Glenni's BAT showcase

[The Edge 215]

Sorry for bumping an old thread - are these buses available for download anywhere? Would love to have some double decker buses in my city (they were recently introduced in Auckland). Thanks

[gwada971 1,891]

Yes, on Glenni's Profile here : https://community.simtropolis.com/profile/53300-glenni/content/?type=downloads_file&

pages 3 & 4

[The Edge 215]

Thank you!

[Glenni 1,444]

Hi all, been a while hasn't it?

 

Yep, a lot of cobwebs to clear here...

 

Unfortunately in 2018 i had a HDD failure in my pc, it was so sudden that i didn't get a chance to do backups of stuff that I really should have backed up.

So I might as well just declare the projects that you've seen here that haven't made it to the STEX - that includes all the double decker buses; as dead.

There is some good news through, while I couldn't find any of my models from the 3dsmax modelling days, I did find a bunch of my most commonly used textures.

So there's that, won't make the fact that I have to start over quite as rough...

[Glenni 1,444]

Allright, so here's my current project.

For my first BAT after several years hiatus, my skills are a little rusty (That's putting it lightly). 

So I thought I'd start with something small, and representing a piece of my hometown.

This is Haraldsgata 153 ( Harald's Street) - It's one of the many historic wooden buildings from the 1800s, and early 1900s that one can find in the centre of Haugesund, Norway.

It contains a clothes store in the ground floor, and the first floor has a book store named
"Den Lille Bokbutikken" - "the little book shop". It's among one of my favourite stores, as their main focus is on English and other language books. Most Norwegian book stores usually have at least a shelf dedicated for books in English, but this store goes all in - and I'm all for it!

Now, to the BAT:

For now it only has a couple placeholder textures, and a piece of the front facade.
Should also mention, the renderer is acting a little funny, giving all the visual glitches.

The plan is to make the building as close to the real life example. It will be a partial wall to wall building, with a gate on the right side towards the back yard

I recently went on a little photo excursion around Haugesund, and the plan is to make a few more buildings. Historic masonry buildings, historic wooden buildings, and more modern examples found throughout the city. 

 

[koumus corporation 715]

What a nice surprise to see one of the old euro BATing greats return to SC4!

[Glenni 1,444]

While not a BAT, sometimes it's fun to just mess around with lot editor for personal use with my cities too.

 

This is the Dohn building by Dusktrooper.

A neat looking BAT, which I've wanted to use in my cities for a while (as it's only about 38 floors, which is a good maximum height for buildings in my cities) Now it sits in a complex with a sky bridge, adjoining smaller tower, and is the centre piece to a 1960s concrete raised park, and underground mall. 

 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

Thought I'd pop in and say hello. It's rare to see one of the "originals" come in. I have a decent amount of your work salted away, and some gets used quite frequently. Welcome back, and if you feel like it, maybe you could share your thoughts on the upcoming anniversary here-

 

[Glenni 1,444]

Ooh, that sounds cool!

 

 I dunno if I can really contribute with anything though. There's probably more talented BATters out there than lil old me, and I don't really like committing to projects like that, or making promises to begin with. 

At the end of the day I'm just happy to be BATting again, and being back in the community.

 

Anyway, some progress on my little project, I know about the weird artefacts, I'll likely just render it in Gmax BAT instead.

[Glenni 1,444]

 

 

As you may have noticed yourself, and probably seen me mention - I had some problems with bad artefacting on my model.

And pretty much anything I made in 2011 - even if it was just a render of a set of untextured boxes.

To be honest it made me want to give up BATting, i felt like I was stuck with having to port it to GMAX, and render it there.

My progress came to a screeching halt, I couldn't make models with reflections, bumpmapping, more advanced lighting, self illumination for nightlights. As no matter what I'd do, I'd have these artefacts, missing chunks of the model etc in SC4 angle renders.

There's nothing wrong with rendering in GMAX, but since I had the opportunity, I wanted to use 3dsmax. Learn from it - Improve my models even more. Continue where I left off last time in 2018. and get even better.

 

It turned out to be something *extremely simple*

Just download Service Pack 3 for 3dsmax 2011....

So with that newfound inspiration, I've worked a little more on my BAT, and now it renders without glitches and holes in the geometry. 

Keep in mind, texturing isn't final, not even close to it.

 

 

[Glenni 1,444]

So I found one of my old house models - which you may remember from this set.

The main reason I'm even reworking the textures, is because I really need more Norwegian/Scandinavian house models for my cities.

It's a quite old model, so to be honest I'm not super interested in doing a complete overhaul of it. 

But if people would like, I can at least release them as props. 

 

 

 

[Glenni 1,444]

Allright, so here's all 14 models, it used to be 10, but, figured I could add four more.

They're still in my mind just as colourfully painted as before, as I originally intended 
But just toned down to fit better within SC4 of course. 
They're still GMAX renders, but they should look fine in-game.  

The colours are all white, red, yellow, green, blue, orange, olive green, purple, pink, brown with green frames, white with red frames, white with blue frames, yellow with green frames -  and Dark Grey with Dark Grey frames.

While purple, pink, and dark grey may seem odd, these are all colours/shades you'll actually see houses painted as here.

[koumus corporation 715]

On 10/26/2022 at 9:38 AM, Glenni said:

The main reason I'm even reworking the textures, is because I really need more Norwegian/Scandinavian house models for my cities.

Help is coming!

Been fixing up my older villas, the new ones are the front row. Door, window and floor size corrected (I have settled on real world + 134 % in height now) , some of the textures have been changed, more still to do.

The first and currently only model of my early modern (NY tileset) series that i did while finishing my older villas. prepo made a nice set of similar period houses with Finnish twist, but i had trouble getting the lots to grow for some reason.

I got bogged down with other projects, including replacing automata and car prop families, which is my main focus now. I might complete the 30s-60s set next year, maybe upload houses individually sooner.

[Glenni 1,444]

So you may remember this old BAT, Steinsås Tårnet, released on the STEX back in 2006. 

 

 

 

While I no longer had the file, fortunately this was uploaded on the STEX as a Gmax model too.

Now, bear in mind, GMAX has its limits. I can't pull off the wizardry you can in 3dsmax with reflections all that, and this is a model from 2006, and my skills from 2006.

For example the paraphet walls were like 1m thick, the top floor made no sense, as the roof started pretty much where the top of the top floor windows ended.

 

So I've done some changes, first of all, I removed the modelled base, parking lot, sidewalk, etc.

 The top floor is now a mechanical floor, i,e windowless, there are metal bands and paneling instead.

I've added copper panelling to break up the monotony of the paraphet walls a bit, I've reworked most of the textures.

And finally, gave it omni lights for the areas that look best with omnis. On the old one ,even the large glass roof was standard nightmaps.

I decided to keep the back of the tower windowless. Instead making it more mechanical, but without the entirely plain walls.

Last step was to light up the KPMG signs.

I might make a couple façade spot lights as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[sejr99999 8,343]

8 hours ago, Glenni said:

So you may remember this old BAT, Steinsås Tårnet, released on the STEX back in 2006. 

 

 

 

While I no longer had the file, fortunately this was uploaded on the STEX as a Gmax model too.

Now, bear in mind, GMAX has its limits. I can't pull off the wizardry you can in 3dsmax with reflections all that, and this is a model from 2006, and my skills from 2006.

For example the paraphet walls were like 1m thick, the top floor made no sense, as the roof started pretty much where the top of the top floor windows ended.

 

So I've done some changes, first of all, I removed the modelled base, parking lot, sidewalk, etc.

 The top floor is now a mechanical floor, i,e windowless, there are metal bands and paneling instead.

I've added copper panelling to break up the monotony of the paraphet walls a bit, I've reworked most of the textures.

And finally, gave it omni lights for the areas that look best with omnis. On the old one ,even the large glass roof was standard nightmaps.

I decided to keep the back of the tower windowless. Instead making it more mechanical, but without the entirely plain walls.

Last step was to light up the KPMG signs.

I might make a couple façade spot lights as well.

 

these changes are awesome   I love that you are revisiting your old masterpieces and updating them   I have enjoyed using your creations since I joined this community in 2009

also very happy that this can be updated because you uploaded the GMAX file all those years ago

 

 

 

On 10/25/2022 at 5:47 PM, RRetail said:

Ruffling together some feather (banners).... 

Hoping I got the most basic stuff covered. 

 

[Glenni 1,444]

Glad you like it ,folks. =)

 

Here it is in-game, should be released today. 

[Glenni 1,444]

Another model I redid a bit. More fitting textures with maxis, lightened the roof. Fixed the issue where the entire window looked burgundy, it now represents the colour of the real building's frames much better. Narrowed the staircase a bit, added some props, bench, sign, plant,, etc. =)

The building sits on a rocky outcrop irl, so I took some creative liberties with the base. 

Downtown in Haugesund is quite... Hilly, as you can see.