New England Colonial BAT Project

[kant01 5]

Sooo...its been a while since I have been active on Simtropolis or with SimCity at all, but I decided to get back in to it and try my hand at some BAT-ing.

I am starting a series of colonial style homes from 17th & 18th century U.S. These are the very first BAT's I have been willing to share and my first go at this in about 4 years, so please be kind! But I would also be open to some constructive advice.

New England Colonial - Capen House [16m wide]

New England Shack - Clemence [8m wide]

New England Shack - Johnston [8m wide]

Each of these is a residential building. I will try to post some lot shots from in-game soon.

Thanks for your feedback in advance!

[Silur 3,297]

Hi, Kant01 ...

I think, this is very interesting idea about some shacks - I see Your Excellent Work !!!

Clemence - SUPER !!!

Thank You ...

Regards.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

The modeling and texturing are very tidy.

I would put it in the game and judge the scale of your building, if you should scale it up or down to have it fit in among buildings from the game, paying attention to the floor heights.

I would also judge the color of your building. Your building's textures have a lot of green in them, while that's not a common color in the game. You might think of your roof as being "brown" or your walls as being "grey", but those are relative subjective things. If you open a screenshot from the game and use the eyedropper/color selector tool to find out exactly what the colors are, you'll find that "brown" in the game is a different kind of brown than the brown of your roof.

[spa 968]

These are really great! They're really well modeled and the textures are quite nice. I particularly like the idea of the small shacks since the maxis low wealth houses are just ugly. I like the roof texture but I think it might be just a few shades too bright... Although it's also against a black background so maybe it'll look alright in game. I'm personally not a colour purist in the same way that Jason is (no offence Jason). I don't think you necessarily have to modify them, but it would be helpful to see them against a game screenshot.

[patriots_1228 51]

this just about makes my day, bein from an area in new england where i see these kinds of buildings every day.

[panthersimcity4 162]

Awesome! I love old New England architecture.

What would be nice to see would be a Quaker or Puritan meeting house. Oooh, don't forget colonial churches, those are always pretty.

[art128 4,618]

splendid houses kant01

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

really quite lovely, getting more small quaint homes is a great thing especially when they looks as great as this!

Modeling and textures look beautiful, the roof might be a bit off, but there is really no way to tell without putting it in game. Really beautiful work,

-Todd

[Gn_leugim 853]

amazing ==)

[allez l'om 1]

That's a pretty good idea!! i like it!! Moreover, it is so realisitc!!!

[kant01 5]

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback. It was very helpful! I made three more BAT's this past week, but after looking at them in game and back over some various tutorials people posted I realized that most of them were too small for the scale of the game.

Part of what throws me off is that the R$ stage 1 lots that came with SC4 are really tiny. There some trailers and bungalows that are so small compared to some other buildings that it is almost ridiculous. But looking at other BATs that I have downloaded made me realize that perhaps it was those original SC4 buildings that were not to scale.

In any case, I am now adding a little bit of height and depth to 5 of the shacks and will hopefully have some new pics soon.

Silur - Thanks! Very kind of you. I like having run-down shacks in the game, particularly ones that have a bit of historical character to them.

Jasoncw - That was very helpful! I think one of the tutorials I read somewhere suggested that the average ceiling height should be 4.5 meters. Is that about right? I don't remember where I saw that. I think the two smaller shots above where both only 3.5m tall. But SC4 does have a way of making buildings look squashed. I am trying to see how they look at 4.5m.

As for colors, I ran an eyedropper over rendered shots of the BATs but I didn't see too many green colors. I then simply tried to reduce the green saturation and hues on some of the textures before applying them but that ended up with some rather unpleasant results. Any suggestions?

spa - Thanks for the comment! I have also thought the roof textures were a tad bright. I have been trying to find a way to reduce that. Is that something I can do through the UVW Map or should I just do that to the texture before applying it?

patriots_1228 - glad you liked it! I love New England architecture as well. Lived in Boston for 2 years and have tons of family from MA, RI, and CT so I am there all the time. I am going to try to do some C and I as well if I can ever get these R to look okay.

panthersimcity4 - thanks! I have an old meeting house on my list of buildings to make and I have some pictures of one already that I plan to model.

art128 - many thanks!

SimHotToDDy - thanks for the comment and the suggestion! I am not quite sure what to do about the roof. Do you mean the color might be off or the shape, etc? I have thought that there might need to be a bit more overhang on some of them. Even when there is a tiny bit that has a way of disappearing from the render so that it is almost not noticeable.

Gn_leugim - thanks!

allez l'om - I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

[kant01 5]

Ok, here are some updates. I expanded the Clemence and Johnston shacks to be a bit taller and more to the height they should. Eleazer was another one I was working on that I had to make a little bit bigger as well.

Clemence Shack B, C, & D

Johnston Shack B, C, & D

Eleazer Shack B, C, & D

Thanks in advance for your feedback and any other constructive criticism! These are my first real BATs so I really do appreciate the advice.

[WillR116 60]

I like it I am happy that I just uploaded my first Project. Its a michilan Tire Store that appears as a park (The SimGoober Tutorial Told me to use that 1x1 park and it appears as one. But to this , I find it an excellent Idea. I would be willing to lot these they are awesome.

[patriots_1228 51]

awesome models, really good work you've done.

[art128 4,618]

these one are great, nice details you've put here !

[allez l'om 1]

It is so realistic once again!! I support completely your project!! I see that you come from Chicago!! It's my favorite city of the United States!! Do you plan to made buildings or shops of this so great city

[Francis90b 748]

They're actually quite good.

[deathtopumpkins 43]

Oh they're adorable! These are some excellent BATs.

Great work kant01!

[kant01 5]

Thanks again for the feedback! It is very encouraging.

Simsamerica - Thanks for the comment! I appreciate it.

patriots_1228 - Thanks again!

art128 - I really appreciate the feedback - thanks!

allez l'om - I am so glad you like them I do love Chicago. Its a great city. But my heart is back in Boston I have to say. At this point I just plan to keep working on New England style lots but who knows what I will do in the future. thanks so much!

joint1 - thanks!

deathtopumpkins - Thanks for the feedback!

Ok, so these lots are in the testing stage. I still have not done any night lighting on them and I need to figure out how to group the houses for randomization but hopefully that will all be done by early next week.

The next one I am working on is a model of the historic Paul Revere house in Boston. It was built circa 1680 and Revere moved in with his family and 5 kids in 1770, living there for the next 30 years. It was originally the home of a wealthy merchant and of course is now a historic site and museum on Boston's "Freedom Trail". However, my plan was to make it either a R$ or R$$ lot.

Street view:

Back view:

Here is the building as I imagined it. It is small enough to fit on a 1x1 lot.

Since there is now a wall around the real life lot now I thought I would try a version that was completely enclosed:

I sort of like it with the wall although that makes it less accurate for the 1680s.

I tried to capture its current brown paint color, but I am also testing 3 other color versions:

So that's the BAT as it now stands. I also need to get the night lighting done on this one.

My biggest problem with this lot so far is that I cannot get it to grow. I set it at 15 R$ residents and even changed it to a growth stage of 1 in the iLive reader, but the lot will still not grow. This is the first time I have ever made a bat that was perfectly 16m x 16m, and when I open up a 1x2 in the lot editor it does let pick the model from the list of buildings. So why won't it grow? Any suggestions on what I can do?

Thanks again for the feedback! I really appreciate the comments.

[patriots_1228 51]

Wow. awesome. You rule man. Great model, glad you decided to go after a boston landmark

[allez l'om 1]

It is so realistic!! I like tem a lot!!!

[Francis90b 748]

Your houses are really nice, but maybe you may lower a bit the pop. scale.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

If you can't get the model to show up in LE, try starting with a 2x2 lot and see if it fits from there. When I tried making things to fit exactly on the edge of the lot, it always gave me a hard time. I typicly had to go back and make it slightly smaller than 16m (like 15.950 or something). For getting it in game, try blocking the maxis lots (there is a mod on the STEX, just search "blocker") and remove everything but this one BAT from your plugins. If all else fails, you can make sure it works by plopping it over another res lot with the buildingplop cheat.

All that aside, these are looking spectacular!!! The latest looks great in every variation, with the exception of the darkest one (perhaps more contrast on the shingle texture might help). The wall would be nice if it were a 1x1 lot, but I would love to see the non-walled version on a 1x2 or 1x3. Really amazing job though,

-Todd

[patriots_1228 51]

if your building is too big, instead of remodeling/rerendering, just go to the ilive reader and change its "occupant size" property to 15.9x15.9

[Gn_leugim 853]

if the building is bigger than the lot it self, it won't let you save the lot, and if you do, it wont grow.. but look, I'm talking about the size that game sees.. the "occupant size" property

and the models looks good

[kant01 5]

Thank you all again! It took me quite a bit of playing around but I finally got the stupid thing to grow. I did have to adjust the occupant size, but once I did that it was no problem. 

patriots_1228 - thanks! I have always loved this building and thought it belonged in the game. I am still not completely happy with it, and once I saw it growing I think I will have to tweak it some more before it is ready. hopefully I can get it to fit in with the other buildings

allez l'om -  Glad you like! I am really trying to make these as realistic as possible.

joint1 - thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it! Which ones where you thinking should have a lower population? The previous 3 are all about 7 if I remember correctly. The Revere House I bumped up to 15 because after the Revere family moved out it eventually became a tenement before becoming a historic site and museum. So I figured it would probably have a few people living in it at least. What were you thinking would be a good number for a lot that size?

SimHoTToDDy -  Thanks for the suggestion! I was getting the building to show up in LE on a 1x1, so I knew it wasn't too big. The problem was just getting it to grow in game. But I think it was because it was 16x16. So once I made the occupant size just a tad smaller then I had no problem. 

patriots_1288 - yep, that is exaclty what I needed to do. thanks!

Gn_leugim -  thanks for the feedback!

Ok, so here is another model I have made, the Blair House, which is a colonial residence that is actually from Colonial Williamsburg and so technically not New England, but I think it fits anyway.

This will probably have about 17-20 residents.

As always, thanks for your suggestions!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

1x2 I suppose? I like these a lot! Really nothing to suggest, they are wonderful.

[bixel 1,221]

If your city is too large the demand can override and go straight into stage 5 or higher. try starting a new city / sub urb and more stage one lots will grow.

[Gn_leugim 853]

very nice!!!

[Francis90b 748]

I' m really obsessed with population scale and i know that maxis one is unrealistic, so i think that we should do BATs with realistic populations, even if it means much more space to be built and smaller cities.

I think that for that kind of house a pop of 10-12 residents can be well, but i didn't know it was converted into a tenement.