Psander5's BATs

[psander5 195]

gutterclub: I'm not sure if I like it either. I've seen it from the tram and it's quite imposing. Thanks for the tips. It's those glazed balconies that worry me the most I think, and the high ceiling-ed penthouse. Both elements are quite transparent, even from what would be SC4's viewing angle.

Jasoncw: Thanks. Yeah, that sounds like an idea I was nervous about modeling it and then regretting certain things if and when I decided to change the glass. I prefer to know where I'm going before I set off! It didn't seem so scary once I'd got used to using Max again though.

jayo: Thanks. I didn't know ill Tonkso had started doing this! I thought it was one of the ones that he'd missed. Ah well, if he can't be bothered to finish it I'm happy to step into the breech

I might as well show a picture too. I've modeled most of the building now. I just have the roof details, the lot and a couple of structures around the back to do and I'm ready to start on the materials. Sadly, I'm back at work from Monday, so I'll probably slow down on it. It's a tiring job with a horrific 5 hour daily commute! i don't have anywhere near the BATing time I used to have when I was unemployed!

This time I scaled it vertically 133%

[Jasoncw 11,840]

5 hours!/!?!??!?!?!?!?!?

Are you planning to move to whatever city it is (London?)!?!?!? If you can take the train instead, plus a laptop, and you've got plenty BAT time.

[psander5 195]

It's not that far away really, just in the middle of nowhere! It takes a walk, a train, a wait, another train and a bike ride. Then reverse all that for the journey home. I can't move closer because it's only a temporary job (That's dragged on for about 8 months) and it's horrible. This last week or so that I've had time to BAT has served to remind me how much fun it is!

That's an idea though... except I don't have a laptop. Just a PC and a netbook. Although, the PC is in need of replacement...

  Edited October 16, 2011 by psander5  

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely model it's looking great and welcome back.

[Chris M 406]

Fantastic work - really looking forward to seeing more progress on this one.

[Delecto 941]

Nice to see you back batting Psander, and great choice for your new model.

[psander5 195]

Thanks guys

This is pathetic, and probably doesn't really count as a proper update, but I thought I'd come by here and prove to you and to myself that I haven't given up yet, and am still working on Beetham Tower...

All I've done is make a tentative start on looking at glass materials. They're not finished, and are an approximation of what the final result will be. Actually, I just pilfered the material from Jason's thread and tweaked a couple of values for my own evil ends. It is a superb tutorial by the way

Just one view today as I've only prepared the pattern for these two sides. The reflection image is an old one from a previous BAT that I had lying around. It's just there as a placeholder. Of course, even though I acknowledge the unfinished state of the materials, I'd welcome any comments.

I hope to make quicker progress from now on, but I fear this is just a pipe dream. The good news is that I've upgraded my computer since my last post, so it works much better! I'll use the shininess of the laptop and the freshness of the upgrade to Max 2012 to fuel this along as I fight fatigue I'm hoping for lots of snow over the next few weeks because it would be pretty easy for me to get snowed in, giving me lots of time to BAT and play computer games!

[skyscraper 216]

woow psander5, thats incredible

[gutterclub 2,729]

The glass looks ok, the only thing I would point out..and i've seen it a few times here..whilst Jasons tutorial is magnificent and completely needed BATers as a reference, it was made for totally reflective glass, which looking at the Beetham I don't think it is. A few photos i've looked at you can see the curtains in the hotel section, therefore with the glass i'd make it slightly more transparent and less totally reflective. Maybe also make the mullions are little darker or more prominent..

Of course this is just adivce, I am not even a decent batter so please dont think like I am preaching.

That aside I think this is going to be a beauty, I love all your others bats and will love this too! Keep it up and keep playing with that glass..

[_marsh_ 1,117]

The textures look great, and though they do, if you're are going for a perfect recreation they do not fit. The real building is almost entirely clear windows, looking like a massive glass box with floors. Although this may require modeling the inside... :|

But I'm sure however you finish it it will look good.

  Edited November 7, 2011 by _marsh_  

[Ion_Cannon 677]

It's good to see more UK BATs and one from near my hometown no less, I see this building quite alot when I'm not at university, looks like the citadel from HL2 from alot of angles. Your texture looks nice, though its a long way from being true to life, it also needs to be alot more green/blue than currently.

[psander5 195]

skyscraper : Thanks!

gutterclub, _marsh_ & Ion_Cannon : Thanks! You see, this is why it's important to post updates! To be honest though I know the glass isn't right. I'm well aware that Jason's tutorial is for metallised glass, and this property is what I've tried to adjust to make it look more like normal glass (Keeping the map seettings and material structure but changing the IoR and reflectivity values). The problem is that this building is all glass, with full height apertures into the rooms. This makes the idea of modelling the interiors a no no... at least for me. The other option that I know of is to make maps to put behind the glass or on the floors. I really have no idea what I'm doing with that though, and I have a feeling that it will be difficult to make it look realistically like a true internal environment. My intention so far has been to make the glass opaque/highly reflective so that I don't need to go to so much trouble, but it seems that won't do

All your other suggestions are great too. I'll look into them as I continue.

[gutterclub 2,729]

I tihnk Jason did something similar to maps behind the glass for the UN building..I don't think modelling the interiors is the way to go..the hotel bit def has a lot of curtains/blinds so could always make maps for them?

I think a middle ground for the glass might work, with slight transparacy..that said, from the viewing angle it might actually be that reflective in which case it would be spot on..

Keep it up though, excited about this one!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I'm not familiar with the original, but it looks like you've taken quite a challenge! In my opinion, the ground plane may be a bit too defined, though. Noise/bump looks OK to me, so the only way to make less obvious and discernible what's reflected would probably be to garble the reflected image itself far enough to obscure defined shapes and objects, yet not so much that it looks totally chaotic and random.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

For the UN I tried modeling the interior and blinds, and then texturing the floors with a "glass texture" (the kind of texture you might use on the glass itself if you were doing opaque glass + texture, but applied to the floor instead), and it sort of worked but not really.

Then I switched to opaque glass, and made a glass texture, as well as a black and white alpha mask for the blinds, which I used together in a material to keep the blinds and the rest of the texture isolated, but that was kind of convoluted so I just brought the blinds into the main glass texture. So now it's really just a plain ol' glass texture with blinds included. I applied a uvw unwrap, but I only used it to export a higher resolution wireframe image than a screenshot would normally provide, so it's just slightly less dirty than the quick and dirty take a screenshot of the viewport method.

The only other special thing I've been doing so far, is I've tried to give a sense of depth by having shapes in the glass texture that align to the orthographic perspective. To do this, in photoshop, make some kind of gridded noisy pattern (you can take some image and apply a mosaic filter to it to make everything squares), and then go to edit>transform>distrort, and shift the top horizontally by 30 degrees (these numbers are at the top of the screen, and you can type them in). When you put that texture on a wall you should end up with something like this:

If you do this you'll want to do it twice, alternating between the two every floor. That way the pattern is broken up from floor to floor, which helps tie each floor of the texture to each floor that it's supposed to be representing. Otherwise the texture will feel really non-specific and it could even look like your building was hollow or it could break the illusion of glass all together and your facade could look like the flat textured wall that it really is.

The other thing to keep track of is color. Your glass right now is purply like metallic glass ends up, even though you changed the IOR and stuff. You'll eventually want it to be light green or blue or whatever tint the RL clear glass has.

That's all the advice I can think of off the top of my head. I'm trying to figure this out for myself as well. Surprisingly the UN HQ is the first time I've had to texture glass like that. All the other times I've textured glass the windows have been smaller which is a lot easier.

[psander5 195]

gutterclub : There's no way I'd model the interiors of the whole thing There are some areas that might need it though, such as the lobby, the penthouse (top three rows of windows), skybar (the overhang), and the glass-enclosed balconies on one side of the upper section. That's still probably too long a list... oh, and there's the glass atrium and restaurant in the annex as well!

Bing can sometimes give a good approximation of SC4's angle. Not so much in this case though. It appears less transparent and the overall colour is darker than from more lateral angles, but the resolution is too low to tell. Something inbetween realism and convenience is what I'm looking for

T Wrecks : Yep, for someone who's scared of glass I made a strange choice in this huge glass box! The groundplane isn't appropriate for this model, I agree. I plan to make a better one. The current one worked well for my last building, which was a lot smaller!

Jasoncw : Hero

That's just the kind of knowledge I was lacking. That little mini-tutorial is great! I would have never arrived at that solution. I even 'chucked a sickie' from work so I could play with it Well, not really, but I have conveniently had the day off with a bad back.

I've applied it to the hotel floors, but I think it might be more valuable on the residential floors, which have fewer obstructions in the windows. People that high up don't care about walking around naked with no curtains it seems!

_____________________________________________

So here's another mini update. I think I need to stop messing around with the glass now though until the rest of the model is finished. I think I'm going in the right direction with it now at least. It'll be easier to judge colour and reflection once the reflected elements are finished and textured, and I don't want all that glass to stretch the preview render time too far just yet. Not that it matters too much any more now I'm using a beastly machine!

I think I need to up the contrast between the 'clear' glass and the milky, coated glass a bit more... but that's one of those things that can wait until the end.

I'm quite pleased with myself that I managed to work out how to get map channels to work so I could keep the bump map on 'face' UVW co-ords and the texture on a separate 'planar' channel. Even though it looks a little messed up on the south side, but I think that might be down to the white roof that's being reflected.

On a related note... 3dsMax 2012 Bible is in the post, so I might be getting to know a few more useful features If I can find the discipline to work through it!

[psander5 195]

Oops. Double post

  Edited November 8, 2011 by psander5  

[_marsh_ 1,117]

Looks great. That glass fits the building much better. Even though you're not done modeling it It looks great. Hope to see what will come out of it.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Looking much better, especially the bottom half with the blinds/curtains..really brings it to life!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

No problem!

I feel kind of silly though, because the angle to distort the squares is definitely not -30 degrees. You can tell by looking at my preview that the angle on the front isn't parallel to the angle of the top of the cube. I had even used -30 on the UN glass. But the correct number is -19.

The glass is coming along really well.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Looking much better now, I look foward to seeing your further progress

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great, keep it up.

[Vlasky 1,803]

Great progress. Looking forward to seeing more

[Keder 116]

I like it.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

Looking forward to seeing the finished product! I see this building from my window and would love for it to appear in my cities.

[Follarch 326]

@Gurning_Chimp: His last post was 5 months ago. Not sure if he's taken a very extended break, or forgotten about this.

[Jack_wilds 550]

great progress... its a good thing to have a tutor. the likes of jasoncw, to come to the rescue... don't give-up and it'll get done...

  Edited April 14, 2012 by Jack_wilds  

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

@Gurning_Chimp: His last post was 5 months ago. Not sure if he's taken a very extended break, or forgotten about this.

I hope not, this building is proving a massive challenge to seasoned BATter's. From what I heard, ILL_Tonkso was working on this a while back but never finished.

[psander5 195]

...Hello

I'm still here, sort of. I haven't forgotten the project. I've just been busy with work... or rather, travelling to work. I've moved to Sheffield now though, closer to work, so I should have more time and energy in the evenings. This means I will be able to do more BATing! I don't have anything more to show on this project yet though. It'll take me a while to get back into the swing of things. I have been working on the model a bit, but progress will be slow to start with. So don't worry, this building hasn't beaten me. It's not that difficult to do really, especially with all the support around here

As well as this project I also have an ice hockey stadium to finish! I recently went back to Finland and had another look at it 'in the flesh', so I will get back on to that project before too long too. No BAT pictures to show so here's a relevant one from my holiday album...

It was quite cold

  Edited May 2, 2012 by psander5  

[MTT9 187]

Great to know you are still alive!!!