Blue Lightning's BAT Thread

[Vahr 341]

Blue Lightning's (Vince) BAT Thread

Current Projects:

#. Name, Progress (Description)
1. Generic Train Stations ~80% (Need to put together the large station, small station model complete, testing)
2. Apartments 90%
3. Snowflake! 100% Done! LINK
4. Heart: Done!

Hello. After lurking without an account for about a year, I decided to create an account so I could upload some work and help people. When I downloaded lots of custom content, I saw how powerful the BAT can be. I have just started to model buildings, so don't expect explosive results yet. My focus is some simple building designs that yield complex results. After all, simple is almost always better.

[Gn_leugim 853]

well.. looking forward to see

[Vahr 341]

UPDATE

Here is a view of the house model:\

Click for full image:

EAST 5

[GMT 389]

me too

[jacqulina 162]

very nice progress

[art128 4,618]

Wow ! that's look good, great work my friend on this house

[Vahr 341]

Which window do you like better?

Texture Wdw, no nitelites:

(see above)

Model Wdw, nitelites:

Day (East):

Nite (East):

Suggestions are welcome!

[nihonkaranws 88]

Well, your modeling skills are definitely good, but there are some problems. A key point to remember when BATting is to make everything a bit taller than it would be in RL, since SC4 squishes most buildings. Right now, your house looks looks a bit too short.

Next thing would be to work on your textures. Do you have Photoshop, or Photopaint? If not, download Irfanview (search on Google), a free image editing program. Your textures are looking a bit bright and too saturated. > How big is your house? Since that is zoom5, it looks like your house may be a few tiles wide (I could be wrong)... Try not to make your doors any bigger than 1.5m x 3m, which is still quite big.

For such big windows, you may want to avoid the default SC4-style nightlighting completely... Try using omni or spot lights instead. Make your window materials with an opacity of around 50, and place omni lights inside your buildings (BAT some floors too)... Or you could just download Trunite from the STEX, but use the bitmaps as 'self-illumination' (since you are using Gmax)...

...My last suggestion is to use an image editing program to crop your renderings, so we only see the black and the building, instead of the whole window frame.

[Gn_leugim 853]

also, when creating the textures, try to add some gradients to the texture.. I mean, the ideal situation is when you create a brand new custom texture set for each model.. you should make a texture for the walls one for the roof (these at least) because the way you made them they tile a lot, and that is not nice.. is an usual mistake that people do at fist times now back to the gradient.. there is some tutorials about that but the basic is: the bottom is a bit more dark than the top. this effect is more noticeable at bigger buildings but should not be left apart on small ones though..

Other thing, as mentioned above, scale: make thing a bit taller.. the SC4's Sim is about 3m tall.. houses should have 4m from floor to ceiling, at least. doors, 3x1 is good.. windows may vary a bit.. from 2x2 to 3x3..

and last, you made a good thing from the beginning (at least I do it a lot), you used an texture to make the door, which gives far less work and much more detail try to get some good pictures from windows as well and use them too, and to light them up, target lights close to them, targeting the exact area of the window

hope it helped

feel free to make questions..

[Vahr 341]

Here's some general Data:

Main House Block Size: 32 x 16 x 16 (LWH) EDIT: 32 x 16 x 9

Door Size: 5 x 7 (LH) EDIT: 3 x 5

Window (w/o bottom box) Size: 3.5 x 3.5 (LH) EDIT: 2 x 2

Window Box Size: 4.22 x 1.628 x 0.729 (LWH) EDIT: 2.5 x 0.628 x 0.729

I'm in the process of trying what you suggested. Maybe this should be a 3-story medium density building instead.

But, to fill in, here is a few images of the small Generic Train Station:

Model:

I have already exported a high-quality test model and it works like a charm in game, I just want to see if there are any big problems with it. It is 8 tiles long (3 of this piece) with an overhang of 1/2 of a tile on both sides. What would be a good capacity, cause I was thnking 8000 but it seems too low.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I would worry about that later and work on the basic modeling and texturing skills first. You've shown a promising start, and your courage and dedication to pick up BATting deserve some praise.

However, before you continue, you should take care of some fundamental issues. The house you posted, as simple as it looks, shows many flaws that cannot simply be traced back to lack of exercise with the BAT. They rather hint at too little (or too superficial) observation. Always make sure you take a good look at real-world buildings in the style you are about to BAT.

Many novice BATters make mistakes with general issues such as proportions (are windows squares or rectangles, and if they are rectangles, which sides are longer?), perspective (which parts of the building protrude, which are set back into the surface?), scale (how big will it be compared to Maxis buildings?), numbers (does the skyscraper have 18 or 20 storeys, and does each storey have 24 or 32 windows?) and similar things that are actually not difficult, just easily forgotten or overlooked.

Attention to detail and a good eye are key to BATs that have a realistic look and feel in game.

Let's take your house and compare it to a real-world house:

- Do the windows stand out in front of the wall? (Yours even cast shadows on the wall!) What is set back deepest? The wall, the window frame, or the window pane? What would a cross-section of the window of your room look like? Does your BAT window look like that?

- What about the entrance door? Is it flush with the front wall? Is it set back into the wall? Take a look at any small home and observe.

- Do houses have equally sized, square windows? Especially with frames like the ones you modeled? Or are there different window sizes and spacings?

- Are exterior window sills that big?

- Does the brick cladding on brick buildings start straight at ground level, or is there something else? - How thick is a shingle roof, and what do its edges look like? What can be seen on the roof?

- This one is of particular importance for night lighting: Where would the interior walls of your building be? Which windows would belong to the same room? Would it be possible that out of two windows that belong to the same room, only one is lit and the other is dark?

This should be some food for thought - just give it a spin and I'm sure you will find ways to make your BAT better and learn for the future.

Good luck with your BAT endeavour - keep us posted and have fun!

[Vahr 341]

@ T Wrecks:

Well I took care of #4 & #6, and am working on the details of the walls, since I actually live in a house that has a step on the 6th brick up, so the wall is "thicker" at the base (its just a facade)

Here is my progress. I will work on the textures. EDIT: The windows look funny because I forgot to put the opacity to 100 again, from 50.

North day/nite:

South D/N:

East:

West:

8

[art128 4,618]

that's look great !! good work on the light.

I think you can add some details on the roof, like antenna .....

[Vahr 341]

Actually, I was thinking of adding rooftop clutter via props in LE.

EDIT:

[bixel 1,221]

Not a good idea. For ONE there are so many prop packs out there its just killing me. Instead. Make all your cool roof props save them all together in one scene called Roof Props Home or something. Then anytime you need to add roof junk just merge it in. For TWO, LE props will never look that good on top of a BAT, one of the main reasons is bad or no shadowing, 2 its really picky and annoying to place tiny props in the LE.

just my 2cents.

[Vahr 341]

Ah, so i should just render it on the model. Heres progress: roof models and new wood trim. Click for full size, as I had to squeeze a 672 x 696, which exceeds 600 x 800

[madhatter106 3,903]

Is it supposed to be a residential house? That looks like an awful lot of windows on each side of the house - it has the look of a dormitory or bunkhouse or lodge.

Keep in mind what the others said about the BAT squishing effect - make stuff a bit taller than in real life to accomodate the squishing when it renders...I always think in thirds - if the surface I made is three squares tall in BAT, I have to remember I'm going to lose about a third of it (ie. one square) in the render, so I overshoot the heights on everything...

The tiling on the roof texture is bothersome, but that can be easily overcome, via imaging programs like Photoshop and the others mentioned in your thread. The other thing that bothers me is the thickness of the windowsills - they look like enormous logs nailed under the windows! Something more delicate and slimming would work better, IMHO.

I would agree on the idea that adding roofjunk in the Lot Editor is a "pain-in-the-tuckus" - it never looks half as good as something that was modelled/textured/proportioned in BAT. Bixel's idea is best, and it's one that I have toyed with lately - a separate file full of roof junk that you can go to when the need arises. With some research photos, the determination, and a couple of hours, I'm sure it's entirely feasible.

[Vahr 341]

New roof texture! Also, I heightened the house some.

[Francis90b 748]

You' ve shown much progress, but i think that both wall and roof texturing can be improved.

Walls are way too red, i would suggest to fade a bit the red if this is the exact color you would like to use, and to tweak your roof texture, since it appears a bit too dark.

You can improve your windows as well by adding some variations.

I don't know what is a good value for your rail station, but i agree that 8000 is too few.

I would suggest you to base on existing BATs like yours, or seeing how much is the capacity of the SC4 grand railway station, wich has 3 platforms, and then decide a fair value for your station.

[GMT 389]

the new roof texture is way better than the old one.

as for the roof junk, you should add it via bat instead of the lot editor. as bixel said, a bad idea (to his explanations, I want to add that it might be necessary to create custom LODs to place the roof junk correctly via lot editor.

really good work. nice details.

oh, and as for the capacity, I guess something about 10k would be good for an urban platform, about 5k for a suburban and about 1k-3k for a rural one.

[Gn_leugim 853]

you have done well so far.. now it is looking almost ready

[Vahr 341]

@Everyone: Thanks for the tips and support. I think you will like this:

Here's a small, 1 hour project, the Snoflake. This snowflake can either be suspended between two buildings, or between two poles. 

The cables are hard to see, sorry. 

The one suspended by buildings will be a NETWORK enabled lot (you heard me, no more over or under capacity sections, it'll have the same capitcity as the road/ave you're putting it on). The pole one will be just a regular lot, though I'm not sure what texture to use (No-texture, anyone?)

If anybody knows how to make this prop timed so that it only appears in winter, that would be nice, instead of having to rebuild and demolish this to be seasonal (Would you want a snowflake in the middle of summer?)

BTW, I'm thinking 28 sims living in the house, since a one family house in SC4 has 10-ish sims.

[un1 40]

Those snowflakes would be great seasonal props! I'd use them if they were, they look wonderful.

-un1

[kant01 5]

Looks like you are making some nice progress!! I am interested to see how this building develops

[art128 4,618]

Wow, that's look great my friend, excellent work

[Vahr 341]

The snowflake is now done. Here's the link: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=20922

[Francis90b 748]

Honestly i was skeptic about your snowflake, but it looks very well and it's a good start .

I also have to say that you' ve uploaded your first BAT after less than a week, i haven't uploaded anything yet, even if i' ve started two months ago.

Congratulations, hope that your next uploads will look quite as good.

[Vahr 341]

I'm back after some RL and stuff, I have released a Heart on the STEX, and is done with the apartment.

[futurama2506sim 7]

This seems pretty good great stuff

[futurama2506sim 7]

This seems pretty good great stuff