SimHoTToDDy BATs

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Well, I did in fact play with Production Steel a little bit. I have it to a point I'm more comfortable with, but I had to do away with the accuracy a bit and have some fun. Oh well, I like it and I think it is much more attractive. Thanks Jason, Odainsaker, and everyone else for input (I can never get enough you know )

Oh and here is the back. I'm planning on stacking some boxes and miscellaneous junk against this wall when I go to LOT it (yes, I might actually try!!!) so the bareness works for what I want to do. BTW, I love how the bricked up windows came out.

I think this is just about right, but let me know what you think!

-Todd

[Spike345 20]

1 word. beautiful

[madhatter106 3,903]

Damn, that roof texture is fantastic!

[jacqulina 162]

wow lovely texture im allways after this sort of building and color for my cj.

[grbac80 5]

The texturing is incredible. Different color in corners BC of the rain collecting there. Brilliant.

[delija21 295]

Awesome work my friend...we really need more of this type of BATs

[Jasoncw 11,841]

I think it's in the right direction, but I think it's only about 1/3rd as far as you need to go in that direction.

Also, try making your bricks smaller, and then possible try desaturating them a tad.

For the roof texture, try adding some global scaled variation. Right now the detail/variation is mostly at the local level (individual details, etc.)

[art128 4,618]

looking great there Todd !!

[Francis90b 748]

Actually that's an huge improvement, and maybe there's not much more you can do...it is really good, and i'm always stunned looking at your ability in giving a special touch to anonymous industrial buildings and depressing commieblocks.

[SimmmerCity 0]

Could you kick out Soviet symbolic for independed Ukraine?

[bixel 1,223]

SimHoTToDDy: I am sorry to announce this but apparently STEXLand Security called to say that there is no more room for improvement. STEXland Security is going to have to confiscate your BATs and upload them immediately so ravenous fans can download them three times over. STEXland Security is happy with your progress but this deliberate stonewalling of yours is simply criminal. Save face now by uploading to the STEX, we don't wanna call in the goons ok?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Oh noes! not the goons!!!

I'll just have to concede and upload something... How about these?

I'm not sure when they will show up on the STEX, but they are uploaded. Thanks again to Jason and Nofunk who LOTed and modded these for me. And thanks to everyone else who crontributed to it by commenting here!

...So, how much time does this buy me Bix?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Jason, I thought the bricks looked pretty small, unless you see something I don't. Anyway, if I go any smaller, they texture starts to look like brown concrete

Moving on, Hows this look?

Much better I think, That little tweak in the texture made a huge difference.

Oh, and anyone remember this?

It took me a good long while to get this from max 2009 and fix it up, but I think it was worth it. I'm still not happy with the textures. The gamma and logarithmic correction made this look very plastic, but I'm getting closer to where I want it I think.

Not bad considering I haven't worked on it in two months Any suggestions welcome as always!

-Todd

[SimFox 802]

Gamma AND Logarithmic?

You should use only one really as they are not compatible, or to be precise they do the same thing and effect compounds...

It looks a bit to pink... although it may be just because of the background and will look fine in game...

As for the warehouse (or some such) model... I think I liked the original bricks better but the difference is minor...

BTW did you sharpened the bitmap, I mean in Max itself? Doing so, especially coupled with higher AA settings could be very beneficial for such a texture..

[Jasoncw 11,841]

I know you're probably sick of hearing me go on about the bricks, but I think I know what's wrong with them.  I think it's the white mortar.  Try eliminating the white mortar.  This can be done in photoshop by using the eye dropper to select the color of the brick, making a new layer above the brick layer, filling it with that color, and then lowering the opacity of this new layer.  This will flatten out the difference between the mortar and the bricks.  At this point the texture might look like a big brown blob, so now what you do, is you go in with the rectangular selection tool, and in a new layer, you start defining the bricks again, using different values of grey for the different bricks.  After doing a few areas of this, you can speed up the process by duplicating and then mirroring/rotating that layer.  Not all bricks need to have this done, just enough to suggest that the material is brick.

Also, I think part of the problem may be the overuse of the overlay blending mode.  This happens to me a lot, from using either overlay too much, or using too many brightness/contrast adjustment layers.  Basically, in a weird way the value and saturation of the texture becomes "unstable" througought the texture.  I don't know how else to describe it, but if you have any overlay layers, try a different blending mode, or try temporarly removing them.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Simfox, lol, I was confusing mr Photographic control in with logarithmic... my bad. The point is, it isn't the dark shadowy mess it was in max2009.

Yeah, the texture doesn't look so pink against the green backdrop of the game, in fact if is wasn't tinted thusly, it would turn into a very ugly shade of gray. The trouble of texturing this one is that, IRL, the building is (pretty much pure) white, in game white is too bright, and generally not a good idea with walls this large and open. This also makes things that are supposed to look concrete, turn to plastic. If I, however, make it darker via "texture" or by physically making it darker, It becomes a inaccurate representation... Balancing these factors is a bit frustrating

Taking a second look, it really isn't that bad. (.png)

Funny you should mention the warehouse, which could have also been a small manufacturing building I think, since I didn't even adjust the brick textures. The roof has so much influence over the appearance of the building, that's one of the problems I have been having with it. As for sharpening in MAX, no I didn't do that (although I will have to try it out!) I just adjusted the contrast here and there to give it, as Jason said, more global variation.

Jason, That is a brilliant idea! I might have to play with the color balance a little bit afterwords, but that should help. As for overlay layers, I try to keep those to a minimum for the same reason. I usually go for the mode with the best appearance aesthetically when overlays start to stack up, or if worst comes to worst just collapse extras.

Oh, and I don't mind you clamoring about... well anything. I would rather have something to think about and improve than you just saying "looks good".

[Francis90b 748]

I can't wait to see what you will do with the bricks!Oh well, it's not an easy task there, but i'm sure i will like the result!

[SimmmerCity 0]

Can you kick out Soviet symbol for independent Ukraine?

[Francis90b 748]

Simmercity:No, he can't if he doesn't want to.Bear in mind that SimHoTToDDy can do anything he want until he respect the site rules, and there isn't any rule that prevent you from using the soviet symbol, so if you don't want to see that, don't download his bats and don't go to his thread.

[art128 4,618]

That's looking excellent my friend, I like this flat.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

SimmmerCity, well if you had read anything about that particular building you would know that I already made a version without the crest. In fact, only one LOT out of the five uploaded even had it. However, I would not have excluded it completely because I was re-creating the building, including all of the major details on the building. Besides, like Francis said, BATers do not BAT to please the community, BATers do it because it is what they enjoy doing. As long as it is withing the rules of the site, they are welcome to do whatever they see fit.

[Gn_leugim 858]

back to the prefabs? good they look superb, almost ready for upload

[Francis90b 748]

Todd, your last prefab looks great, they're almost perfect.However the roof texture seems a bit repetitive to me and i think the white walls looks a bit off....maybe too yellowish or reddish, though i don't really know...i'm not saying that's something really relevant, just a subtle detail you can improve.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Woo! Progress... Well, nothing major. I had to take some time off from these to finish finals and things, but now we are back. I made texture adjustments on the last two topics of discussion, let me know what you think.

After changing the texture around so much the colors got a little shifted, I might take the saturation a notch down back to where it was, buI its not too bad. Contrasts with the roof well I think.

Made the tenement more white. I'm afraid it has strayed too far into the blue range visually (it is still a subtle pink in reality). Side by side with the pink one, it looked much better to me, but tell me what you think. Also made the roof texture have a little more variation, just needed some contrast (it is not a tiling texture, but it did kinda look that way Francis).

Nothing real special going on with my other warehouse project, did some preliminary textures but there are a few that are not presntable yet I made the ground junk for the Frederick Douglass projects, but I'm having trouble gettig them to look right in LE (things not overlapping where they should) so I might just put them into the main model. We shall see.

-Todd

[mightygoose 92]

these look amazing have you considered using simfoxes new HD script...

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Looking good!  I agree with everything you said in your post.

For the projects, I definitely think they should be rendered in with the main model, so that they get the right lighting.

The easiest thing to do would be to just render the same building two or three different times independently, making whatever variants you need for the buildings' arrangement on the lot.  This is easier, and it's what I'd probably do, lol.

However, instead, you could render the tower once, and use that as a base model, and then you can render the props just like you probably did.  However the difference would be, you would render the props with the rest of the building, just with the LOD only surrounding the prop area.  This way, you get good shadows, but they're still props.  I hope that makes sense, lol.  For an example, open my Regal Theater's marquee props in the Reader, and the building in the lot editor.

mightygoose:  I think these buildings are too big to render HD.  The filesizes would be really big.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Didn't think I would get so far tonight, but here I am

Roof and main brick texture (not to mention the water tower) still need a good deal of work with grime/ gradients and all that jazz, but I really like how the windows came out. I tried a different method this time around and I'm really happy with the result, simulated boxes and junk inside the building with just a flat texture.

and this side nobody except me has seen!!!

No really, let me know what to improve. I want to clean out my "to do" pile of BATs so I can move on to something else guilt free!

-Todd

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Not bad, not bad at all. You're becoming a texturing master... but I think I can hear STEXLand Security complaining again. They're saying that it's time to think about finishing off some of your earlier stuff (I know it's tempting to start new stuff all the time) but you can't leave these models just lying around on your HD.

btw, some cool flora could really improve this latest one imo, help to break it up a bit.

[jacqulina 162]

wow nice

[Gn_leugim 858]

I think you can see to clearly the inside of the building no? =1 maybe reduce the opacity of the windows would help