Twinkle, twinkle, little BAT...

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Wow, I thought we had lost you, but fortunately that's not the case. Needless to say, your most recent BAT looks great as always!

 

As for your business, I certainly love board and card games, but the "Los Angeles area" part is the deal breaker. I fear there's an ocean and a continent between... or a continent and an ocean, depending on which direction you take.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

I seriously hadn't plan on that you would ever come back. 

 

Fortunately, you quality hasn't suffered from yolur inactivity!

[jaredh 195]

madhatter...where you at the convention in Dallas recently?

[SimCoug 5,976]

Glad to see you beck in action! I love the historical look to these recent buildings.

[trar 336]

Liking the building, and liking that you're back in action. I may just have to start playing SC4D again.

 

I live in Maine with little current prospect of going to LA for the foreseeable future, but if I do I'll certainly keep an eye out for your establishment.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great and glad your back buddy!!!

[madhatter106 3,931]

Thanks, all.  jaredh, if you were referring to BGG Con, I was not - we were in the midst of opening the business, and we couldn't have been able to tear ourselves away to attend it.  One day, though, I hope...

 

Here's another one, that has made it into the final throes of the texturing stage. 

 

 

Still needs some details worked out in the front, and then the nightlighting, which I never find fun; this one's lighting needs to be perfect with the little restaurant in the front, it will be a lot of troubleshooting to get it 100% perfect...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

It already looks superb, can't wait to have it it my cities.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Wonderful work!!!

[Ceafus 88 1,906]

Yay! Another classic from Madhatter! Good work!

[SimCoug 5,976]

Looking good!  I really like the Café in front - it looks expensive but I'd be willing to give it a try

[Shy Dude 149]

I find your buildings with the "Chicago windows" always look the most believable but still I think you should reference real life buildings more when designing your buildings because some of them look very ambiguous. This one in particular has a pretty ambiguous cornice, I can't really tell if it is supposed to be a Greek revival or Gothic revival type building as of yet but maybe that'll change as it's completely textured.

 

I also think you need to make the window frames thinner, not just because I think they're unrealistic but more so because they really obstruct the interesting interiors you make that reveal themselves at night.

[jaredh 195]

Yes, BGG.con was what I was referencing.  It's quite the game event...

 

Great small commercial there.  We need more of those.

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

*-* it's looking good. Nice job there.

[madhatter106 3,931]

I find your buildings with the "Chicago windows" always look the most believable but still I think you should reference real life buildings more when designing your buildings because some of them look very ambiguous. This one in particular has a pretty ambiguous cornice, I can't really tell if it is supposed to be a Greek revival or Gothic revival type building as of yet but maybe that'll change as it's completely textured.

 

I also think you need to make the window frames thinner, not just because I think they're unrealistic but more so because they really obstruct the interesting interiors you make that reveal themselves at night.

 

I am referencing real life buildings - I have an entire huge swipe file from which I'm drawing inspiration.  As for the cornice being ambiguous, it's copied from a cornice on an office building in one of the thousands of pics in the swipe file.  I omitted a tiny bit of detail on the verticals between the windows because things were starting to look a bit too busy up there, but the rest of it is not my invention.

 

Sadly I often find that in gmax, if I take the window frames any thinner, they start getting lost in the pixels, and I have to really saturate or darken the texture on them, which then has repercussions on the look of the whole BAT; a side effect of working in such an archaic modeling program.

[Shy Dude 149]

My apologies, I like the cornice design, I just didn't really understand what context it was in since the rest of the building doesn't really give any clues. For example, a Classical design would likely have pilaster motifs while something Gothic-influenced might have the facade covered with quatrefoil patterns and whatnot. But if you say a real building looks like that, I can't entirely say it looks unrealistic.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Been trying to BAT a little here and there, but have been terribly busy.  This little guy is based off a building I've driven past many times in Pasadena.  I got bogged down on what I wanted to do with the ground floor, so went ahead and textured it.  I like it, I just wish it were done....
 
 

 

EDIT: Forced myself to tackle the ground floor as well as the nightlighting.  Not too shabby.  But it needs some other little details for some "oomph" and to make it sing.  Still figuring that out...

 

[SimCoug 5,976]

I think it looks great!  For 'oomph' maybe you could add some awnings or signage along the front facade, but I think the generic look is working for you here.  It's always good to see some of the BATing masters still at it.   

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great buddy. For a little "oomph" well you need a company name, It will be nice to know the name of the store/office we are going in to do business. You can also add some canopies over the windows if you want, and add pottery with a buses or a small trees.

Edit:

Maybe you can also add a flag and flying banners of the facade of the building, images below.

[jmsepe 2,039]

Interesting new addition, I always like it when some bats aren't that too high.

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Looking nice.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Thanks everyone - I ended up leaving the building a bit generic.  I do like banners and whatnot on the front of some buildings, but sometimes they become too distinctive or specific; I just ended up putting a little bas relief deco lettering at the top of the building front. 

 

Here's a little monstrosity I based off a few pics in my research "swipe" file.  I think the next pack will be a mix of older style buildings with newer ones...hopefully I can get around to a release soon...

 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Wow, this is awesome. I like how your buildings tend to have the same style as Maxis default buildings.Have you ever thought of making a pack of suburban office center building?
 

Looking forward to your next pack. 

[Turjan 1,048]

Yay! That's awesome that there's more stuff from you in the pipeline.

[SimCoug 5,976]

I'm always happy to see an update on this thread.  The white around the top of the building looks almost too 'white' from that render pic, but textures are sometimes hard to judge until you see an in-game pic.  I'm looking forward to seeing this pack released 

[madhatter106 3,931]

It's my sincere hope to publish these last few pages' worth (or at least the majority) on the STEX soon; they've been tested and tweaked, and just need some finishing touches (having languished far too long on my hard drive) before they're bundled and uploaded.  In the meantime, here's a tease including the naming convention for this set...
 
 

• Arbuckle Escrow Company – over the Labor Day weekend of 1921, silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of the rape and manslaughter of up-and-coming actress Virginia Rappe during a riotous, drunken party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Despite three widely publicized trials and an acquittal at the last, Arbuckle was cited by the press as an example of the low morals of Hollywood and his career was ruined; it was rumored that Buster Keaton had suggested he return to films as a director under the pseudonym Will B. Good.
• Deane Tanner & Associates – born William Deane Tanner, director William Desmond Taylor was found shot in the back in his bungalow in February of 1922. Still unsolved, a number of suspects have been advanced as having committed the murder, including his former valet (who mysteriously disappeared after the crime), comedienne Mabel Normand, and former child star Mary Miles Minter or her mother.
• Oneida Insurance Agency – director Thomas H. Ince fell ill and died under mysterious circumstances after a birthday party held in his honor by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst aboard his yacht the Oneida in November of 1924. Though officially deemed as a death by heart attack, vague rumors circulated that Hearst had shot him in a fit of jealousy over his mistress Marion Davies; in-the-know Hollywood gossips would later refer to the yacht as “William Randolph’s Hearse.”
• Reid Capital Group – famed all-American leading man Wallace Reid became addicted to morphine after an injury in a train wreck while shooting on location in Oregon in 1919. His ever-increasing dependence on the drug and a frantic work pace of shooting pictures back to back forced him into a sanitarium, where he died in 1923. Reid’s widow became a champion against drug addiction, going so far as to produce the movie Human Wreckage and touring with it nationally.
• Thomas Commercial Realty – former Ziegfeld girl and starlet Olive Thomas died of acute nephritis in Paris in 1920, five days after mistakenly taking a dose of mercury bichloride. Media speculation attributed the death to drug addiction, a suicide attempt, or an attempted murder by her husband, actor Jack Pickford (brother to movie star Mary); it was rumored that the chemical she ingested had been used by Pickford to treat his chronic syphilis.
• The Hays Corporation – former chairman of the Republican National Committee and Postmaster General under Warren Harding, Will H. Hays became the first president of what would become the Motion Picture Association of America. Hays’ name would be forever synonymous with the Production Code, which included a list of “Don’ts and Be Carefuls,” regulating everything from spoken blasphemies to the proper length of an on-screen kiss.
• Rubens, Hansen & La Marr – In and out of mental hospitals and sanitariums due to her crippling drug addiction, starlet Alma Rubens retired from the screen in 1926 and died of pneumonia less than five years later. Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty and actress Juanita Hansen overcame her addiction to cocaine and morphine to become an advocate for the specialized treatment (rather than incarceration) of those addicted to drugs. Dubbed as “The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful” by Hearst feature writer Adela Rogers St. Johns, actress and Hollywood party girl Barbara La Marr married five times, became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and died of tuberculosis at the age of 29; she famously quipped that life was too short to sleep more than two hours per night.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Nice Christmas gift. More to come?

[tonyr 926]

Anticipation!

[Shy Dude 149]

Wow, I've missed a lot of this thread.

 

I forgot to say that your talk of your "swipe file" inspired me to hoard architectural photos and I've coincidentally also come across that building from Pasadena. It's interesting that even in the Art Deco era, older buildings were renovated to look modern...  I think the amount of space you put between the base and top floors of that building is too much especially when you look at your reference.

 

I should hoard less and BAT more.

[benvoliothefirst 36]

DO IT