Diving into BATting

[TV-VCR 14]

Well, I've been modelling in Sketchup for about 2 years (I also have about 4 months worth of experience with 3DS Max, but that was back when my dad worked for the university and I could play on the computers there), so I thought I would finally dive into BATting. It's been about 3 months since I last pumped out a model so I'm a bit rusty (especially with exporting things correctly).

I think I'll start out with just an office building. Better than getting ahead of myself and then tripping. What do you think so far?

Now if I'm correct, SC4 works in real scale, right? And do textures need to be powers of two (they probably do)?

Cheers. I'll post more later.

[patriots_1228 51]

powers of two? what? yea it works in real scale. Anyway, i suggest you model out your facade details and don't use one texture for the facade. But nice design.

p.s.: I'm more of a fan of jumping, not much of a diver.

[TV-VCR 14]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 powers of two? what? yea it works in real scale. Anyway, i suggest you model out your facade details and don't use one texture for the facade. But nice design.

p.s.: I'm more of a fan of jumping, not much of a diver.quote>

Powers of two = 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. etc. etc. (it could also be 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and so forth)

The textures that are on there I am just using as a reference. As I go along I'll keep adding things and adjusting detail.

[psander5 195]

I like the look of this building. I'm gonna start paying attention to more of these threads as I think I could learn something for my own creations! (I'm starting with props as a complete G-max novice!)

I seem to remember seeing that the scale is slightly off. Something about 2 metre tall sims? someone please jump in and correct me though... I'm by no means certain.

[nofunk 1,933]

That's a pretty cool design! Can't wait to see more.

Yes, model everything in real scale, but at the end, most BATers (me included) scale our models up vertically by about 120%-130%. It helps to correct for the game's viewport, which tends to "squish" buildings.

I'm also not sure what you mean about textures needing to be in powers of two, but I certainly don't use any fancy techniques when texturing my models. You might take a look at JasonCW's texture tutorial for some hints.

I seem to remember seeing that the scale is slightly off. Something about 2 metre tall sims? someone please jump in and correct me though... I'm by no means certain. quote>

You are right: pedestrians in the game are out of scale, but the building scale is close to real life. For example, if you are modeling a building from real life, you can use exact dimensions from the actual building. Before exporting, however, it helps to scale the building up vertically about 120%-130%. This only a correction for the visual distortion of the game's viewport; it does not mean that the game's scale is different.

For modeling buildings, a good rule of thumb is to make floor heights about 3.5 - 4 meters.

[Glenni 1,444]

You can sometimes also exagerate the floor depending on the building. For instance, an old building does usually have taller floors than a modern one.

[TV-VCR 14]

There is 3D detail, just for some reason it's hard to see here.

May I ask a question... how do you do the inside stuff? Because the windows are going to be transparent.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

Textures don't need to be in power of 2s.  The graphics in SC4 are pre-rendered, and I think the images Gmax makes are automatically in power of 2 dimensions.

It's hard to judge what's going on in sketchup.  I guess try to make it as good as possible, so that you don't need to spend a lot of time fixing things in Gmax, where you'll know what it really looks like.

To model the insides, you model objects just like you would model anything else (a table is a box with 4 tall boxes underneath it, etc.).  But with a building that size gmax will lag a lot if you model the insides (it will already lag a lot if you model everything in the facade that should be modeled).  Though you can also give the floors a texture that has a lot of shapes on it, and this will make it look like something.  Though for most uses in Gmax, I recommend doing opaque windows, and making a good custom window texture.

[TV-VCR 14]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw Textures don't need to be in power of 2s.  The graphics in SC4 are pre-rendered, and I think the images Gmax makes are automatically in power of 2 dimensions.

It's hard to judge what's going on in sketchup.  I guess try to make it as good as possible, so that you don't need to spend a lot of time fixing things in Gmax, where you'll know what it really looks like.

To model the insides, you model objects just like you would model anything else (a table is a box with 4 tall boxes underneath it, etc.).  But with a building that size gmax will lag a lot if you model the insides (it will already lag a lot if you model everything in the facade that should be modeled).  Though you can also give the floors a texture that has a lot of shapes on it, and this will make it look like something.  Though for most uses in Gmax, I recommend doing opaque windows, and making a good custom window texture.quote>

Thanks. The last game I made models for, textures dimensions had to be powers of two or the game wouldn't load the textures for the model.

But I just whipped up a quick texture, put some surfaces right behind the windows and did this:

Would this work? Like you said, if I tried to detail all of it, my computer would crash (I'm already having some problems with my graphics card, eheheh).

[Jasoncw 11,839]

The texture does a lot of repeating. I also think that more of the window frames and things need to be rendered. Texturing is something that would really have to wait until Gmax though, when you will be able to see what it looks like at the correct scale and lighitng/rendering conditions.