic. I hope to update it rather frequently. Also, I haven't figured out how to do nightlights yet, so non of my buildings have those yet.

(Nearly) <b>Completed Projects:</b>

Small w2w building. My first BAT, but wrongly scaled because of that. Needs a few minor details, rescaling and nightlights.

American Machines and Foundry Building. 3x2 CO lot, will be w2w enabled for a corner lot. Needs nightlights and perhaps some texture tweaking.

Harrisburg Building. 2x2 CO or R lot. Needs nightlights.

(It is an old render, you can see an ingame up to date shot of it here: http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6397/ingame01sr8.jpg)

<b>Current Projects:</b>

NY W2W Building. 2x2 R lot. Early WIP

Not quite sure what this is supposed to be:

  Edited July 9, 2011 by crownsteler  

[SimRabbit 48]

You got some pretty stuff there!!

niteliting is done in two ways, one is by using the so called Night Windows from the BAT. You just select an object in this case the windows and add the pre-fix NITE then Whateveryouwanttocalled it (NiteWindow) or by doing spotlights/omnilights. you just select the windows and set transparency to around 60-90 and place a spotlight or omni inside the building and add prefix Nite or it will illuminate 24/7. Note that if you use omni lights they will take longer to render but the effect will be super. Good luck!!

Can't wait for your work btw, looks awsome.

[jacqulina 162]

very nice work

[toxicpiano 125]

Nice work! I really like the tall one!

[Sim shady 12]

oh man what a great suprise This whole community is ready to give you help and tips if you need it *cough cough* Sim Fox & Jason *cough cough*

[autoVino 26]

Just love the art deco-ness of this architecture!

[Hanson784 165]

Great work, you've got a lot of BATting talent. Here's a helpful nightlighting tutorial if you still need it.

The American Machine & Foundry Building looks good but the gradient makes it look a little too greenish. Maybe reduce the intensity of the gradient or try a texture that is more white.

Also, try making the window texture a little lighter. Here's some good photos of it. The site also has the height in meters so you can scale it if needed

The  W2W buildings look like they are coming along nicely. Keep up the great work.

[crownsteler 31]

@All, thanks for the comments

@SimRabbit,

Thanks, but, I know the theory, but I just haven't gotten it to work properly in practice yet

@Hanson,

Thanks for those pictures, I saw those before, but unfortunately, I can't find many more pictures on the internet. I actually modeled it of a (nighttime) picture I have hanging on my wall of NY. But you are right, the texture is not white enough.

I exported it last night (took over 3 hours... :\) and tried it out in game.

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ingame11nv8.jpg

http://img69.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ingame12dv8.jpg

http://img69.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ingame13sx3.jpg

http://img69.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ingame14bw1.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ingame15ek0.jpg

I think this makes it obvious it isn't as near to completion as I'd hope it be.

I also spend the last hour or so working on a small new building:

I made it completely from my imagination and I don't know what it is supposed to be, I'm taking suggestions on that.

It is btw a daytime render, and not a night time render as it might appear.

[AndisArt 2,068]

As mentioned before you're making a promising start as a BATter!

Your BAT look like they will just fit it neatly fit the MAXIS BATs.

Regarding the nightwindows, there is an alternative method you can use, lighting up windows with lights using the include/exlude function.

See tutorial in the BAT Mega-FAQ (Section "How do I make Day and Night Previews in 3ds Max" about halfaway down page), it's a sticky in this forum. I used this technique here with different light intesities and blue light (well only a tiny tad of blue .

Your rendered building looks very good already. A few things I recognized: You nicely put a gradient on the wall-texture, the gradient gets to intense on the top though (where texture turns white). I think the gradient has too much contrast. Try making it more subtle. The roof textures at the step-backs would look even better when you make the texture dirty.

Keep it up

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Looking good!

All I have to say at the moment is that for some reason the American Machines and Foundry Building feels underscaled.

For SC4, you can take the real height of a building (108 meters in this case) and multiply it by 133%, and that should be the height in Gmax.  You can also use the ruler tool in Google Earth to measure the horizontal dimensions (16 meters = one tile) to make sure everything is right.  I notice your version's floors are about the same height as the floors on buildings around it in the game, but the real life building might just have higher floors, or maybe how you have them now is right, I don't really know.  But it's worth looking into.

You're making really good progress, and it's great to have more American BATers. 

[crownsteler 31]

@Andisart,

Thanks for comments. I'll really have a look at the nightlight tutorial, as well as all others linked here, but not now.

About the gradient, unfortunately, I've rather limited image editing skills and no image editing software (I don't even have paint....), so I'm limited to what I can find on the internet, which isn't always very useful.

@Jason,

Yeah, you're right, don't know what is causing it. I'm using 4 meter tall floors, which I was told was the standard is SC4.

btw, I'm not American, I'm Dutch, I just love New York and Art Deco, so thats why I base my buildings on buildings in NY.

In the mean time I wasn't to happy with the old model, it was messy and not very accurate, so I decided to restart it and make it as accurate as I can.

I made it wider (4 tiles instead of 3), the floors slightly taller (the building is now 133 meters tall) and far more detailed and with more accurate details. Is it an improvement?

Also, how do I get the links to work properly, because when I use the link button on the more advanced screen it doesn't do anything, so how do I do it.

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

Hmm with some work with texturing i can see a bright future for you

[jacqulina 162]

looking great nice progress

[SimFox 804]

This is a very interesting transitional piece - like a last of the dinosaurs in a new world of international style.

My suggestion would be not to start any of the texturing before you'll be done with modeling, cause it is a bit pointless as your UVW maps will be ruined (most probably during the process anyway. Building has rather clean shape with everything crossing at right angle, so, simple box mapping will do great on it.

Give it a bit more bright color so that models could be better seen. And follow the design, don't give into temptation to make it too symmetrical - it will ruin it. Also try to keep the proportions, as they were off by quite a bit in the first version.

Size wise I think it is a good choice as building almost perfectly fit onto 4x2 lot having about 60x30 footprint

[patriots_1228 51]

That thing is a monster. nice work!

[autoVino 26]

Very nice!

what links are you talking about?  in gmax/3ds max?  As far as I used those, they are mainly for ik solvers, bones, paths, animations, particle systems, etc... (but with certain applications they can turn out to be a very useful tool for modelling!) I don't think they are truely available for gmax, though.  To use them (I think) you click the link button, select the parent object and drag to the child object... or something with a similar variation.  To work with them use the Hierarchy and Motion tabs.

If you're talking about the forums, first write the text for linking, select it, press the hyperlink button (globe with a chain) and paste the link under url, if you want then mess with more advanced options.

edit: for some reason I can't spell today, please excuse the mistakes I didn't catch...

[gt6282 3]

Crownsteeler: hey it's me el_dasik_oo1 of SSC.. you finally made it here, huh? keep up the good work bro.

[crownsteler 31]

For personal reasons, I wont be bating for some time to come, sorry.

[jacqulina 162]

i hope everything is going to be ok for you

[crownsteler 31]

Okey, I'm not back to bating, but I needed to get my mind of things today so I did some work on the AMF building again.

This is probably the most accurate as I'm going to get it, thoughts?

[Spike345 20]

Aww, I really hope to see you return soon, I really enjoy your work, and its sad that the STEX hasn't been graced with your presense yet, hope you're back soon!

[GingerBlokey 30]

I don't know why but I was seriously drawn towards that little building. It's really lovely with the metal truss. I think it would probably make a really nice tourist information centre or travel centre; don't know if you have those in the US. Its a little building full of leaflets and flyers about local informations.

A bit like a modern one of these http://www.cabe.org.uk/AssetLibrary/6775.jpg

[Sim shady 12]

Your Harrisburg building and the other small one looked quite nice, and like complete STEX quality BATs. I would love to see those two released

[crownsteler 31]

Hey, I've spend some more time on it, the structure is nearly done now, I've exported into game to see if it is better scaled now.

pic 1

pic 2

pic 3

pic 4

pic 5

pic 6

pic 7

@ GingerBlokey,

Good suggestion, but I probably wont finish it soon though.

@ Sim shady

Well, they still need nightlites, until I figure how to do those, I will probably not release them, sorry. (unless you are fine with them not having nightlites, because then there isn't much there is left to do.)

[T Wrecks 10,210]

The scale looks fine to me now. I'm really looking forward to this building, too! There's by far not enough decent NY stuff out there, and even lessfor the Chicago tileset. Btw, could you imagine making some medium-size apartment blocks in the future ? I'm just wondering because while I was checking BATs for my next plugins folder, I noticed how depressingly few apartment blocks there are to add some variety to the same old repeating Maxis blocks. Well, whatever you're up to: Good luck - I'll keep watching and enjoying your progress.

[crownsteler 31]

Okey. I probally wont ever be finishing these things... So, if somebody feels these buildings just deserve to be finished, or for some other reason wants to finish them, just let me know and I'll sent you the relevant files.

Unfortunatly, I can't find my already exported buildings (AMF Building 1st version, Harrisburg Building), so if somebody wants to reexport them, just let me know as well (they still need nitelites and probally new textures as well). I would have uploaded them myself if I still had them/GMAX was still working.

Thanks anyway for the support guys.

[crownsteler 31]

I recently started playing SC4 again, and I felt there weren't enough buildings I liked/need. So I decided what any reasonable person would do and make them myself. This is my first creation so far. I haven't exported it to the game yet, I'd first like some imput.

It is based on a building in my hometown (currently under construction) and will have as elderly and rent controlled houses. In game I guess it will be a medium density low wealth residential.

As you can probally see, I didn't feel much like doing to much to the roof, I guess I should add some junk there though. The texture isn't the best either, oh and there are no night lights. But the thing which bothers me most is the small glass corner on the building, any suggestions? And I'm not too happy about the small stone garden fences (they are there in RL), I will probally remove them. Still, I'm proud of myself

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Welcome back after looking at your last post it's has been a while. Lovely model I have to say, maybe a little more work, but I see your doing nice, but of course you need to work on the texture a lot more. For the bricks scaling on the wall look ok, but it would be better if you make your own type of bricks maps instead of using SC4 B.A.T texture. As I can see looks top area of the bricks need to be fix, the UVW Mapping on the bricks need to be fix so it will not look funny at the top.

  Edited July 9, 2011 by Aaron Graham  

[crownsteler 31]

Yeah its been a while. Can't say I'm any better at it though I spend the better part of yesterday working on buildings, non of which turned out well. I did have some succes today though, I'll come back to that.

Texturing really isn't my strongest point, or actually I'm really bad at it. I'm totally reliant on what I can find online (this texture comes from the internet as well, although it is indeed rather close to the maxis one). And then I don't really understand what I'm doing when I'm actually texturing. For example, why does the map get so messed up and what do I do to fix it? (don't worry, I'm going to read some more tutorials).

Finishing it though is actually quite hard. It is so close and needs just a few details, yet I can't really motivate myself to do it. :S

So instead I work on different buildings. Most fail though. But I like this one.

(yes the texture map is messed up again :S)

I'll be making more of these, but I'm unsure how to proceed from here on. It is rather big... It will fit on a 10x2 (or x3) lot and I'm not sure if that is a good idea. I could cut it up into seperate buildings. There are 4 (+1 variation) basic facades used, which can easily be finished off seperately. Is it possible (using props?) to have the game create a random composition of them? Or what else do you think I should do?

Any input is of course also welcome

[crownsteler 31]

Well, I just decided to finish the first building.

Again, texture issues... Any other comments?

The rest should be fairly easy from now on, just replace the front facade.

Oh btw, can I still plop items in the garden the way it is set up now, or do I have *gulp* model my own garden?

  Edited July 10, 2011 by crownsteler