Twinkle, twinkle, little BAT...

[rsc204 21,866]

It's simpler that you may think, the way the RTK values work mean that the Type and Instance numbers will always be correct, you only need change the group. Just open the new rendered model in iLives reader, click Tools, TGI Editor. Select everything and type in the group ID from the original model. You can find this by opening the SC4Desc file and copying the group ID from the RTK value of the buildings exemplar. You might want to also edit this value in the XML file inside the SC4Model, in addition to the filename itself, although not strictly necessary, it's better modding.

[madhatter106 3,931]

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

You can find this by opening the SC4Desc file and copying the group ID from the RTK value of the buildings exemplar. You might want to also edit this value in the XML file inside the SC4Model, in addition to the filename itself, although not strictly necessary, it's better modding.

I originally was trying this, but had to do it in the "other direction," ie. what TWrecks had written on the prior page.  Strangely enough, the type and group numbers were virtually the same for all the models - only in two occasions did I have a different group number, and I think it's because those two BATs were rendered on a different computer.  With a little testing and trial and error, I found that changing the instance numbers in the .desc files to the ones used on the newly rendered .model files was enough to get them to show up properly.  But thanks to both of you for the help - as I suspected, it ended up being much easier than I initially thought.

These fourteen models have been tested in-game, and they're looking pretty good.  I need to grab some screenshots of them and write the rest of the readme file, and then they should be ready for uploading soon.

[rsc204 21,866]

Models should always be grouped by either the Group or Instance number. I've never had a render where each file inside has the same Instance ID, it's always the Group that is the same. But indeed, editing the SC4Desc file property will give the same results.

Usually, SC4BAT will link the ID of a model with the gmax file. So if you render a completely new model from the same file, it should remain the same. Usually if it changes, it's because you save the file under a new name, such as making an incremental file revision.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

In any case, I'm glad to hear that the models have been rendered and assigned successfully, and that we can look forward to the upload now!

[madhatter106 3,931]

58 minutes ago, T Wrecks said:

In any case, I'm glad to hear that the models have been rendered and assigned successfully, and that we can look forward to the upload now!

I'm kind of glad I found this glitch - it gave me the opportunity to go back and do a couple of things to a few of them that I had overlooked.  Plus it let me tweak a texture or two - even screenshotting the test renders in gmax over in-game pictures doesn't give you entirely the same result as seeing them pop up when you test their growability.  And strangely enough, the model files were all smaller is size - I think I saved over 1000K in space when I re-rendered those ten; on average, each model was around 100K smaller than the prior, lousier version.  So it was a good hiccup to have.

I hope to have these up very soon.  Testing is done, and they look good.  It's just a matter of finding some time to write the description, finish the readme file, and bundle it all up for uploading...

I think as much as I love offices and CO work, I might turn some attention to doing some medium wealth commercials.  I have a lot of CS$, but not very much CS$$ in comparison.  I think I need to dilute the Maxis pool on those...plus it would give me an opportunity to do some smaller stuff - just about everything I've done (with the exception of Minnie's Maxi Mart last year for the STEX anniversary) has been rather larger than what I started out doing.

[raynev1 1,886]

   Yes , near ready to upload and I'm ready to download . From what I seen , they look great . Your next upload I hope doesn't knock out the lights again . West Virginia doesn't handle an abundance of jobs very well , even if it's for Simcity  

   CS$$ , next  I could use some more of them . My demand graph agrees too .

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Looking forward to seeing these uploaded. Evverything looks great

[madhatter106 3,931]

They're uploaded.  I wanted to do it earlier today, but my Dropbox pooped out on one of my computers, so I didn't have access to the files.  I'm really happy with how these came out.  The ones in this pack were what I was aspiring to years ago when I first set my sights on midrise commercial offices.  Here are some in-game screenshots...

 

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Brilliant work! Can't wait to see them pop up.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I love it!!!!

[Hotwheeler 409]

Oh,they look gorgeous.Guess i will have to fire up my good ol Simcity again....

[madhatter106 3,931]

So, I was going to dive in and do some smaller medium wealth commercial services, but this fell out of me when BATting...

I am going to have fun with the roof details...

[matias93 7,535]

You can still mod this as a commercial services building, maybe a centric shopping mall inside an old building, or something. Our demand budgets need that

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

This would probably look amazing with similar textures to those of Thomas Commercial Realty.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Just like matias93 said, I think this would be OK for a CS$$ building. After all, Maxis has made many of their mid-rise office buildings double as CS$$ building, too.

[markussaage 762]

@madhatter106: I really do love your creations and I am looking forward to see the new ones growing in my cities.
Thanks a lot for your time and effort creating those!

Kind regards!

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Completely off topic from the impressive creation you just presented, can I suggest you try giving one of the smaller CS buildings you're planning to make a pitched roof? I think it'd be interesting to see just how it would work out.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Thin White Duke - I think there are a couple early CS buildings of mine that have pitched roofs - Mambo Yvette's Gris Gris and Gumbo in my first occult pack, and Captain Sid's Bait and Tackle (which is a modified version of the Mambo Yvette model).  Plus I think Wanda's Wiccan Wonders in my second occult pack has a mansard roof.  Pitched roofs speak to a specific type of building, usually residential - or if they're commercial, they weren't originally built as such.  (Think a small town antique shop or bookstore that was originally zoned as a single family house.)  Regarding the textures, I need to look up Thomas Commerical; is that the one where I modeled the restaurant on the ground floor?  I have so many shifting around in my brain RAM, I start to forget...

TWrecks and matias93 - I think if I were to make this a CS building, I would do it as a hotel or something of the sort, and then tweak the details and interesting bits accordingly.  I kind of hate the fact that Maxis reused models between their CO and CS; it serves the game engine, but visually it makes for a lot of repetition.  It's a shortcut/cheat that I can understand ("thrift, Horatio, thrift") but the end result just makes for a boring looking city if you're playing vanilla.

Here it is with basic color added.  I was inspired by some of the tall Maxis rooftop patios with their skylights and hedges and benches, and wanted to emulate them for the roof details.  There are still tons of tweaks on this - lots of details to load in or finesse, plus some work on the textures.  And fire escapes to add to the back, etc.

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Looks great! 

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I know pitched roofs are unconventional among commercial buildings, but that might just make it stand out a bit. And yes, Thomas Commercial Realty is the one with the resturaunt, and it's one of my absolute favorites from you. You can see it to the right of this picture:

[madhatter106 3,931]

Yeah, like I said, I would need to figure out the appropriate and applicable CS to merit the pitched roof.  I do have a folder of little middle American houses of the sort, for which I wanted to do an antique store; maybe it will happen sometime.

Ah yeah, Thomas Commercial Realty - in hindsight, I wish I had really lavished the attention on the restaurant part of the BAT.  Looking at it again recently, it lacked just that right amount of "oomph."  There's a beautiful old building here in Los Angeles that is the former west coast headquarters of the National Biscuit Company (ie. Nabisco), which was converted to live/work lofts about ten years ago; they have a restaurant called Church and State on the ground floor, and the layout and design of that recently inspired me to try my hand at doing a ground floor restaurant for a CO building again. 

It's such a common occurrence in commercial districts, and Maxis sort of tried to do it with their varying (horrible, in my opinion) ground floor prop facades for their buildings.  I think it's better when it's modeled in, personally.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I fully agree with you there. It took me a while of SC4 playing for me to even realize what those things were.

[Hotwheeler 409]

That Rooftop needs more Tenniscourts,a Swimmingpool and landscaped Garden if you want to go fully Maxis

Just kidding,your newest Building looks great.This will be a real Beauty when finished...who am i kidding,it`s already a Beauty.

BTW,a couple of Days i fired up SC 4 to have a look at Vol 6 and 7 but couldn`t see them growing anywhere.What Building Style do they need and medium or high Density Zoning?

 

[madhatter106 3,931]

1 hour ago, Hotwheeler said:

That Rooftop needs more Tenniscourts,a Swimmingpool and landscaped Garden if you want to go fully Maxis

Just kidding,your newest Building looks great.This will be a real Beauty when finished...who am i kidding,it`s already a Beauty.

BTW,a couple of Days i fired up SC 4 to have a look at Vol 6 and 7 but couldn`t see them growing anywhere.What Building Style do they need and medium or high Density Zoning?

 

Yeah, Maxis went overboard with some of that stuff - on one of the buildings, it looks like there's a racetrack.  There's a couple of Maxis buildings that dialed that back a bit, but there are some that are gonzo in the opposite direction.

My stuff is never modded to exclude tile sets or zoning densities - I suppose I could but I just haven't done it.  So no matter what you are growing or how dense it has been zoned, they should grow.  I have tested their growability before uploading - maybe try bulldozing some similar stage 3, 4, or 5 crummy Maxis office buildings, and see if some of them pop up.  The files are unzipped and in the appropriate plugins folder, I am assuming...?

[madhatter106 3,931]

Some small details and character loaded in to give it life...

Here's another one that started off really quick, and then ground to a halt.  Stuck on figuring out something for the roof; the building from my swipe file has something similar but I'm messing around trying to improve on it...and probably not succeeding at the moment...

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Looks great as always!
Madhatter, have you ever thought of using 3ds Max? I don't intend to criticize your work, after all, I really love your BAT's and I have them all . I'm asking only because it would be great to see them in darknite version.

[TakemeThere 5,834]

On 2016-07-21 at 1:28 AM, JP Schriefer said:

Looks great as always!
Madhatter, have you ever thought of using 3ds Max? I don't intend to criticize your work, after all, I really love your BAT's and I have them all . I'm asking only because it would be great to see them in darknite version.

What? All of his BAT's are made in gmax!?  Guess I should of realized that from the black background of the renderings, but I certainly couldn't tell that because of the level of detail & workmenship put into them.

[SimCoug 5,976]

Have I mentioned how much I like the look of your recent pre-war buildings that keep popping up in this thread?  I'm sure I could put together a heck of a 1940's looking town with your buildings alone (complete with a smattering of diners)  Wish I had some free time to spend on SC4... I need to dig into your recent commercial pack and take a look at all the goodies
 

[madhatter106 3,931]

I won't be using 3dsMax - my underpowered toaster oven of a home laptop couldn't handle it, and I don't have the time or inclination to download, install, or learn anything new.  (I'm too old that way...get off my lawn!)  Plus, if little old gmax was good enough for SC4 ten years ago, it will still be good for me now and for the foreseeable future.  As for darknite, I never use it nor do I really like to look or effect of it, so it's not on my radar.  I would hope that my stuff proves that even with the rudimentary box of crayolas that gmax is, with a little ingenuity and determination, you can crank out a decent BAT or two if you put your mind to it and have half a brain.

I am on a kick with these older buildings - here's the texturing on the last one, with some details loaded in and modeling fixed.  Still needs things like fire escapes on the sides, etc.

Something about the texturing bugs me a little.  Need to step away from it and look at it again with fresh eyes.  Plus I hate making awning textures....

[SimCoug 5,976]

I like the overall model - the mansard-ish roof (I think that's what it looks like) gives it a bit of a classical look.  Looking forward to the texturing.