Psander5's BATs

[psander5 195]

Updated with some minor changes and some textures added:

(These are HD previews for demonstration, but I intend to release only SD)

This is the first time I've ever attempted to use nightmaps.  This might be overkill, but it's just a test:

I picked the first textures I could get my hands on, so they might not be the most appropriate for this kind of building. They're Andisart's offering from the night windows thread in case anyone was wondering.   What are people's opinions on using this kind of lighting on a building such as this?

I think the ground floor looks pretty interesting.  I might need to tinker with the levels and colours though before it's right.

I'm getting ahead of myself though.  I still have the green building to do, and some more texturing round the back before I decide on final lighting.

Roof junk is still to be added... just to preempt that suggestion  

[JakeMD 107]

If you can, find a building of this height/style/type and find it at night. Or go out at night and take pictures of it at night and crop out the textures from the windows.

It looksgreat so far! Interested to see what happens with the roof, and the night lighting

Also, the lights could be a tad brighter inside.

[SimFox 802]

May I ask if you're making it in GMAX or Max?

[psander5 195]

swat-medic: That's good advice. The trouble is I live in a violent city I wouldn't like to be carrying expensive cameras and a tripod (although at simcity resolution blurry pics would probably be ok) around at night. People who do that are used as target practice around here Your comment did make me think more about the upper floors' use though. Looking back at the source building the upper floor is either vacant or used as stock rooms. The windows are partly obscured by a sheet of stick-on plastic. I've changed the window textures to show that. As a result this tow floor probably wouldn't be lit at night at all, or if it was it would be dim security lights or basic incandescents. The middle floor is a mystery. It's not part of the shop, so I presume it's used for offices, staff rooms and storage. Hard to tell from street level though, and google street view's no help.

I thought my lights would be too bright if anything! Like I said though, I have lots of tinkering to do so I'll try stepping it up.

SimFox: I'm using Max9, but I'm not yet using it to it's optimum in my BATs. I've only worked through the first few chapters of my Max textbook, and some of the BAT tools are still a little bit beyond my understanding, which is probably why you need to ask the question... I'm using Max as if it were simply Gmax but with added modelling tools. 

[SimFox 802]

well that's why you need LetThereBeLight (https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21990). I've made it specially to be version independent and good for most situations. It is very easy to set up. Look for instructions here: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=107258&enterthread=y (second message there)

I say so because it looks quite good nitetime but not so day time..

Just install LetThereBeLight and see the difference...

As for the modeling... Well I wanted to say it when I saw original in clay you've posted in Bat showcase, but without knowing what mat went where I preferred to keep my big mouth shut.. but now I think I may open it...

I think you may consider to extend the architectural portico, of sorts, all the way to the ground... I mean I understand tha tground floor had be remodeled still I think in building like this walls are often still carry the weight, so...

[psander5 195]

Thanks SimFox!  I actually tried to install LetThereBeLight a couple of months ago, but I guess I was doing something wrong because it didn't work.  I tried a couple of times before eventually giving up.  I tried again today though anf all went smoothly... although I haven't tried an export yet...

I know what you're saying about the apparent anti-gravity look of the building.  Strangely, this is taken from the real life building:

This really shows up my lack of attention to detail and my inadequacies in modelling and texturing!  But, it also shows how the top part is connected to the bottom.  I'm not an architect, but I presume the weight is carried to the ground by steel cantilevers and those thinner steel columns set back from slightly from those of the upper floors.  

Having said that, I fully accept that it looks a bit disjointed in my version.  Does this go some way to reconciling the oddity?...

I guess I now need to alter some of my textures now I'm working with LetThereBeLight, but that's no bother.  The difference in definition is astounding!  I have seen the light

[SimFox 802]

Glad to be of service...(about LtbL)

It does make color very vibrant (in versions of Max 7-9) so it something one must look after. But you'll get the "sense" of it rather quickly, since human eye is train to make these sort of judgment on a daily basis.

As for the structure of the building, well after seeing photo I see it is much newer than I've expected. It is clearly have a frame structure under the more or less hanging facade.

But i guess the somewhat odd feeling that model gives isdue to the fact that you have stretched it (in x and Y) for quite a bit (I'd say 2x the real size) it made the span under portico so large and, at the same time the central pair of columns so wide - and visually heavy.

That said you've done a very good job stretching. All the new proportions are very natural and second floor looks like it had always supposed to be this way. It's only the way ground and second floor interact got a bit messy... May be you could consider to bring it a bit forward? This would suggest/hint that structural things are simply hidden behind the show-window decorations... And also the part around the corner entrance... Well Not sure about that, but it could be left as is I suppose... BTW what is the date above the entrance? 1932?

[psander5 195]

Yes, I did stretch it quite a bit.  It was either, stretch, squash or add other buildings.  I went for the stretch.  Perhaps it would have been more faithful to add length (ie more windows) rather than stretch, therefore keeping the original proportions.   That would have been trickier though.  Unfortunately they didn't build Britain according to the SimCity grid ... so something has to give to make these buildings fit w2w.   I'm glad you think I did it reasonably well though. 

I tried your suggestion to bring the ground floor windows out a bit.  I think it works.  I also added a couple of details that I'd missed.  I also realise that I'd misjudged the thickness of the two ventral columns on the long side, so I narrowed them a bit.  Hopefully they don't look so heavy now.  

Here it is as of now:

The bottom views are SD, and true to how it'll be in game.  The HD view is just for demo again.

Still needs roof junk

EDIT: Yes it does indeed say 1932.  I made that up though.  It was just a guess.  Do you reckon I'm way off?  It doesn't render in SD, so it doesn't matter too much, but it's easily changed  

[Brady Baker 1]

Everything is looking really good. I have never had much success at making W2W buildings. I use basic GMAX and the GIMP as I cannot justify spending the money on better programs. Making a BAT thread might help me out. Can't wait to see more from you.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Great stuff! One aspect I'd like to mention is that I see a rather strong contrast between the extremely crisp and vivid wall textures and the cloudy roof texture. Since you're going to add some roof junk anyway, you might want to look into that matter while you're at it. Oh, and I love the night lights, btw!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

The building is coming along really well. 

I made a mock up to show how I would go about tweaking the colors.  I made the entire facade brighter except for the windows.  I also added some blue (which I actually sampled from the photo, the building's natural color goes very well with SC4).  I definitely agree with T Wrecks about the roof texture. 

[psander5 195]

BradySeitz: Thanks! W2W building are unusual.  I don't like leaving big expanses of blank wall!  I have a few W2W's in my 'recycle bin' that kind of failed.  This is the only one that's really worked, mainly because I copied (to some extent) something that exists in real life.   GMax and GIMP are fine.  You don't really need to have anything else to be able to make some great content for the game.  There are many better BATs than mine available that were made with standard GMAX!  I recommend opening a BAT thread.  It's really helped me.  It helps to keep me 'within the lines'.

TWrecks: Thanks.  You caught me.  That roof is just a cheeky screengrab from Google Maps.  I didn't seriously think it would pass, but It doesn't look too bad in SD view.  Nevertheless it was always my intention to make a better one, I hope I've managed to do so.  I'm not very good at making roof textures. I can never seem to find good source images, and I don't always have the patience to make them from scratch

Jasoncw: Thankyou.  I'll see your mock up, and raise you a real rendering 

I think I've managed to alter the colours to make them more closely match your illustration and the original building, although I haven't gone quite as bright.  

I think it looks improved.  I tend to gravitate towards warm colours.  Sometimes I think I suffer from a colour-warmth-blindness   I should remember to look more closely at the source building on future projects, for more than just the colour subtleties. 

As you can see I've modelled the majority of the adjacent building.  It's supposed to be just an understated addition to make the main building fit on a 2x2 lot as W2W.  It's only partly textured (all of the trim is untouched), and there's still some modelling to do on the chimney.  It's not based on a real building, but I did take a few hints from another Nottingham building.  The brick textures might need to be better balanced.  They contrast too much.  I think the bricks on the new building need desaturating a bit.  

Still no roof junk.  I can't really decide what to put there.  In real life there's nothing at all, but that won't do for SimCity.  We don't have much air con in the UK so it's not common to find vast jungles of ventilation equipment on British buildings of this size.  The only thing's I can think of that should be there are a roof hatch and a couple of non-descript vent pipes.  Any other suggestions for roof junk? 

[Dexter 40]

Looking great , Keep up the good work!

[_Atticus 10]

I concur. This is looking wonderful! I really like that little adjacent building.

-Pingangster

[psander5 195]

Dexter & pingangster, Thanks a lot! It's almost finished now I think:

Game definition (SD):

I've put some roof junk on there, but as I've said before, in real life this building has none so I had nothing to use as reference.  I've tried to keep it low key and appropriate, but I find it hard to muster any passion for creating roof junk.  I propose we change it's name to "roof jewellery" to make it more inspiring

I think I'm done with the modelling now.  It's already at a standard I didn't think I could get it to (many thanks to all the contributors!) and in SD the building is small enough to render out most of the subtleties. Overall I'm quite happy with it. 

I just have to do nightlights now and get it rendered, unless there's something glaringly obviously wrong with the roof jewellery* that I've not picked up.  

* Don't worry, I'll switch back to 'roof junk' after this post.  I was just being silly. 

[madhatter106 3,903]

I love the overall result - the one thing I would change is the variations in value on the roof. It creates an almost striped effect that starts to look like the texture is repeating - which it isn't, on closer inspection. They look just so perfectly spaced, it looks a bit un-natural to me. Otherwise I think this is fabulous

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Looking good!

I'd desaturate all of the brick textures, and I'd possibly make the darker one a little brighter. I also think that the glass on the ground floor of the white building should be darker.

[Simbourgeois 139]

Wow, these two buildings are just spectacular - will be such a nice addition to our cities

Can't wait to see them released!!!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[psander5 195]

madhatter106, Jasoncw and Simbourgeois, thanks very much.

Here it is with all suggested tweaks addressed and a preliminary night lit version:

 

I'm not very experienced with nightlighting, so I'm unsure how to judge it at the moment. I might have lit it too much when considering that a clothes store and cafe woulf likely be closed and unoccupied at night, but it would look boring with no lights at all

[io_bg 249]

I love it the way it is now. Don't change anything!

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: psander5

 

I'm not very experienced with nightlighting, so I'm unsure how to judge it at the moment. I might have lit it too much when considering that a clothes store and cafe woulf likely be closed and unoccupied at night, but it would look boring with no lights at all
quote>

Nice looking W2W.  I can definitely see it occupying a corner or two in my cities (in fact I'm looking forward to seeing it next door to my Richer Sounds / Rooms BAT!)

When I'm thinking about night lighting I don't really think about late night / early hours of the morning, but the 18:00-22:00 sort of time where on a dark winter's evening things like shops and cafes are still open and people are still out and about.

Really we need two 'night' periods - one for the time when most people are still active and then 00:00 - 06:00 sort of time when most things are shut and  the suburbs are pretty much all lights-out and tucked up in bed.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Can we get another in-game shot?  Except this time with comparable Maxis buildings instead of comparable BATs?

Also, I forgot to say before that I think you should add some flashing to the common walls of the white building.  Regardless of how it might look in real life, I think some well defined (I usually use black) flashing makes things look good.

[nofunk 1,933]

This is coming together really well! And I like watching the progress.

[rushman5 33]

I'm liking the appropriate lighting here, subtle. Looks like another excellent main street building is soon to hit the stex!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

This is really turning out to be quite the little BAT! The small red brick shop and the roof texture you used on the main building are especially nice I think. I have to agree with Jason on the flashing, the brick wall in particular looks rather odd without anything to cap it off.

Best of luck,

-Todd

[psander5 195]

io_bg: Thanks!  I've changed something

zero7: Thanks, I think it will.  Yeah I was thinking of Christmas opening hours too.  You could do the 'two night periods' idea with timed props I guess, making two versions of the nightlit building and making them appear at different times in the night.  It might work, but would be unnecissarily complicated.  It would only really work on the day/night cycle mode I guess, but it's possible!

Jasoncw: see below for the pics,  I added some flashing to the walls.  Note to self, don't search 'flashing' in google without any context  Unless you really want to that is!  I placed the building into a Maxis only scene.  I hated every moment of building the vanilla city to put it in!  I never use maxis commercial these days.  I don't really know how to judge these images.  My building stands out, but then Maxis didn't make any early 20th centuary British styled w2w's. 

nofunk: Thanks a lot.  I'm making a lot of small steps with this one, trying to get it looking right

rushman: I'm glad you like the lighting.  I wasn't sure myself, I just slapped the window textures on.  I think they look ok, and I couldn't find any better ones, and they don't need to be mind blowing on such a small BAT I think.

SimHoTToDDy: Thanks.  I'm glad you like the roof texture!  Flat roofs seem to be really difficult to get in raw form, so I had to use lots of Photoshop layers to get it looking right... with valuble pointers from some people.  See below for flashing:

I didn't really know that the fashing was necessary until I researched it.  I already added some to the chimney top and join on the other building, but didn't see the need to cap off the solid brick walls.  Visually it makes sense too, although I might have gone too dark.  

I'm having problems exporting the night renders too in testing.  I have to get that sorted before I can think of releasing any time soon.

I was going to make this the first of several in a pack, but I think I'll release this on its own for now.  I'll be making lots of complimentary BATs to go with it in eventually, and I'll probably release those in packs of 5 or 6 at a time once I start speeding up and need less advice

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Wow I love these!

Never see anyone batting those kinds of buildings anymore. Keep it up!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

This is probably the last suggestion that I'll have, and even now it's getting particular.  It's looking really good.  I desaturated the darker brick more, I brightened the streamlined horizontal black part, and I added a little more peach to the white facade.  You might need to desaturate the tiles infront of the door more depending on what ground textures you plan on using.

[psander5 195]

Now that I've got my truenite exporting problem sorted, I've been able to do the finishing touches on this, and it's now on the STEX. 

I took some of your last suggestions Jason, but I left the red brick the same colour.  Whilst I see that making them less colourful would have made them fit better into the SC4 picture I posted, making it more brown as opposed to terracotta  would be unfaithful to the source building type.  We have a lot more red/orange brick buildings on high streets than more muted browns... well at least in the towns I've lived in

[spa 968]

Never noticed your thread before. I have to say I'm quite impressed with this new corner building. It was fun flipping down through the page and seeing all the different versions. It really progressed nicely and turned out a winner in the end and that's not easy to do for a relatively new batter, especially when dealing with a "whitish" type texture (they're really hard to do). I'll have to pay more attention when you start your next project.