Francis90's studio

[Francis90b 748]

Hi folks, this is going to be the showcase for all of my works.Hope you folks appreciate what is going on here.Any suggestion and criticism is greatly appreciated.

[Francis90b 748]

Here is my first finished model.It should be a generic model for a lift-span bridge.I would like to upload it as a ploppable to be placed near to a plain bridge or as a custom bridge.If someone tells me how made a bridge, this will be uploaded as an eye-candy lift bridge.

As I said wrote in the picture, this will be the blue version.

Version to come

Gray: gray, a bit rusty version

Rusty:An heavily rundown and rusty version

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It seems to be looking good so far, but can you post a preview render so that we can see what it would look like at the scale of the game?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Very cool! This is a great idea and I think, depending on how these look in SC4 perspective, these will be wonderful and welcome pieces of eye candy.

Well done.

-Todd

[Francis90b 748]

Even if this doesn't matter with your post, i'm going to post some other details of the previous pic:

detail 1

detail 2

Even if these details won't be seen in sc4 or the render, I think they' re quite important in the overall effect (and in the BATer satisfaction).One of the things i do best is make things difficult, so....

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah, I mean a gmax render.

[Francis90b 748]

Here's a render

[Jasoncw 11,840]

At the top of that window, you can see that at the end it says (1:2), which means that the image has been scaled down to fit inside the window. Use your mouse scroll wheel to zoom in to 1:1, and that is what was actually rendered.

[Gn_leugim 853]

but at the first look looks good =)

[Francis90b 748]

Sorry, this is the new preview

[patriots_1228 51]

Damn...that looks great, excellent detail.

[BuggUla 405]

nicely done

[JakeMD 107]

yeah, looking really great! Excellent detail, especially for gmax!

[Francis90b 748]

Hi folks, i ve been quite off for a lot of time.This because i need some hints on a tutorial that explains a vital step to make my (in)famous bridge, and because i' ve been playing SC4.However i've something for you:

I still need to fix some textures, but the model is nearly finished and these are all its variations.

[art128 4,618]

Hey, your BATs look good, great work !

[Francis90b 748]

It still needs a lot of work, but looks good for now:

This is my first successful attempt to make a large building.And this is only a part of the final result.It completely lacks any texturing, except for the glass parts.

[Sciurus 323]

It's very beautiful! I love it!!

[Gn_leugim 853]

looking very good =)

[Francis90b 748]

Hi, I' ve been off for a lot of time, but i have something to show.This is acomplerely new and better of my idea about a great railway terminal.I'm sorry because i haven't uploaded anything yet and i change idea very often, but i'm slowly improving my skills and i really want to do something that can be at a really good standard, for everything i'm making with the BAT.

The general layout of the station was influenced by the 30th street station in Philadelphia, but i took some elements, details and ideas from the near post office (just a block southward) and the Cincinnati union terminal.

As you can notice, it completely lacks windows and , more important, I haven't modelled yet the train concourse, so it is far from completion (and don't even try to remember me about nightlighting, modding and making a lot, all they are far in the future).But this version will be definitive.

[Francis90b 748]

Short update:

I have nearly completed the train concourse; the whole thing will be 12x17.

I haven't any pics to show now because my pc is very slow at rendering, but maybe tomorrow...wait and see :-)

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think you should design the individually parts more specifically. For example, your classical columns are just cylinders, when there's more to columns than just that. For the art deco columns on the corner, they seem to be vague in design. It seems like you saw those types of art deco setbacks and then made a bunch of boxes which vaguely stepped back, and then put them in the building. I would go back and more carefully design them. Right now they don't seem to relate to the roof or the rest of the building. Those kinds of details can take a long time to design. I would draw them with pen and paper before modeling them in gmax.

[Francis90b 748]

I took these pics with a 1280x1024 resolution and they were eventually resized, so many details are not so clear, but my goal was to post a general overview.

I haven't the skills to model a good capital (as the columns need) and the final result would be partially hidden by the massive top wall.

The setbacks on the front side of the building near the corner were taken from a real building, the ones near to the columns are mine, but they aren't so casual.The side (shown in the lower pic of my previous post) is rather casual, and maybe it will be fixed in the future.

Here is a on-scale pic of some details:

and here is the building that was my source of inspiration for the setbacks.

The whole building is actually a gradual addition of details and ideas rather than a the result of a single source of inspiration.

[bixel 1,223]

Cool man. You rock

[Francis90b 748]

That's a render highligting the train concourse, resized as usual.The details higlighted in red will be fixed tomorrow.Comments and suggestions welcome.

And this pic shows some of the details (on-scale pic)

[Jasoncw 11,840]

One way of modeling things more accurately, and by being more particular about what you model, is by analyzing the proportions of what you are making. I described how I analyzed a building in tomdapom's thread. The same concept could be applied to any building or object, though some are "messier" than others.

For modeling a cornithian column, it would be hard, and is probably above your skill right now. I know for me it would take a lot of concentration and planning. So in this case, since you can't do a good job on that kind of a column, I'd do something that you can do a good job on. Art Deco is nice because you don't really need a lot of technical skill to model it, but you do need good observation skill to do a good job at it. So like you've found inspiration for the rest of the building, I'd find some art deco columns to replace the cornithian ones.

But about the way you've found details from different buildings to base your's on, I think that's good (that's what I do), but I think that you need to be mindful of what details you choose. The cornithian columns, and the art deco columns on the ends next to them just don't go together very well. What I mean is that you need to fully understand the details you are copying. Wikipedia and google searches can help. You can also buy a "history of architecture" text book which would be very useful for this kind of thing.

[Francis90b 748]

I took the proportions of the setbacks from some existing buildings, and now i do it almost always.

I' ve actually tried to build a corintian capital for my columns (helping myself with an architecture book), and it didn't look very well, so i hadn't show the results here.But i can still model something that can fit.

Here is an idea that can fit (also because my columns are actually 12 sections put together:

If today i will have enough time to model, i will post something within the next 8 hours.

BTW have you seen the train concourse?

[art128 4,618]

that is looking really great, good work on the last BAT !

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I mean proportions in a specific way, like what I wrote out in tomdapom's thread (go read it if you haven't already). If you follow this system, you'll end up modeling a near perfect recreation, and it will look really good. This way of doing things also forces you to look very carefully at what you're modeling. You'll be forced to look at the object and notice all of the things that you have not noticed so far, and you'll have to make a decision about how/if you're going include that detail (through modeling or texturing).

For your new column, that's a different kind of art deco than what you were doing before, and the two don't really go with each other (colorful plaster with curves, vs limestone steel and glass with hard rational edges).

[Francis90b 748]

I' ve been wrong with the pic above, but my idea was to strip it down until it could fit well.I failed.

Now i' ve tried to use the horizontal line idea used in the rest of the building (applied to the upper parts of the section), this  is only one of the all i' ve tried that could fit well, and i actually haven't any next idea.

[nihonkaranws 88]

You are very progressive! Your train station is looking really nice. However, I suggest that you enlarge the UVW Gizmo, so that you don't get that repetition on the roof. (Modifiers > UV Coordinates > UVW Map, left panel click 'Gizmo', and use the scale tool.)

Welcome to page 2 also...