Glenni's BAT showcase

[Glenni 1,444]

GMAX,that's why i get those totally retarded shadows, and i have tried lightening each texture put it seems to be the rig that doesit and not the textures:S

and round shapes often tend to get annoying dark spots like that, btw it's a kiosk not a bus stop

[Gecko_2006 1]

Those flowerbeds and hedges are perfect for me! And the kiosks look great too.

Can't wait for it to be released.

[Glenni 1,444]

Here's something new i've been working on...

Just batting, trying to focus on something else than the fact that my  gf just dumped me today...

I'm really not in a good mood so please just don't "scream it sucks ZOMG!H4cx..."

[Krio 624]

Looking nice Glenni, but are you going to put something around the windows in the back side? Because it looks like windows are painted into the wall. And also, how far the frontwall is from the street? 2 or 3 meters?

[jacqulina 162]

very nice i like the windows

[Glenni 1,444]

well, i'm going to smash the building out to the edge of the lot, so i'd say 0

Krio: Hm, you're right, they do look rather painted on, i'll try to fix that

any better?

[SimFox 802]

I think it is a markable improvement. Windows in most cases would be somewhat inset into the wall. Rarely they’re on the absolutely same plane...

[Krio 624]

Now it looks better.

[mightygoose 92]

nice work glenni, very european, screaming w2w too

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's looking nice so far.  Right now the texture in the front is too green.  I would first completely desaturate it, and then I would add your own color back on top of it.

The ground floor doesn't seem to relate to the upper floors very much.  I think it would look better if you continued some of the vertical lines down to the ground floor as well.

[Glenni 1,444]

green?where?what:S

[Jasoncw 11,840]

the stone (or cement?) in the front has a green hue to it.  In your image editing program, take the color eyedropper tool and sample some colors, and you'll find that they are really green.  Maxis has a lot of pink and blue.

I've also noticed the building is really dark.  Try making the colors a little brighter too.

[Glenni 1,444]

I'm not trying to reject the fact that is green or anything, but seriously, what on my bat here is green?

 i really can't see where the green is at in this pic

[Jasoncw 11,840]

There is your texture.  In the middle you can see a smiley face of desaturation.  To the right are some colors sampled from the texture.  On the left is the original color, in the middle is the color completely desaturated, and to the right is the desaturated color with a little bit of purple added (although it could probably use more color still).

[Odd from Sweden 129]

I think the front looks good. Right now, I am sitting in a bar (hooked up wireless free of charge as long as I drink beer), overlooking a typical street in downtown Bangkok. THe building right across the street looks a little green too so I guess the colour is OK. But I would have made the recess of the windows even a bit more than You already did.

[Glenni 1,444]

Tis better?

I have placed the windows further in on the back now, and desatured the texture for the stone/concrete tiles some more

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It looks a bit better, but now add in some subtle pink or purple to it.

[siso43 13]

Looks good, good luck by your work

[Glenni 1,444]

Pink??Purple??What?? Jason, have you lost your mind?

So anyway, here's an update, and btw jason, i'll try testing out what  you said, now

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Well, here are a bunch of random colors sampled from the game's buildings.  The dark colors are almost all roofs, and the other colors are all walls.

To the left is the original color, to the right is the color completely desaturated, and to the right is the desaturated color with pink or purple added back in.  I also added a little bit of yellow to simulate a preview render (Gmax's light is yellow).

Of course, some of the colors it just plain doesn't work with, since they have no purple or pink in them to begin with.  You can't add pink to grey and make it orange (Wong Insurance).

But look back at that old texture, and how green it is.  The top color in this row is from Talin Tower Suites, which is one of the most colorful, (and also one of the darker) buildings in the game.

So looking at your building, imo, you should remove all green from the roof and the stone, and you should add some purple.  Color-wise, that peach texture is just right.  I'd make all of the textures a little brighter though.

In photoshop, I use "Pastel Red" which is the lightest red color on the palette, and I use Pastel Blue, Pastel Violet, and Pastel Blue-Violet, which are the lightest of those three colors in the default photoshop palette.  Any pastel red or purple from any program would work out ok though.

In photoshop, I fill a new layer with that color, and then I lower the opacity down to 5-15% (usually closer to 5%).  But since the blending mode is still at normal, it sort of washes out some of what's underneath, so afterwards I increase the contrast and brightness a little bit.

So, any questions?

[Glenni 1,444]

The textures pretty much look light enough, if i made them any lighter i would probably just get b*tchin'  from trolling newbies anyway, think i'll just keep it like this

And seriously, i still don't see how adding colours or desaturating the textures or whatever can ad so much

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Give it a spin, Glenni. I know it sounds odd, but Jason knows what he's talking about. Just do your best to try it once - there's nothing to lose; if you don't like the outcome you can always go back to a previous version.

The buildings looks very nice, btw, and absolutely unique. It's good to see how you have achieved a style that's unmistakeably your own. Modeling-wise I think you know everything you need for the time being, but I bet you can get the entire site drooling with a few more texturing tricks in your portfolio. Jason is exactly the right person to give some hints, and I bet you'll turn out to be the right person to put them into practice.

I'm not very active these days, but I keep visiting the site and watching the most interesting threads, yours being one of them. Can't wait to continue watching how this beauty goes through the development stages until it's released.

One suggestion: In order to make the roof more interesting, you could add a tech floor that covers a large part of the main roof, or even two flat boxes for tech stuff and machinery. That makes it much easier to get the roof to look interesting than slapping tons of HVACs and other stuff onto an otherwise empty flat surface.

[Glenni 1,444]

The problem is though t wrecks is that i have GIMP and not PS, so i don't know how to do it. A tech floor sounds interesting too, but that wasn't what i had intended, was thinking of adding a few vent shafts here and there, but other than that and maybe a hatch i don't think i will add so much more.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Glenni:  Your building is very dark.  If you compare your building to a dark building in the game (like Lucky Lizard Lofts), your building is still darker than it.

I don't know what your strange issue with newbies is about, but no one will complain about your building looking better.  And I've never gotten complaints about my buildings being too bright.

imo, texturing is the most important and overlooked aspect of BATing.  My BATs have average modeling, texturing is the difference.

T Wrecks:  It's nice to see you pop in.  You're right, you haven't been active lately.

Glenni:  It's a new layer, with the opacity lowered.  I know GIMP supports layers.

Some kind of stair entry on the roof would be a nice touch, imo.  A mechanical room could also work out well.  They can give you something to position your roof junk accordingly, and it can give your roof junk some sense of purpose, instead of feeling slapped on.

Do you have any plans on what this is going to be?  It's probably too small to be a theater, but it reminds me of one in Toronto I was at once.

[Glenni 1,444]

Just some generic shop/office i suppose, hm, it must be my screen being too light then. if i think my bat looks light Because from how i see it now, it looks just ok on my screen:S

[SimFox 802]

It, probably, looks light to you cause you see it on black background... It is dark, very dark in fact... Look at glazing it almost melts away into total blackness around the building... in game it wouldn't look good. not when it is almost curtain glazing.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Just a quick note on something completely different: I have uploaded several of your BATs on our German file exchange (ex-SimsZone, now SimCity Plaza), and they got pretty decent download counts, especially considering that they are rather special and not anybody's taste. Your St. Twiggyan Hospital, though, is a major hit in our download area and has left many HKABT and NDEX buildings behind already.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

You probably wouldn't do it exactly like this, but here you can see what I was talking about.  I made it brighter and made it more purple.  It isn't perfect by far, but it's more in line with the game's color and values.

[jacqulina 162]

great progress looking very nice

[Krio 624]

Damn that I was shocked because of Jason. But he has a point. Maybe you could do two versions?