SimHoTToDDy BATs

[scotty222 549]

i reckon the lighters ones better to (its awesome either way)

great texturing on it

[jacqulina 162]

great looking building i like the texture

[SimFox 802]

there are small but still quite noticeable relative dimensions issues, but for the game this isn't really important.

But it is in terms of development of your skill. IMHO it is based on the power of observation, and it should continuously be trained in that way...

As far as current look is concerned the biggest issue with it is that you either don't use color mapping/gamma correction or you settings are of too hight contrast.

People are commonly overlook this issue when switching to custom rigs. And very wrongly so. Even if you don't use high power light sources like Mr SUN or IES Sun etc, still what you have as a result of your render is a picture in a linear color space. And that would be fine if it is saved in 32 bit format (btw not 24bit + alpha but true 32 bit color depth) and used for further image editing. But since the render result goes directly into the game the color correction should occur in MAX.

here is what I mean:

Technically picture didn't get brighter. If you sample the brightest spot in the original and in this one you would see it. What happened is that midrange had been compressed by application of gamma correction. This is how it should look simply because of the fact that monitors are set to display gamma-corrected images - each and every one coming to your monitor screen - including those in game. Darkest spot is as dark as before, brightes is as bright as before, but midrange had been expanded. In default rig this is accomplished by few fill lights that are set not to cast shadows eg being all penetrating. Also if you look at shadows generated in game itself none is very dark. So building with such a degree of contrast with many parts that are practically black does stand out

little tip... if you wanna paste the render into the game all you need is to save the render as a PNG file with alpha. Generally you should always save from MAX in PNG as it is a lossless compression format and doesn't introduce any artifacts into the image and doesn't screw any colors.

[Gn_leugim 858]

@Simfox: speak English please oO lol now I'm happy to use gmax instead of Max.. that paths you have to make to render something.. gosh lol

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Thanks everyone!

SimFox, care to elaborate how to set that up or which settings would be optimal? One of my biggest problems with BATing left (At least I think) is that I don't know where any of this stuff is to even change/ fix. Thanks for the tip though, makes perfect sense and I was beginning to worry about that same thing myself. I know you brought it up on another building a while back but didn't really explain what was going on.

Gn_leugim: It really isn't hard to render something. What can be difficult is understanding what needs to be changed and how to fix it to make the render look better. I still prefer MAX over GMAX, even though its more complicated in some areas because I can do more to effect how it turns out.

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Can you elaborate more SimFox?  I understand the concept, but ultimately I don't know that it looks better in the game, and I guess I need more convincing. 

[art128 4,618]

Hey Todd, excellent work on this new flat my friend , it looks fantastic !

[SimFox 802]

I promis I will. Just let me catch a breath - this is a weekend of parties: 2 birthdays and the end of Chinese New Year....

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Alrighty, don't let me stop you from... breathing

I'll just do some modeling and worry about all that later. Thanks for the heads up.

BTW, thanks Art!

-Todd

[SimFox 802]

sorry for the delay... some RL issues are creeping on me...

but meanwhile here is a link to the day scene set for Max2008. It includes lighting rig, Photographic exposure and FG settings. You may import all your geometry into it and test render.

http://rapidshare.com/files/191370710/DayTemplate.max

I'll try to write sort of tutorial explaining how to set everything similar scene for other versions. But the problem is that I don't have access to Max versions older then 2008 so 'm not sure what of the features might be missing from those...

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Alright, thanks a lot.

I'll have to brush up on how to convert 2009 files to 2008 so I can test it out on something I already have, but it should be useful. Actually, I thought my 2008 version still had some BAT4MAX issues going on, but apparently it works fine now. I might change to that after I wrap up what I have in 09 already (depending on how well the file conversion goes ), MR is something I would love to be able to use, after all.

[Jasoncw 11,841]

I've worked some more on the lots:

Link to Preview

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

You are the man Jason, the 4x2 looks perfect, I think that one is good to go (just switch the building with the non-crest one, unless you think people would like a smaller LOT version of that one also). The 5x4 came out nicely too, those light posts were what it was missing I think.

-Todd

[nihonkaranws 88]

Perfect grass texture.

By the way, you don't have to use Photoshop to make a preview of the building in SC4. Just hit 8 in 3dsmax, and change the environment map to an in-game image.

[Gn_leugim 858]

The 2x4 lots are amazing indeed good job there

[danielcote 9]

This is working out great so far!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Well, after working on my CJ for a while, I finally came back to this.

Didn't rework any modeling yet, and didn't play with the textures much either. I tried to play with getting the gamma stuff strightened out, but I think it will have to wait on this particular model. I was able to see some results when I used Simfox's rig in 2008 (thanks by the way, it looks great) but I'll have to save it for my next project. I almost went with a gamma correction of ~1.3, but I wasn't liking anything that barbaric at this point, so I'm leaving it without any.

I have been playing with nightlighting and I'm pretty happy with how things are going. The color is different (beige rather than yellow I think), but I like it. Might have to adjust the enterances a bit due to brightness, but thats trivial.

You have not seen the "front" in a while, so here you are

I would like to finish this one up so I can move on.

Tell me what you think about this or the day version,

-Todd

[bixel 1,223]

what is taking so long, why are you hanging on to so many awesome buildings? Release them already!!! XD XD XD

[buildsolid 4]

Those are great, please finish those off so you can release them!!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Well, I'm awful at LE, and have no experience modding, so I gave my last one to Jason to LOT which will be shipped to Nofunk for modding shortly. I can't complain bout the time, they are doing me a big favor. The others are either, not up to my standard, I don't know what to do with it (that tiny brick building comes to mind), its impossible/ unreasonable to attempt an export (see Battersea x) ), or it isn't done.

But I can deal with that since I'm still learning

[edmonton_stinks 5]

All right! Great low wealth (I assume it's low wealth?) apartment building!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Just an update on the Brewster Frederick Douglass Projects.

Click for In Game

Still some junk to add, but I wanted to get some opinions on the textures. Oh, do you think I should board up the ground floor windows like they are currently IRL, or do you want them to look at least a tiny bit hospitable?

Thanks,

-Todd

[T Wrecks 10,209]

A tiny bit hospitable would be nice as far as I am concerned.

[Francis90b 748]

I think that the bricks looks too bright and saturated.You may need to fix them at first.The glass looks great, and in my opinion you shouldn't board up the ground floor windows.The roof is an important part, and it needs some more tweaking.

[Jasoncw 11,841]

ahhh, looking good! 

The patterning of the brick is looking good.  Try making the texture darker and more desaturated though.  I've been trying to find a photo online that captures the building's real color, but I haven't been able to find one.  I think your color is probably good though.  You also might want to try making your ground plane darker.  Right now, since light is bouncing off the ground plane, it's actually making the bottom of the building brighter, instead of darker.

At first glance it looks like your flashing isn't copper, but looking closer it seems like it is, but it's hard to read as copper right now.

I wonder about the thickness of your window frames.  On one hand they're thinner in real life, but on the other hand, their boldness adds some contrast to the image.  Either way though, there are actually thin concrete window sills underneath all of the windows.

This image shows the sills, windows, and flashing pretty well.  The color of the brick actually looks accurate too, except that this is taken during a sunset, so it's too yellow.

Also, I'm glad that you noticed that the building's wings aren't all the same size. 

I probably wouldn't board up any of the windows, but what might be cool, is if you made multiple (probably 2 (one with the little lobby thing in the lower right, and one with it in the lower left)) versions of this building, with different roof junk and with the stuff on the ground in different locations, so that a big lot with all of the towers can be put on at once, as it is in real life.  I think the lot would be something like an 11x13 or an 11x11 (depending on where the lot would be cut off), but I could research how to do mega lots.

[spa 970]

Not bad at all. As was said in the BSP thread, we need more generic box type buildings like this. I like how Jason thinks here. Doing some slight variations would be nice. I don't know if this would work since I don't really have much familiarity with public housing projects (the ones in Halifax are real small scale), but if you were really ambitious, you could even take off or add a few floor on the top so that the different versions were slightly smaller or taller than one and other (nothing too dramatic though). One thing that does stand out to me is the seams on the roof. I think they're too strong. If it were me, I would also rework them in a few places so that they're consistent with the roof's layout rather than taking the strict "they're all the same size" approach. Basically I would line them up with the existing edges so that there are fewer "leftover" pieces. The penthouse roof, in particularly, looks off because of the tile layout. Maybe it's just me though

[nofunk 1,933]

That looks great, Todd! It's already been said, but we definitely need more of these in the game.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Thanks everyone.

I just worked on the colors and roof junk a bit, I'll address some of the other things shortly. I have been occupied elsewhere.

Oi, the .jpeg looks so desaturated (especially the green)... hmm, I'll link the .png while I'm at it. doesn't seem to like me today, the gamma correction is doing strange things... Don't worry about it, you get the idea.

I'm still not happy with the roof junk, mostly because I can't identify what exactly is up there besides big white... things... (I'll do one with the giant HVAC unit when I get around to it)

Color looks too blue to me also, but doesn't look bad against the games green backdrop (so I guess it is fine). That picture helped a good bit Jason, just let me know if I'm getting closer to the color

-Todd

[Gn_leugim 858]

it looks much better now

[Francis90b 748]

I would suggest you to eliminate the lines on the roof texture.You can also fix it's color.Right now it looks a bit too blue-ish.

It seems that the tower is a bit poor of roof junk, but it's not a good ideaa to add too much , and the one you've looks realistic.

It's going to be really nice, hope to see more...