Twinkle, twinkle, little BAT...

[benvoliothefirst 36]

ALSO also, I think it's high time you did a texturing tutorial... sure there are others floating around, but I'd love to get a peek inside your process and some insight into how you create yours, they're always spectacular.

[nofunk 1,933]

These are lover-ly!

[madhatter106 3,905]

SimHoTToDDy - wow, I'm glad I got such a good reaction from you.    I must confess I do love it when I can elicit two "oh my God" responses in all caps, both in a row.  Haha.  Yeah, the variation in the three panels does indeed make it look like tiling - it may be something I go back into a fix in the texture I made for it.  I must say it's fun to figure out ways to make these look grimey - I plan on doing a roof hole, as you suggested, and like a lot of your other ideas.  I had thought about scaffolding, and worked it into one of the models as you suggested; I think it will be next on my list to texture.  I think down the road, I may do a couple of very ornate theatres - one very grand movie palace that's still used and kept up, as well as one that has fallen into serious disrepair; I might even use the same model base, and retexture and refine the details between the two - sort of a Jekyll/Hyde, two faces theme.  Thanks for stopping by and for writing so much - those suggestions were very inspiring.  I do appreciate all your support you give to fellow BATters.

benvoliothefirst - I was wondering where you had disappeared to - I uploaded the theatres a while back, but hadn't heard from you; I thought you would be the first to jump in and comment on them, heheheheh.  Glad you're liking this little grindhouse - I did catch Inglorious Basterds a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was fun, though the subtitles were very sloppy.  I don't know if he did it intentionally, but there were some serious inconsistencies in them. 

As far as doing a texturing tutorial, there's not much to say that hasn't already been said in a lot of others' threads; basically I hunt them down on the web, and pull them into Photoshop for some serious tweaking.  Usually the saturation, brightness, contrast, and hue all get some levers pulled and pushed to change what's there.  Sometimes I need to cut and paste to extend or widen them.  And there's always some shadow painting and gradients added where shadows might occur - I like to accentuate the shadows that gmax gives me, and often find a subtle gradient works wonders to heighten the render.  In some ways, the texturing takes a long time, usually longer than it takes to model, and often I find it tedious unless I've found a good color scheme or inspirational texture.  I find myself doing the roof very early on, as that will set the tone for the rest of the BAT, and usually because it's the most square footage seen from any given angle; a wise person once said in a BAT thread that this is a "game of rooftops," and I think if you can make the rooftop and all its details believable, you're halfway home to getting a good BAT.  Thanks as always for stopping by, and keep writing your congressmen to get me that grant!  Hahahahaha...

nofunk - many thanks for popping in and giving your heartfelt thumbs up!  I appreciate it...

---

Okay, folks, the second of the grindhouse series has arrived.  Say hello to the Crown Theatre.  Not as dingey and grimey as the first one, but something's off in the wiring in that sign's "W" - if only they had enough money to hire the maintenance man back...teehee...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Oh, the lights remind me of what SimGoober did with his "Hotel Coral Essex" - if you don't know what I mean, download that file, plop both colour versions into a test city, switch to night view and take a close look...  

EDIT

While I'm posting here, it occurred to me that I might as well show some of your fabulous little BATs that recently popped up in one of my humble little towns.

Here we have Matt's Mattresses (I translated that one to 'Matzes Matratzenmarkt') at an intersection of two main roads somewhere in a boring suburb out in the boonies... SimGoober's Towne Bank dominates the scene, while some industry (bottom right) and a large supermarket (upper left) are present as well. The upper right corner has our little mattress store (I love that corner lot!), and right behind is one of JMYers' small shops I like so much. If you look closely, you can see how the road gently rises to cross a nearby river on a little bridge.

=========

Having crossed the river, this is where we arrive. See if you can spot Captain Sid's Bait & Tackle here! I couldn't imagine a better place for that little gem. It blends right in with everything else and looks absolutely lovely. I also like how SimGoober's Waffle King adds that certain touch to the corner. Oh, and did you notice Captain Sid's kayak towards the very right? 

Btw, I guess it's worth mentioning that there are absolutely no RCI plops here, everything has grown naturally. And yes, I do use the "Make historical" feature a lot! 

Anyway, what I want to say with these pictures is: Thank you BAT artists for your lovely creations! I hope you enjoyed taking a look at what others do with your stuff and why they enjoy it. 

[Simbourgeois 139]

Hey, fantastic work on these!!!

I just love all those small details you put into your BATs, just like that "W" thing...lol

What's the movie they're showing? Lorna? Checked in IMDb... it's quite sleazy... very appropriate for such a movie theatre!

Keep up the great work!!!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[madhatter106 3,905]

T Wrecks - wow, thanks for those pictures!  I love when I see these pop up in City Journals; my only wish was that I could spend more time digging through that section of the forums to find them.  Is that the original lot for the mattress place as I did it, or did you spruce it up a bit?  I don't remember it looking quite so good - but maybe it's the whole effect of its surroundings with all that great custom content.  I'm glad you appreciate these little BATs; like you, I'm a purist when it comes to plopping - the only time I really do it is to get decent screenshots to use when I upload to the STEX.  I shall look up that building of SimGoober's that you recommended.  Many thanks for your kind words of support, and for popping in to this thread again. 

Simbourgeois - thanks for the encouragement.  I like putting lots of little details in that help "sell it," and though I've done the whole burned-out-letter thing before (in my old school style arcade from way back when), I thought it would be appropriate here.  In fact, I think each one of these grindhouse theaters will have some sort of highighted little detail like that.  Yeah, Russ Meyer's Lorna is apparently pretty racey - I've never caught it, but I'm a huge fan of his other "magnum opus," which is so greatly named Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!  I highly recommend it - it's great fun.  Thanks as always for popping in here...

---

I was working on some texturing for the third grindhouse theater tonight.  I wanted to go into a cool color for the building body, since the first two turned out in the same brown range.  I'm not entirely sold on the coloring myself, and I think I need to really emphasize the detail of the ruination on that front facade - gotta give the scaffolding a good reason for being there.  Though I did want to make it all look like it was only half done and abandonned, as suggested by SimHoTToDDy earlier...tell me what you think.  (I must say, I did have some fun with the orange cones, heheheh)

[_Atticus 10]

It looks great. It fits the bill perfectly. Perhaps you should make alternate versions with and without the scaffolding, to add a little variety. Anyways, you know what I think of your work, so all I'll say is this: keep working your magic.

-Pingangster

[rushman5 33]

I am a fan of your "occupied abandonment" BATs, and would love to see more. The scaffolding is a very interesting touch, though I would test the building so that it doesn't grow like a weed. I must say that your other buildings grow sparingly enough not to be intrusive!

[benvoliothefirst 36]

Thanks for your wordy and informative response! I guess ultimately your mastery of texturing can be chalked up to what my mama always said... it's one part inspiration, 99 parts perspiration. The time and effort you put into your textures is what makes them so consistently great. But it was cool to get some insight into your process!

I didn't notice a lot of inconsistencies in the Inglourious Basters subtitles, but I've only got a couple years of German under my belt and could've missed most of 'em. I wouldn't put it past Quentin to have a whole bunch of mistakes in there intentionally, as an homage to messed up subs of the past. I look forward to the DVD release for an in-depth look at this! One thing I did appreciate is that a lot of people I know who would NEVER see one of those "weird foreign films" were totally into IB, which gives me hope that it'll open their minds to more foreign films, the despite the fact that they have to "read them" rather than watch them.

And yes, I took a bit of a hiatus from the boards, real life intruding as it always does, but when I came back the first thing I did was look up your latest masterworks! I'm digging the Crown, especially the faded Coke ad on the side, I've seen several of those in buildings around New England. Great little touch. And I second the comments from people who really, REALLY like the scaffolding and orange cones on the third grindhouse, but think that there should be a version with and without in case a whole bunch pop up near each other. Keep up the fantastic work!

[madhatter106 3,905]

pingangster - hmmm, I agree, I think two versions of this, with and without scaffolding, may be called for...I will have to load this one up again and test it out and see how it looks "bare" without the scaffold.  Thanks for popping in again

rushman5 - glad you're liking these; I'm hoping the modding and stats on these and other releases of the past are properly done, but as you said, my stuff doesn't pop up too frequently, so I'm guessing I'm working in the right direction.  Thanks for posting!

benvoliothefirst - yep, texturing is tons of perspiration - there are fun moments, but I am sometimes sick of a BAT by the time I reach the texturing stage; it all depends.  The one thing about Inglorious Basterds that really bugged me on the subtitling was some of the inconsistencies of what would be subtitled from scene to scene.  Sometimes they would subtitle "monsieur" as "monsieur," and other times it seemed they wouldn't title it at all.  But I tend to notice little things like that all too often - it comes from working in film and TV, I spend all my time finding the quirks and mistakes and oddities.  (I spent five minutes fuming at the screen during the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate because Denzel Washington's epaulette on his service dress coat was sitting on top of the collar.  It was a glaring mistake.)  I do agree about the non-scaffolding version, as you and pingangster have said - will have to test it out.  Glad you're back on the boards and have some time for SC4 - and thanks for popping in the thread and commenting!

---

The fourth grindhouse has been textured and lit - here's a dodgey little single-screen called The Parkland Theatre.  It's showing that aptly titled rampaging hippie flick I Drink Your Blood...

Not too sure on the final colors - I may shift the hue/saturation and brightness on this - these theatres are all trending toward the brown and earthy side, and I may want to add some variety.  I think I have one more that's not textured, and that may be the extent of this pack...I've been BATting theatres now for months, it seems, and need to shift my focus before I get weary of them...we shall see...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Great job!  In fact, I have only two minor suggestions. The first one is about the roof, which might benefit from some rain gutters / downpipes or whatever you call them*, and maybe a way to get up there - a simple hatch door or a metal ladder at the back might already do, just to add a little more detail. The second one concerns the windows - as they are now, they appear as "black holes". It's not really important since the building doesn't have many windows anyway, so no need to bother if you are not sure what to do or simply don't feel like fiddling around with the windows. I just thought I'd mention it. 

*to add more grime, one of them could have become clogged and/or broken, causing "nice" water stains on the wall... :-P

[madhatter106 3,905]

T Wrecks - hmm, I guess I had accidentally hidden the roof access that I had modelled.  Rest assured, there's a hatch to reach the roof in the final model.  I agree, it does need some extra pipes or stains or whatnot to give it some additional life.  Regarding the windows looking like black holes, I don't mind that too much personally, since the function of these buildings precludes the use of a lot of windows.  In other buildings I would fuss with it, but for these types, it's the sort of thing I'd let pass, as you suggested.  Thanks for the comments!

---

Another grindhouse textured - this one is the Empire Theatre, and it's running a double bill of "nunsploitation" film Killer Nun and the blaxploitation zombie flick Sugar Hill.  I had fun with the hole in the roof on this one, and modelling the little caution tape and stands.  I think this one also might need some piping or junk at the back or on the sides, but I haven't quite made up my mind what exactly it should be...

[spa 970]

Love the new theatres. The textures seem kind of strong in places, but then again they're meant to be old and grungy. They should fit a nice niche in game.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

This is not strictly on topic, but some of these movie titles sound almost as trashy as the one advertised on posters in the game Duke Nukem 3D: "Attack of the Bleached Blonde Biker Bimbos".

As for details to add to that last one, maybe a downpipe running down the side at an angle? Or a bricked up side entrance? Maybe some torn and faded old posters, too...

[Simbourgeois 139]

Hehehe so in this one you have to sit with an umbrella if it starts to rain... 

Great work, as always!

Yours sincerely,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[madhatter106 3,905]

spa - indeed, the textures are "strong" in some place, but like you said, such is the nature of this type of building.  I'm surprised that there aren't that many movie theaters in existence on the STEX; hopefully these will help to fill the niche.  Thanks for popping by my thread!

T Wrecks - I added a downpipe and some side wall junk, as you suggested.  I'm saving a bricked-up entrance for one of the NIMBY adult theatres I have in mind.  Thanks for the suggestions!

Simbourgeois - I guess if you're sitting in one of the back rows, it would help to have an umbrella when it rains.  The back rows, and the concession stand, I imagine, would get the brunt of the weather!  But then again, the winos snoring in those seats probably wouldn't care too much, haha.  Thanks for posting!

---

I tweaked the Chelsea Theatre, modified some textures, and changed the roof; rather than just removing the scaffold and doing a re-render, I figured I would invert the facade and make a sort of "sister" theater for it.  So I concocted the Aero Theatre.  Here's a side-by-side comparison.

Normally, I loathe to reuse models without some form of substantial changes, but I figured these two were kin, so it worked out all right.  I think these two will round out the other four (the Empire, Parkland, Crown, and Glenwood) for the full roster of BATs for the upcoming Grindhouse Theatre Pack.  Now for all the bothersome lotting and modding and testing and retesting...heheheheh

[madhatter106 3,905]

The Grindhouse Theatre Pack has just been uploaded to the STEX...download 'em and get your "grind" on!  In-game pictures below...



I think I've overloaded on theaters - I need to take a breather on doing anything with a marquee or a movie title, though these were fun to come up with.  There's some NIMBY buildings which are formulating in my head, but it's going to be a large pack and a bit of an undertaking...and I still haven't finished the drycleaners from ages ago.  Maybe I'll work on that next...

[Simbourgeois 139]

"Rejoice, Rejoice, Hallelujah!"... Oooops... wrong song!

I mean 

I was waiting for these! Can't wait to see them in my city!

Keep up the great work!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

For a while there I wasn't sure about the textures, but seeing them in game, they really look beautiful. Fantastic work!

[Glenni 1,445]

How about abandoned buildings? i think you'd like that, i made one, but there's more needed on the stex

[benvoliothefirst 36]

I absolutely love your work as usual, I'm thrilled to see another release from you. I like the idea of finishing that dry cleaners, but I humbly request that you make the time between now and the release of your XXX pack as short as possible! It's like knowing what you're getting for Christmas in February... the wait is what kills me! Maybe you could just show everyone the completed models the week before you release the whole thing. I know, you don't get as much feedback, but...

Keep up the awesome work. MadHatterCity 4 is my favorite game of all time.

[madhatter106 3,905]

Simbourgeois - hope the grindhouses pop up in your cities sometime very soon!

SimHoTToDDy - thanks, glad these "pass muster" for you in-game.  Yeah, I do tend to go a little overboard when it comes to texturing.  More is more...

Glenni - hmmm maybe an abandoned building or two is in order.  Maybe I'll put that on my mental list...

benvoliothefirst - heheheh, so you want some NIMBY, eh?  Well, here we go...

Oh, yes.  There will be NIMBY.

Bunches of them.

The next couple of waves will be some BATs to compliment the few NIMBYs already on the STEX and elsewhere.  No matter what you may think or feel about these types of places, they exist in real life, and for those of us who like the game to reflect a bit of the "down and dirty" apsects of it, then this will be your cup of proverbial tea.

I had originally considered doing a huge, massive, giant, John Holmes-sized (haha) pack of NIMBY buildings, but I'm thinking that breaking it up into some smaller packs might be the way to go.  Since I separated the arthouse theaters from the grindhouses, I figured I would finish off my theater kick with some catering to adult movies; this type of theater has been in steady decline since the advent of home video, but there are some that are still offering adult, XXX fare.  So, with that, I give you the Rexxx Theatre, the Eros Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, and the Viceroy Theatre....

 

I'm wondering about the brick color on the Rexxx, I think it might be too desaturated, or too low contrast, or both.  I'm kinda happy with how the nightlighting for all of these turned out - and really, what sort of red-light district looks better during the day, anyways?  Hopefully I'll get to mod these and test these sometime soon...

[madhatter106 3,905]

Funny, no one ventured to comment on the adult theatres.  I guess everyone was afraid of those guys with the raincoats...

Here's another wave of forthcoming NIMBY buildings.  The second volume of the upcoming Naughty NIMBY Packs will probably focus on stripclubs, go-go bars, and suchlike.  Here's three that I whipped up this week.  Get your dollar bills out for Foxy's Nude Follies, "The Seventh Veil" Strip Club, and "Dudez" All Male Revue.

There's a lot of pink in these - especially with the lighting, so I'm hoping to do some others with some cooler toned lighting schemes.  Some of these will be medium wealth commercial services, while some of the seedier ones will probably wind up being low wealth commercial.  We'll see how things progress...

[AndisArt 2,068]

Awesome + lovely BATs .great detail and texturing, will just blend in perfectly with SC4 BATs

nice addition with the adult clubs

[_Atticus 10]

Nice

[Z1x2c3v4b5 0]

could you consider a pack of motels?

[benvoliothefirst 36]

Honestly, I think the only reason you didn't have a whole lot of comments on the NIMBY theatres is because people are running out of new and exciting ways to stroke your ego. (EGO!!! I SAID EGO!!!!!) Although as much as I love your work and salivate eagerly at the thought of a new MadHatBat release, the first few theatres did have a sort of redundant quality given your last few releases. Don't get me wrong, I will happily mix them in with your other theatres for variety, and I know how much work goes into these things, but as an avid fan of yours I can't wait to see a whole city filled with vastly different BATs all done in your signature style.

As for the latest set... now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about. I especially like the Seventh Veil... I wikipedia'd the name and it gave me some weird artsy film from the 20's, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised given your real life vocation, ha. The building itself almost has a church-like quality with the windows at the side conjuring up rows of stained glass. Also seems a bit middle-eastern. Very nice. Dudez... yeah I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one. Don't get me wrong... building is great, but... I don't want my girlfriend getting any ideas about where to spend her nights out!

[benvoliothefirst 36]

P.S. I'm not sure why anyone would OBJECT to having a slight NIMBY factor modded into these types of buildings, but it seems both logical and accurate to me. I would have done the same!

[panthersimcity4 162]

lol This is great. You can never have enough sleaze in the gritty parts of town

[Jasoncw 11,933]

The new NIMBY buildings remind me of buildings on 8 Mile in Detroit, lol