McDRye tries BAT again..

[mcdrye 104]

I did a quick draft export to see how it looks ingame so far...

The tree bit alongside the building is part of the lot (5x3) as it's not going to fit to fit in a 5x2. A peek of the nitelighting so far is in the 2nd pic, I like how it looks tucked in with the buildings, just how it would bein real life.

[mosin33 5]

Hahaha I saw it at first and thought.......that looks terribly fuzzy!

Then I read what you wrote and saw it was just a draft. Im not sure how you want it to be, but I think it should be more low wealth and dirty.....if this is what you want get rid of the green trees and add some trash cans or something and no matter what I think you should change the base texture...its to Hight Wealth!

Well goodluck and can not wait to see more.

Oh yeah nightlights look amazing!!!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's looking really nice!

To me it seems strange that it is a corner lot. Would it be possible for you to make the building portion wider, so that it is wall to wall?

[rushman5 33]

I agree with jasoncw, it would be better as a non-corner w2w. also the first pic seems to have different track textures on the bend than on the straight potions (black vertical lines). Don't forget about the sidewalk out front, it needs to be a cream color with weathering. Lot editor texture should be $$pavement (i forget texture id ATM sry) One final criticism is that the blue awning looks....too blue. Maybe a little rust around the edges? Fuzziness?? could this just be you doing a low quality export? great model and idea! i like it a lot!

-sean

[Gn_leugim 853]

I agree too.. but anyway, its looks good.. even as as a draft ^^

[nofunk 1,933]

That's a great BAT! I'd like to see it as wall-to-wall as well.

[mcdrye 104]

Quick update : I'm currently working on widening the station so it would fit more snugly in a 5x3 lot

[mcdrye 104]

Photo update! I've widened the station, whadda you think of it so far now?

[autoVino 26]

Excellent!

Just curious how the lods are on this building?  Are you using lods that are just a copy of the model, or are you optimizing the lods to fit the building but with a low poly count?  Or do you have a simple lod setup (6 to 25 poly's) and are just manually removing the offending underground parts from the render output via reader (since you are masking the underground parts via photo-shop)?

The rails around the building would require some tight lods to be able to hide or mask the underground tunnel so be careful with the poly-count on the lods... too high will tax the game severly.

[art128 4,618]

this is excellent !! it looks very nice and can't wait to put it into my city center !

[Francis90b 748]

The widened version looks very good, but i don't think it can fit well on a corner.If you want to do a corner lot, you may need to work a bit on one of the sides of the station, but you're on the right path.Anyway, it's better than the previous one, and  i'm really curious to know what you will do now.

[mcdrye 104]

Thanks for the comments!

autoVino: I'm currently using a 59 poly LOD, I modeled the tunnels in a way that they cannot be seen in 3 views, it's approx only at that small length of wall between the two tunnels that gives away the ugly underbelly. I would like to edit it away but FiSHMan doesn't seem to work in Vista (are there alternatives?)

Francis90b: This model isn't intended for a corner lot, the station is loosely based on a mixture of Aldgate and Barbican stations in London where it is situated between buildings.

At the moment I'm adding the little details etc

[Francis90b 748]

I don't know the station of aldgate and barbican, and neither i know how they fit with neighbour buildings.If you aren't going to release it as a corner lot, are you sure that the diagonal corners can blend well with the other buildings?

[mcdrye 104]

This is Aldgate station http://farm1.static.flickr.com/68/204111939_116c809028_b.jpg. I feel the diagonal corners would be ok, it's not a w2w building.

I've done a second test ingame, what's causing those ugly boxy shadows? I can't remember

[autoVino 26]

This is based off of the way shadows are developed in the game. The only way to remove these is to make sure that the image rendered does not extend below the lods, otherwise the game attempts to draw the shadow backwards. I posted information in this in the 3ds max troubleshooting thread.

Unfortunately the only way I know of manually editing output files is either through the reader and assorted tools (with photo editor and fsh editor) or directly editing output which is only available for 3ds max because of how the converter works.

There is software out there on the internet that allows for editing of fsh files, but I don't know if it will work on vista.

[SimFox 802]

AutoVino had very precisely explained the problem with "reverse" shadowing.

I can add only that if you do it with GMAX and have no control of intermediate pictures (BMPs), or render settings then your only option is to convert FSHs back to BMPs with FSHTool (it does work in Vista but you would need to use command line in CMD window. Edit BMPs and then do back conversion into FSHs.

Actually all you need to edit is Alphas, as it is them that are used to make a shadow in game.

[mcdrye 104]

Hey SimFox I found a program called fshED that handles FSH files fine. The problem is some FSH files (specifically zoom 5) have no alphas (maybe Im looking in the wrong place), and where I've edited them fine the stupid shadow still appears ingame.

[SimFox 802]

well, if shadow is still there that means only one thing - you think that you edited them , when in fact you didn't. May be something went wrong and changes you've made didn't get saved. Or may be this fshED doesn't fully support SC4 FSHs - this may explain how come there are not alphas - totally impossible thing...

As I don't have access to this piece of software - looked around but all download links seem to be dead, and I can't see your SC4Model file can't same more than that. If, however things change I could take a closer look at it...

[mcdrye 104]

That would be very kind of you SimFox! What I mean with some alphas is that they are not shown in reader, I must be doing something wrong...

Here is fshEd for curiosity purposes http://www.mediafire.com/file/0mwz4ujlylq/fshEd.zip

And here is the SC4Model file http://www.mediafire.com/file/zzmciuqkgz2/ChurchwayStation3a-0x5ad0e817_0x79351b99_0x30000 - Copy.zip

[SimFox 802]

you are absolutely right!

Many FSHs don't have alphas this could only be some error. And my suggestion would be to try and do another export.

[mcdrye 104]

That file was my second try at exporting as I didnt back up the first file I messed up hehe. Maybe its because of the draft quality?

edit: I've just exported in low quality mode and the alphas are still missing...

[GMT 389]

the new, wider version looks even better than the old one which was great already... amazed I am ^^

[cogeo 960]

Welcome back Ryan!

The station you are making is fantastic!

Very few points to improve:

- As many said, a four-rail trackage (together with some electric equipment) would look more realistic (though not very much with a "simcity feel").

- LODs wouldn't necessarily be underground, unless you want to have visible running trains, which I doubt if it's feasible. NOB from Japan has managed it, but it was for El-rail/GLR automata, and using special techniques (eg laying water pipes under the station). But it's really unknown if subway trains will be visible in overgound (normal) view, even with special LODs, and all the above said techniques engaged.

- Maybe the track layout is a bit unrealistic, ie two double tracks, with the one having no platform. This could be changed maybe.

Otherwise excellent work.

I would like to add that I greatly appreciate your work. And of course, I can't forget your help with the special "narrow" LU station model for RTMT (Road-top Mass Transit). Not only you provided an escellent and much needed model, but this was later modified (by me), to make new, more generic (without the roundel) subway stations out of it, I really appreciate this!

I no longer develop any stuff for RTMT, however version 4 is already under development (by other members this time), If you are interested in this (they always need good-looking additional BAT models) you can take a look at the RTMT Place on sc4devotion.

All the Best!

[mcdrye 104]

Just a quick update, I've added more detail such as 4th rails and redid the evacuation platform. Here are some pictures of details you won't normally see up close

And finally the latest render

[SimFox 802]

Close ups suggest that you are making it in Max, am I correct?

[mcdrye 104]

No I'm messing with the Thumbnail Cam in gmax.

I have managed to import the model into Max without textures (importing the model with texture co-ords caused Max to run out of memory and crash) and tried exporting so that I could edit the bmp's (all had alphas! hehe) before BAT4MAX made them into FSH files. I managed to eliminate the boxy shadows by editing the alphas as you suggested but I'm having trouble with the actual building showing.

Parts of other Simcity buildings keep showing instead so I tried merging into new scenes and trying again but I did it 3 times and got the same. I'll try again at some point

[nihonkaranws 88]

You have 3dsmax already? Then why are you still sticking with Gmax?!

[jacqulina 162]

wow very nice

[Gn_leugim 853]

the thumbnail camera so trixky camera looks nice, and the rail texture lovely

[SimFox 802]

There are few reasons why this may happen. And given that this building isn't too big it may be easier to manually fix it in reader - simply assign proper textures to the slabs of s3d. Alternatively re-export the LODs from GMAX and export again with this new SC4Modle file.