McDRye tries BAT again..

[SimFox 802]

Being puzzled by the "missing Alpha" mystery I've taken a bit closer look on the whole issue. And was very surprised... It seems that Alphas aren't needed AT ALL! NONE of the game buildings has them and neither do most of GMAX BATs. And if you think of it it's kind of obvious why. What is Alpha - an image, Black and White one (well gray scale one - but more on this later) where white indicate transparency - e.g. area that is shown, and black opacity - cover up/cut off. E.G. everything that is pure black is cut off. In this case since background is by default pure black why would you NEED alpha in the first place? So NONE of the games own buildings FSHs have alphas. The day views that is... Night view is a different story altogether. Alpha here is used to superimpose night view areas (be them nightwindows or area of effect of nitelites) over the day view (tinted by the game). Need for cut-off mask here is an obvious one. And this is where they are used in games default buildings.

How come SOME of the GMAX BATs day view FSHs still have alphas is a bit of a mystery. But I think it's safe to assume it is a failsafe put into the Original BAT by Maxis. I think it is pretty obvious that none of the game own stuff has been made with GMAX. IT was made with MAX. But when it came to make some sort of tool available for users US$ 3000+ piece of software wasn't an option. And here comes GMAX free, but without own rendering capabilities. Maxis created it's own rendering module. It's mimics workings of the MAX's own (at that point in time) Scanline but in order to simplify things and not getting into an argument with Discreet drops few things off (like, say, bump). Following same train of though it is safe to assume that Maxis decided to safeguard against experienced users applying pure colors to thins - say making something black - black. Anyone who has been involved with any visual arts knows that there is no such a thing as pure black. But rest of the world assumes that there is. So I guess there is a routine in the DLL responsible for rendering in GMAX that checks if there are pixels with color very close to it so that game risks be fooled on what is suppose to be NOT a background and if case such pixels are found include an Alpha for this particular FSH. Pure black still seems (at least in my tests) be invisible.

What it all means?? Well it give an interesting tool to hide those underground parts - just place planes with pure black color applied to them over those. Risks here are such that if you have some parts of your model that fulfill the alpha inclusion conditions (as I suspect them to be) this will fail since alpha produced form render alpha be created and included. And it will reveal you pure black plane. But anyway it is worth a try.

[mcdrye 104]

Blimey, interesting discovery SimFox! I've tried adding a black plane and tried exporting the model. It seems that if you had a skin tight LOD this method might just work! As you can see none of the underground bit is visible, the black bits at the front are where my LOD needs to be tighter. Theres still the big problem of reverse shadows though, in fact it looks as though they've become larger...

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Very interesting!!

For Gmax users though, a problem would be that it's difficult to make something truly black.  Even if you have a plane that is colored pure black, because of the lighting, it will not actually be black.

To make something that is truly black, make a material and do the following:

-Change the Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular colors to pure black.

-Change the Specular Level, Glossiness, and Soften to 0

-And more importantly, turn on self illumination, and change the color to pure black.

I haven't exported anything, but Photoshop confirms that the object will be pure black (RGB, 0,0,0).

[mcdrye 104]

Hey sorry for lack of updates, I've been busy putting this model into MAX now that I'm more confident in the use of it. I've retextured everything (almost) which took forever. Here is the current state of it below. 

I've set everything under Z=0 to be invisible to camera and then used a opacity=0 map mask which shows the underground part when rendering. In a test export I did it seemed to eliminate the reverse shadow problem.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

ahh!  Glad to hear you've switched to 3ds Max.  You should try out either my or SimFox's lighting rigs.  They're on the STEX (search "rig" on the STEX and you'll find them).

Something I've noticed is that it looks like there is light coming from your tunnel where there isn't a shadow being cast.  If you extend the tunnel back or put a backing wall it won't do that.

[mcdrye 104]

Heyhey, here is the model ingame using your rig Jasoncw. Reverse shadows are gone. Thoughts? I'm hoping to release this soon, need to do nightlighting though. Would you say the model is fine or any improvements to be made?

[toxicpiano 125]

Wunderbar!

[art128 4,618]

OMG !! that looks really wonderful !

[mosin33 5]

I think it is too dark but I really like what you are doing. Going underground....somewhat!

Nice job and glad to see something new

mosin!

[mcdrye 104]

Yeh I feel it is a tad too dark I'm working on that

[SimFox 802]

Sorry, I've missed quite a bit of development here...

I would like to return back to the GMAX stage for purely "scientific" reasons.

If the solution proposed by me - covering things with pure black planes would have worked - eg GMAX would go about it business as usual and didn't create alpha then we wouldn't need tight LODs at all. And we still wouldn't see that black bit on the side of the station entrance:

Fact that it is there means that most probably GMAX got confused and created said alpha...

Jason, you are wrong about difficulty of creating something pure black. In fact it is exceedingly easy. In any software with any lighting or Gamma settings. as long as your diffuse color of RGB 0,0,0 and your material has NO reflection of any kind (that includes specularity) your object will be PURE black. or invisible. No light will be reflected of the surface. That is what those numbers mean - 0of red, 0 of green and 0 of blue light is reflected (diffusely) by the surface.

Since McDrye had moved to MAx for him and his project this discussion is purely speculative, but for those still using GMAX may be of some help...

As to the latest preview it look beautiful, the only point where I would say some attention is called for is the deepness of shadow on the platform. You should try using Gamma correction to combat this. There are few option available . Detailed information is in my Forces of light and the geometry of Shadows thread link to which you can find in my signature.

one question though... where do those galleries to which stairs from platform lead go?

[panthersimcity4 162]

Awesome station!

Although imo the backside of the building on top is kinda ugly, I'm assuming its based off of a real building so... Nevermind, it's a fictional station

[mcdrye 104]

I hope the image below explains the gallery SimFox, I've hidden the wall to help illustrate.  This kind of layout can be quite a common way of building stations in a cutting in the UK, though the basement ticket hall is not always necessary in less urban areas. Also if space is limited, the access staircases can be built into the cutting walls, like in the station below.

[SimFox 802]

Oh!! I see... It is really quite logical, although i would never really guessed it myself... Anyway when shall we se this beauty on STEX? Do you have any idea about being able to show actual train running through it? Is ti possible at all? Like is there Paths for metro?

[art128 4,618]

really nice. logical like Simfox said, and I really love that idea to put a demolished platform, really unique !

[mcdrye 104]

SimFox: I don't think it's possible to have visible trains passing through the station, I'd love it if someone knew how though...

[nofunk 1,933]

It sure would be nice if you could get trains to pass through, but I think you're right that it is impossible.

Regardless, this is a great BAT and I can't wait to place it in my cities!

[mcdrye 104]

I've been working on nightlighting...here it is so far

[Delecto 941]

Great achievement at all levels.

The nightlighting is well made, simple and effective. It's a real station or imaginary?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Madness...

That is spectacular lighting to complement spectacular modeling. I have been watching you try to work these little issues out and I think it is really paying off. Fantastic little station!!!

-Todd

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It honestly looks amazing. Everything is very well done.

[nofunk 1,933]

This is superb work.

[art128 4,618]

This is exellent !

[jacqulina 162]

wow great progress,the night lighting is fantastic

[mcdrye 104]

Heyhey I've released the station onto the STEX! Check it out and let me know what you think.

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21204

[SimFox 802]

And what a beaut it is!

[Owaen 5]

Absolutely gorgeous station ! A million thanks.

I thought i could show some images where i think it fits in rather well. (Hope you don´t mind)

Click pictures for full resolution (1680x1050)

Day shot

Night shot

Again many thanks for making this

[mcdrye 104]

Fantastic! It's nice to see my hard work being used in people's cities and it looks great in your's Owaen. Btw not sure if anyone noticed but look closely at the track signals as you change from day to night. I made it so they change from red to green or vice versa to add a little extra realism hehe.

[Owaen 5]

Sweet, nice little detail. Though if you never had mentioned it, I wouldn

[vershner 11]

Fantastic station! I will definitely be using it in my cities. Thanks for all the work you put into it.

Now that you have the model finished, would it be possible to make a couple of eye-candy lots, to show other parts of the line?

What I mean is just a 1x1 lot, with just the track and walls on either side, and a second 1x1 lot for the tunnel entrance.