Twinkle, twinkle, little BAT...

[madhatter106 3,931]

@T Wrecks - aww thanks.  Yeah I am not sure why so few BATters make buildings in the older style.  Deco (New York) is fairly well represented, but I guess the early commercial style (aka Chicago) just isn't sexy enough.  If I ever get around to modding and release the twenty or so new offices from the last few years, you'll have even more in that camp to mess around with and tweak.

Glad to hear my stuff is so low maintenance for your process; I think that most of them are under-watered, but that's the only thing that comes to mind with regard to tweaks that need to get them game ready.  Rather an under-watering than the opposite, as over-watering would mess up the simulation more.  I think the rest of what you said about them being easy is partly because of how I (used to) play and how barren my plugins folder was; I realize that I was BATting with that in mind.  So I wasn't going after an emulation of a certain BAT group or playstyle that was different than the actual game - I didn't have a lot of plugins, so I was BATting in the mindset of a gamer in that regard.  Hence why it's semi-important to me that the stuff I do blends into the Maxis stuff.  A lot of people used to hammer on me making W2W stuff, but I really don't play the game that way, and while realistic, it's just a constraint that I didn't want to impose upon myself; the game certainly doesn't play in W2W style, so I think a lot of my BATs fell out like extensions of Maxis.  I guess I'm sort of a homegrown grassroots extension of Maxis school of BATting.  Though there are certainly some very great sins that the company made, especially with regards to some standard Maxis building textures (Dieckmann Consulting, I'm lookin' at you).

[madhatter106 3,931]

I was messing around with a Deco BAT a long while ago, and discovered it in my BAT folder, and started messing around with it again...

Still very much a work in progress...I haven't the faintest idea what to do with the uppermost roof...

[brancra 1,193]

3 hours ago, madhatter106 said:

I was messing around with a Deco BAT a long while ago, and discovered it in my BAT folder, and started messing around with it again...

Still very much a work in progress...I haven't the faintest idea what to do with the uppermost roof...

Oh my, that's a gorgeous model madhatter! You nailed the stepped proportions and slim, elegant form of an Art Deco design. The decorative spandrels are a nice touch!

Was this inspired by any particular building, or a mix of different buildings?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

On 28.5.2020 at 8:22 PM, madhatter106 said:

Glad to hear my stuff is so low maintenance for your process; I think that most of them are under-watered, but that's the only thing that comes to mind with regard to tweaks that need to get them game ready.  Rather an under-watering than the opposite, as over-watering would mess up the simulation more.

This is pretty much spot on. Garbage is a teeny tiny bit on the high side (but perfectly within tolerance), only water consumption is indeed a little low. However, this is certainly better than too high, just like you say!

TBH, I make most tweaks for consistency so I get a smooth progression. This helps me mod new buildings. For example, I have recently modded DK1's TSBD Building into a commercial office. Now let's assume I'D set a newly modded building to 300 occupants of any given category. If I can open my spreadsheet and see that I already have a building with 250 occupants and another one with 400 occupants completely modded, I know I can set the values of the new one to something between the other two, and preferably closer to the lower one because 300 is only 50 away from 250 but 150 away from 400. The more buildings I have, the easier it gets.

While doing so, I'll tweak values fully knowing that the tweaks are completely inconsequential for the game - 5 units of air pollution or 6? Pffft, doesn't matter at all for the game. However, it helps me a lot if values are progressing smoothly rather than jumping all over the place.

On 28.5.2020 at 8:22 PM, madhatter106 said:

I think the rest of what you said about them being easy is partly because of how I (used to) play and how barren my plugins folder was; I realize that I was BATting with that in mind.  So I wasn't going after an emulation of a certain BAT group or playstyle that was different than the actual game - I didn't have a lot of plugins, so I was BATting in the mindset of a gamer in that regard.  Hence why it's semi-important to me that the stuff I do blends into the Maxis stuff

This is, in fact, something I have been preaching to newcomers overwhelmed with all the downloads: play the vanilla game first, find out what you feel you are lacking, and get that rather than going on a download spree and stuffing everything into your plugins that looks cool in the screenshots.

I mean, I do appreciate much of the stuff that expands on what Maxis gave us: big box retailers, large service stations... I must confess that I dig wall-to-wall, too. [Well, I even made an attempt at making W2W industry more accessible, so I guess that last bit is not exactly a secret!] However, what bothers me most is obvious repetition. And this repetition is most severe in low-rise and mid-rise stuff because - unlike skyscrapers - these are the categories of which you'll have more than a handful of buildings, and in pretty much every city, not just CBDs.

And, in an attempt to get back on topic finally:

12 hours ago, madhatter106 said:

I haven't the faintest idea what to do with the uppermost roof...

Isn't this the place where a "crown" (maybe a water tower enclosure and/or elevator engine room?) adorned with some fancy-pants ornament would go?

[madhatter106 3,931]

@T Wrecks - hmmm the garbage is high on them, too?  Well, I guess they like to waste a lot of paper at these offices of mine   I like your scientific approach to modding; would that I had the understanding of the game and what is needed for the various groupings and wealth/growth tiers and stages.  I would be curious within my own set of BATs what is under-represented, perhaps it's something I should aim for.

What you described for Maxis repetition is what I set out to battle/dilute (conquer?) from the beginning.  One can only see those little shoeboxes so many times before you go insane.  So the little guys are needed much more than the big guys, though they aren't as flashy and sexy, for dilution.

Back to the deco, yeah, I have an inkling of what to do with the roof.  Or rather, a lot of options of what I can do...but so far I haven't decided.  I made various different options, which I like to call, "what hat shall I wear to the derby?"

 

It's rather curious that it's the exact same building in all five of the above, just different toppers (hats?) but very interesting to see what your eye does with each.  Particularly the last two "ziggurat style" really seem to stretch the building out - I thought I had accidentally skewed or distorted the screenshots when I first put this together.  

These are all "roughed in," and lacking tons of finetuned details.  But still muddling around with them - I can see all five working, I guess it's a matter of what looks best.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

1 hour ago, madhatter106 said:

would that I had the understanding of the game and what is needed for the various groupings and wealth/growth tiers and stages.

Well, don't I wish that, too!

Seriously, all that I have been doing (and that PIM-X does) is create a progression where there was none, hoping that the curve of that progression doesn't warp the game too much. Maxis values are so over the place...

• It starts with the buildings: put three of them next to one another, all similarly sized with minor differences - one has ~250 occupants, the other one ~500 and the last one more than 800.
• Some building sizes (in terms of occupant numbers) simply don't exist in the first place. A CO$$ building with anything between 400 and 700 jobs? Lolnope.  Well, anything in the 2000's, then? Nope - take 1991 or 3307.
• What's true for one category, however, may not apply to a different one. CO$$$ has buildings in the 400-700 range, and in the 2000's, too.
• The stats don't progress, they jump. How much garbage for 12 CO$$$ jobs? 4 tons. How much for 60 jobs? 4 tons. And for 2,400 jobs? 4 tons. Ok, this means that for 840 jobs, it's... yes, 10 tons. What?
  Or CO$$$ water consumption. 251 jobs and 286 jobs, respectively. Pretty close, right? The smaller one consumes 423 units of water. A building with ~1,000 jobs consumes 541 units of water. So, if you need 423 water for 251 jobs and 541 water for 1,000 jobs,  the one with the slightly higher occupant figure (286 jobs) should be roughly at... 450? 460? 440? Well, make that 3,049. Dafuq?

Of course, you might need to factor in growth stage, lot sizes (more surface needed = lower values per tile), and maybe more factors. However, if Maxis had some secret formula, it beats me. For every pattern I seem to see, there's another bunch of buildings that ruins it. Either their formula is very complex, or I'm stupid, or it's just pretty much a mess. At this point, I have ruled out neither of these three possibilities.

So basically I'm drawing a (relatively smooth, albeit not strictly uniform and somewhat wavy) curve through a sparsely populated point cloud with extreme outliers, hoping that I won't warp the overall result too much.

My last plugins folder was somewhat encouraging in that respect, all in-game graphs were pretty smooth and without any odd jumps. Difficulty seemed to be okay as well - it was possible to stay in the green, but I couldn't just afford anything and never look at the balance. I still think it's more "educated eyeballing and shrugging" ("well - it seems to work okay") than anything scientific.

Back to topic once again, the ziggurat in the bottom left picture really stretches the building vertically! I generally have the impression that those Art Deco highrises have pretty delicate massing - something that some of the earlier International Style highrises seem to have adopted with their "wedding cake" structures. Add a little feature here, introduce a slight asymmetry there, and bam! Different overall impression. I think I like the "derby hats" #1, 2, and 4 most.

[brancra 1,193]

6 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Well, don't I wish that, too!

Seriously, all that I have been doing (and that PIM-X does) is create a progression where there was none, hoping that the curve of that progression doesn't warp the game too much. Maxis values are so over the place...

• It starts with the buildings: put three of them next to one another, all similarly sized with minor differences - one has ~250 occupants, the other one ~500 and the last one more than 800.
• Some building sizes (in terms of occupant numbers) simply don't exist in the first place. A CO$$ building with anything between 400 and 700 jobs? Lolnope.  Well, anything in the 2000's, then? Nope - take 1991 or 3307.
• What's true for one category, however, may not apply to a different one. CO$$$ has buildings in the 400-700 range, and in the 2000's, too.
• The stats don't progress, they jump. How much garbage for 12 CO$$$ jobs? 4 tons. How much for 60 jobs? 4 tons. And for 2,400 jobs? 4 tons. Ok, this means that for 840 jobs, it's... yes, 10 tons. What?
  Or CO$$$ water consumption. 251 jobs and 286 jobs, respectively. Pretty close, right? The smaller one consumes 423 units of water. A building with ~1,000 jobs consumes 541 units of water. So, if you need 423 water for 251 jobs and 541 water for 1,000 jobs,  the one with the slightly higher occupant figure (286 jobs) should be roughly at... 450? 460? 440? Well, make that 3,049. Dafuq?

Of course, you might need to factor in growth stage, lot sizes (more surface needed = lower values per tile), and maybe more factors. However, if Maxis had some secret formula, it beats me. For every pattern I seem to see, there's another bunch of buildings that ruins it. Either their formula is very complex, or I'm stupid, or it's just pretty much a mess. At this point, I have ruled out neither of these three possibilities.

So basically I'm drawing a (relatively smooth, albeit not strictly uniform and somewhat wavy) curve through a sparsely populated point cloud with extreme outliers, hoping that I won't warp the overall result too much.

My last plugins folder was somewhat encouraging in that respect, all in-game graphs were pretty smooth and without any odd jumps. Difficulty seemed to be okay as well - it was possible to stay in the green, but I couldn't just afford anything and never look at the balance. I still think it's more "educated eyeballing and shrugging" ("well - it seems to work okay") than anything scientific.

Back to topic once again, the ziggurat in the bottom left picture really stretches the building vertically! I generally have the impression that those Art Deco highrises have pretty delicate massing - something that some of the earlier International Style highrises seem to have adopted with their "wedding cake" structures. Add a little feature here, introduce a slight asymmetry there, and bam! Different overall impression. I think I like the "derby hats" #1, 2, and 4 most.

My votes are for derby hats #1, 2 and 5. #4 has a Key Tower Cleveland aesthetic.

[madhatter106 3,931]

@T Wrecks - I get the feeling that Maxis had more madness than method when it came to their stats for the buildings.  Yeah those ziggurats do stretch things out visually; I think I will save the ziggurat for something with more Mayan or Aztec deco detailing.

@brancra - I do love that section of Cleveland; I have never been there, but there are some beautiful buildings.  The Key Tower ziggurat is very inspiring; I think I will riff on it for another BAT. 

There was something about hat #1 that kept making me think and think and think...and then it hit me....it's looks hellah like a helipad...so I started doing a little visual research and messing around...

I still need to model the railings, which I dread, plus notch out the parapet area where the side stairs meet up with the uppermost roof so people can actually get up there.  I wanted to make it look like they needed to wedge the staircase into the area after-the-fact (as if they had added the helipad years after the building was constructed).  The nightlighting will be interesting and make it pretty sexy once it's done.

[madhatter106 3,931]

AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAUSE

Maybe it's because I've had three whiskey sours just now while reading private messages here while the whole world seems like it's collapsing, but I'd just like to pause and say that us content creators spend dozens, hundreds, thousands of hours sometimes, creating stuff to post here and share with this community.  We do this because we love to create; we share it because we figure that the fruits of our labor are of benefit to this community at large.  Otherwise we wouldn't bother to share and wouldn't bother to post. 

Not naming names and not giving particulars, but  if anyone "ats"" me with some know-it-all pedantic BS about some miniscule non-important trivial aspect of my uploads, especially something that isn't gamebreaking or in any way impacting the quality of the work itself or something that can be easily changed on the downloader's part, they can...well, whatever I am allowed to say here without getting a ban or a mod-slap for saying it.

Yes, I can be labelled as "creative," and thus like many in this camp, I can be "temperamental" about my work.  God knows I have expressed myself this way in in the past here, for good or for ill (I really don't care either way, ultimately).  If you're going to give a qualitative assessment about something I create with the intent to suggest an improvement, then I'm game.  "MadHatter, that door looks too short.  MadHatter, that color looks too saturated.  MadHatter, what if you made the entrance taller?"  That I will deal with.  But if you're going to send me some high and lofty "well such-and-such is this way, those are the facts" in my private messages, then download something else and leave me out of it. 

I am seriously not going to sit here and have some downloader tell me that the period in a company name is outmoded and wrong, and imply how stupid I am for doing it and that this is "a fact."  You want a "fact?"  Here's one - they're freeware models on a site that is dedicated to a game that is over fifteen years old.  But here's another fact - I spend a good deal of time to create and share these freeware models, so a little common courtesy and no pedantic BS will go a long way. 

Rant over.  On to my fourth whiskey sour....

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Aw, jeez. It's always so sad to witness such things. I hope you'll be able to enjoy the whiskey part and let the others turn sour when their lofty lectures fizzle and the world somehow refuses to accept their generous gift of wisdom and revolve around them.

Even if a critique in itself should be factually correct, the famous quote from The Big Lebowski comes to mind - "You're not wrong. You're just an a**hole." The older I get, the more I come to realise just how much truth is in that sentence. If you reverse that quote a little, it means that you can say surprisingly many things as long as you are not a complete dick about it. Showing some basic manners and respect for others really goes a long way.

I don't really now what else to say, I'm just trying to provide some moral support. I'm also pretty confident that I'm not speaking for myself alone when I say that those people who only complain instead of contributing (even if it is only with some basic friendliness and respect) shouldn't matter much, but that you matter to us.

This being said, if you receive PMs that you think may cross the line between being annoying and harassing, or if there is any particular person whose behaviour you perceive as iffy you can always contact the site staff - maybe the person in question already has a track record, and your input gives the final push to address this person. Doesn't have to be a ban or time-out - we can always try to speak to members, bring up the subject, and see what happens. The response often gives a clue about whether it's someone who went somewhat overboard without realizing it and can use a little reminder or whether it's someone who has a habit of being really annoying and will need a more serious talking to. It can't hurt to ask "Do you think this is okay, and does that person do this a lot?"

Moderator hat taken off again, I'll hoist one for you tonight and hope that you feel a little better already whenever you're reading this now that you got this rant off your chest and with a little time (and another whiskey sour?) inbetween. (I'd offer to share a whiskey sour with you, but there's an ocean and a continent between us...)

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Dear madhatter, May I share a whiskey sour with you too if only there was still some left,  Though I'm a newbie of modeling and my English is awful, But I could fell your annoyance when reading the meaning between the lines, Frankly, I thought most of us are all extremely supportive to you, your works really made me enjoyed the joy and benefits of them whilst playing. They are special and unique. It's easy to judge others, but harder to walk in their shoes, Someone may couldn't understand how much effort a modeler put into his project since they even had never experienced in that, Not to mention how beautiful your Lots were and your unique menu, Anyways, Just as T Wrecks has said, You matter to us!! I'm looking forward your another great work!

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[madhatter106 3,931]

@T Wrecks - thanks.  If ever you find yourself in sunny southern California, the whiskey is on me.

@Raymond7cn - thanks for the kind words.

Okay, no whiskey sours today - I ran out of whiskey yesterday.  And the rum cokes just don't do it for me right now.  Any rate, here's the finished deco with the rooftop garden...

Here's another little guy that I was inspired to do, based of a hotel in Florida...

And another little deco building fell out of me...I put the big one aside for the moment.  I keep getting distracted with modeling things and not texturing or finishing them...

I hate dealing with large swaths of glass in gmax.  Trying to avoid doing any sort of transparency to dodge the "burned and singed pixels at the edge of your BAT" problem that sometimes crops up.  I think I need a different window texture for the ground floor windows...

[mrbisonm 1,622]

Love those mid-rises, can't never have enough of those, ideal for big town and small city builders like me. Well done.

Fred

[madhatter106 3,931]

All right, folks, so perusing the past several (yikes) years of this BAT thread, I realize I have a ton of unreleased stuff.  Which is fine, but it doesn't do anyone any good just sitting on my hard drive collecting (digital) dust. 

The finished office buildings and small medium wealth commercials are all rendered and have been dumped into the PIM.  They just need to be modded for their queries (something which I like to have but just hate to do) and then lotted and tested.  I can get through those first two steps - the queries (once I dig through my brain and remember the step-by-step of what I had done in the past) and the lotting, it's just the testing that bogs me down.  Making sure they grow, making sure the query works, making sure they look good at all angles, making sure they light up properly at night in the game, etc.  

So for any brave soul(s) willing to do so, let me know - it would provide some impetus for me to get off my proverbial rear and finish them up.  I could get them queried and lotted, and pop them in a .zip folder and send them - then all I would need is the assurance that they work properly (as well as some nice screenies from your cities where they happened to pop up).  The office building pack would have over twenty (!) buildings in it once completed, and there's at least a dozen or so of the small medium commercials, too.

So, if anyone is bored or wants a sneak peak at these growing in your cities, let me know...the tea is on me...

[vw_oklahoma 308]

MadHatter106 :  I would like to help test out the lots, if you still need someone. I've got several of your lots already and they always look great. 

[rsc204 21,866]

Are you making a custom query for each new lot?

I ask, because you only need to make a few, then alter the Query ID property of the Buildings Exemplar, to link many to your customised ones. Assuming they don't all need to be different for some reason, but just add your little logo with the usual info.

But I'd be open to giving them a test-drive and sending some screenshots, I'm just pleased to see you are still around creating things though .

[madhatter106 3,931]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Are you making a custom query for each new lot?

I ask, because you only need to make a few, then alter the Query ID property of the Buildings Exemplar, to link many to your customised ones. Assuming they don't all need to be different for some reason, but just add your little logo with the usual info.

But I'd be open to giving them a test-drive and sending some screenshots, I'm just pleased to see you are still around creating things though .

Each query is a little bit different, so yeah, they each get one.  Once I had dug through the inner recesses of my brain and remembered what I was doing, it only took a couple of minutes to do each one.

If you'd like to test drive some of them, shoot me an PM with your email address and I can send a .zip file along of the first batch.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Putting some finishing touches on the first pack of medium wealth commercial service buildings.
Here's a preview shot of a good majority of the ones that would be in the second pack...

The second to the last on the right is named Concannon's Irish Pub.  Inspired by St. Patrick's Day...

[rsc204 21,866]

Really cool to have some buildings that’ll fill 1x1 / 1x2 zones nicely. Never enough of those in my Plugins. 

[BartonThinks 3,416]

On 3/24/2021 at 11:21 PM, madhatter106 said:

Putting some finishing touches on the first pack of medium wealth commercial service buildings.
Here's a preview shot of a good majority of the ones that would be in the second pack...

The second to the last on the right is named Concannon's Irish Pub.  Inspired by St. Patrick's Day...

Ooh, just seeing these now, but I'll be very happy to see this set released.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Loving the work buddy.  I'm still hanging around, I did not forget you guys. 

[CT14 2,486]

CS$$ pack is looking splendid!

[madhatter106 3,931]

It's been a year.  Ugh what a year.  Too many BAT irons in the fire, but I just sat down the past day or so to try to unwind and take my mind off the crazy of late, and I ended up BATting this little office building, based on a building I drive by nearly every day.  I saw it last week and thought, "hmmm that would look nice in SC4..."

Needs textures and nightlights and finish work and details. 
And then needs the query and the modding and the lotting, and all that other stuff I don't wanna do with all the BATs I've done over the past several years...

[madhatter106 3,931]

Roof access added.  The original building has something very similar.  I suppose I should light the ground floor lobby and front entrance...

 

[IDS2 3,429]

It's great to see you still in action! The new building looks great, of course. I especially like the arches over the front entrance.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Thanks, @IDS2 - it's not the type of building I would have BATted from my imagination, but driving past this for years and years, it suddenly struck me that it would make a great BAT to see in-game.  I like the arches, too - though there are (in reality) transom windows above the doors/bays, instead of being filled in like I modelled them.  It just looked weird in gmax, so I made a little modification.  I like the window configuration in the front view - the fact that the columns of windows don't line up with the center of each bay is an interesting touch.

Okay, so the collection of office buildings may be released very soon - thanks to the very rigorous and relentless testing of @brancra (who put them all through their paces to see if there were any problems with them), these should be bundled up and available for download.  It will be the biggest one that I've ever produced - there are a whopping twenty-two different offices in the pack.  I'm astounded, myself, but then again it makes sense, since I have been doing them off and on for years...

Now I just need to muster up the resolve to mod and lot the next group of medium wealth commercial services (the two and three-storey ones).  Ugh, the Reader...!

[madhatter106 3,931]

A couple more of those CS$$ to add.  I kind of like doing these little guys, you can sit down and five hours later, you've got a cute little BAT to render.
The first one is Harry's Haberdashery, and the second is McClelland's Prime Meats.

 

[Dead_End 1,630]

On 6/20/2022 at 5:31 AM, madhatter106 said:

A couple more of those CS$$ to add.  I kind of like doing these little guys, you can sit down and five hours later, you've got a cute little BAT to render.
The first one is Harry's Haberdashery, and the second is McClelland's Prime Meats.

 

YES. We can always use more small shops like this!

[madhatter106 3,931]

Must.  Stop.  BATting.  Midrise.  Office.  Buildings...

I usually don't texture until most of the modeling is done, but I couldn't stand looking at it "naked" anymore.
More to add, glass texture needs to be done; the rooftop details still need to be decided.  How many more of these do I have in me...?

[madhatter106 3,931]

I didn't want to do the rear loading dock on this last one; I still don't.  Just not in the mood to load in that particular set of details.
I was watching a true crime documentary and there was an interesting little New York hotel that popped up onscreen; I thought I would do a bit of a riff on it, as it was really interesting and something I haven't done much of in the past.  It's my little derivation and musing on the Hotel Seville...

 

This has proven to be one of the harder ones I've done - I just dove into the deep end of it and started pushing stuff around, and it really came back to bite me in the end in numerous aspects.  I think it is coming along swimmingly, and it's loaded with details - it's like a giant piece of strawberry shortcake that just kept getting decorated.  Texturing it is going to be a bear, as there are hundreds of different objects - I really bit off a lot more than I can gag on...but I am going to really be happy with the end result...