Cockatoo's BAT Thread

[Amthaak 1,501]

Waow! That's really impressive! Useless to say that the glass reflection is amazing ( however, doesn't sound to me a "simple google earth pic"!... ). CAN'T WAIT for nitelites too...!

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Thoughts?

[Cockatoo 2,256]

PFB

[ilikehotdogsalot 308]

Fantastic building but I have to say, that nightlight is STUNNING!

[Muck308 55]

I think you've perfected the pinnacle. The night lighting seems a bit fuzzy, but I think it will work well. Very well actually. Nice work!

[mightygoose 92]

Amazing work on tomorrow square,

as to the image, this popped up on skscrapercity.com and reminded me of your early work XD

[SimFox 802]

^^

that is somewhere in Tianjin isn't it? In Tangu to be precise, right?

Cockatoo:

give glazing slight bump (but alternated every second "window"). I think it would be more beneficial that giving some distortion to "ground" image.

As for model, I think the in between floor space is a bit to small, It is normally something like 1/5 to 1/3 to the hight of actual window. Of course that is "rule" and as always rules have exceptions, but I think it it s applicable here. Day view is missing one section of the lattice, but it is particularly evident on night views.

Here is an illustration:

The actual window is only that large part of the glass -two other short sections are covering "wall". Fallowing night shot shows it well:

It also suggest that your top tentacles, or what e er those things ar suppose to be are too short (by about 50% or so), giving tower stubbed look.

This distant shot should give more clear idea what I'm talking about:

The central stripe at the lower part of the tower should be wider. Right now in your model  width of the whole thing (including aluminum "frame") is smaller that the width of the side stripe of windows. In reality it (middle stripe of windows) should be at least as wide as outer plus about half to 2/3 of the side (the corner) stripe of aluminum cladding. And then you should add the width of triangular "frame".

In fact hte width of the windows of the two central stripes isn't same. The central window is about 1/4 wider than side ones:

Speaking of the that "frame" of the central stripe... From this picture you could also see that your shape of ridges running along the middle of the tower sides is most definitely right triangle. Problem is that in your model that triangle is oriented wrong. The right angle should be facing out rather than be adjusted to the side of the tower like in your model.  Given that the sides of the triangle are equal in width to one of the side windows you could easily calculate what the base of it would be.

Also you have chopped way-way too much at the base. Or, come to thing of it, your base is way to short. at present it is about 5 standard storeys tall, but I believe it should be about 9 of those in height. That would fix appearance of the "cut".

and here is sort of "close-up" on the chopped corner:

But I believe all those are very easily fixable... real challenge would be what to do about the base... without it the tower will look odd. Yet, as always, there are no pictures of the base. Everybody shoots the top... When I was last time in Shanghai I mad my own photographs of that base since I was thinking of making the tower myself, but unfortunately all those were lost when HDD in my laptop died on the plane from BJ to Europe :-(

And a fiend of mine living in SH had moved away... Of course Shanghai is a very visited place and I guess you or we, collectivelly; can ask somebody to make those again...

[Roger51 381]

Amazing work cockatoo, can't wait to see it released

[mcarch 15]

WOW... is all I had to say when looking at that!

[rjamesp 138]

in light of the Aurora building's magnificent large screen, I HOPE THE SCREEN ALSO WORKS. i mean, maybe it will be hard to do that but, if its possible to have a giant working screen where in there are image transitions and so the screen will come alive. it will be the greatest bat ever made!

[shinkansen1 84]

I've heard from Pegasus that an animation on a SC4 lot is a real pain to do. I also feel that in order to accomplish such a thing, the whole building (or the screen at least) would have to be a massive prop.

[_Atticus 10]

Though the building is not my favorite, your recreation is very impressive indeed. Wow.

-Pingangster

[Cockatoo 2,256]

[Simcity player 13]

Gulp

[mightygoose 92]

aaah. your stexually arousing me XD

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

I say that is enough phallic symbolism for now, you are just showing off! xD

Needless to say, looks epic. You must let us see the SC4 renders though...

[Cockatoo 2,256]

^ C'mon, cut me a break here! I've been wanting to do something like this for ages, ever since I saw Bixel's street scene.

I upgraded my version of Max a couple of days ago and that prompted me to make this. My last version was a bit screwy when it came to let there be light (BG images became incredibly dark) so I was never able to get this sort of result until now.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Waow! that's really amazing! looks so real! and this chaotic sky fitsperfectly with HK bats (despite Aurora is not...)! BRAVO!

BTW: what is your new version of max?

[art128 4,618]

Heart attack..

[tankmank 853]

Looks stunning, i love it

[Liberater444 11]

Looking good there...can't wait to see the HKABT's latest BAT wave hit the STEX!

Oh and guys....his name is *cockatoo...he's entitled to his share of symbolism

[jacqulina 162]

awesome

[bixel 1,223]

Fantastic!

[Evillions 552]

Originally posted by: mightygoose

aaah. your stexually arousing me XDquote>

LOL.  But really, are you just showing off or what?

[Cockatoo 2,256]

More of Kowloon Terrace. I think I might stick a big neon sign somewhere on the roof...

(HD: Zoom 6 Render)

BTW: what is your new version of max?quote>

2010.

[mightygoose 92]

dang man cowkilla modelled the exact same building but never released it....

looking at the positioning of the vertical text signs on the front, and the bays on the ground floor, you have literally used the exact exact same building for reference.

[Roger51 381]

Nice work, now release them at the same time and let the fighting begin!!

[SimFox 802]

From the materials point of view I would suggest to make all the distressing a bit less clearly defined and sharp... As is it kills the perception of size. The building looks more like a small decrepit toy. Same goes for contrast. Too much of a contrast betrays the fact that object is small and seem close up, as eye+brain process this way apparent luck or atmosphere perspective.

In terms of the modeling Id say proportions are all wrong... building it too wide and too deep with no light wells. It is clearly SC4 building rather than something that may be real. Also Ground floor is way to small. Your, basically door, well the opening at street level is same hight as the windows above it. It is both unrealistic and not looking good. In this case CowKilla's model is better.

Another very typical mistake almost everyone does - the vertical space between windows is just WAY WAY to small. In this configuration it is basically floor to ceiling windows. And in this building they are most definitely not.

Also at that Zoom level it is obvious that you frames extend beyond the surface of the wall - no good!

But I have to commend you for the herculean task of modeling all that rubbish :-) on walls and generally on the building.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

dang man cowkilla modelled the exact same building but never released it....quote>

Well I'm not going to pretend I didn't already know that. I saw him making this building years ago and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Unfortunately, he hasn't posted an update an update in over two years and hasn't visited ST in a year and a half, so somehow I doubt he'll ever resume work on it. I badly wanted to see the building done, so I started work on it myself. Although I've made some fairly significant changes (added two extra floors, different things for different walls, the roof will have different items ect...) in essence it's still his design. I probably won't release this on the STEX for that reason; it's more for personal use and modelling practice. If anybody here wants it when it's done, I can post a DL link to the model file in this thread.

Simfox, thanks for your input. I've tried to take into consideration your suggestions. I've raised each floor's height by one metre and raised the base floor by two and a half. This extends the height and (hopefully) compensates for being "too wide and too deep". I've also removed the bump maps from the roof and wall textures and pushed the window frames further back into the wall. Please tell me what you think.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Originally posted by: Cockatoo-210893

dang man cowkilla modelled the exact same building but never released it....quote>

 If anybody here wants it when it's done, I can post a DL link to the model file in this thread.

  quote>

Well, you can put me on the list!