McDRye tries BAT again..

[Cockatoo 2,256]

You're right about this neon lighting, its real fun to play around with. I' probably gonna to end up using this on most BAT's now... it’s something I’ve always wanted to know how to do!

Didn't turn out as well as yours, but I'm happy with this for a first attempt.

https://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k248/cockatoo-210893/NeonTest.png

[Gn_leugim 853]

would be so nice if Gmax could do the same.. we have to work some way around it

[Andreas Roth 607]

Originally posted by: mcdrye

Ar yes emmotic I was concious of this but I've tried to create a pathing neutral building, so it would look OK in both the left hand and right hand versions of the gamequote>

I was about to mention the barriers as well, but figured you were trying to create something for both right and left hand drive. Well, in that case, move both barriers to the other side of the toll booth, since they should prevent cars from driving out without paying in the first place.

[mcdrye 104]

Update time :

• Toned down neon
• Parking sign! (Will be seperately rendered as a prop)
• Moved the parking barriers to the front so that cars pay on exit rather than on entrance (barrier will auto-open for cars entering)
• Lit up the entrance/exit area (I also intend to use Maxis street light props once rendered)
• Changed yellow curb to grey and added speed restriction sign to entrance

And the picture:

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

I am truly in love with this thing, the textures and the model itself are beautiful! It might not ever make it into my cities, but I might have to plop it every once in a while just to look at it

And I'll definitely have to try out the neon!

-Todd

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It looks great.

I wonder why you're rendering the parking sign as a prop though.

[vershner 11]

The parking sign is a good addition, and the other lighting is working well, but please take out the neon on the central pillar. It looks very unrealistic. You're in danger of including something because it's new and cool, rather than because the model actually requires it.

You might find neon like that on a car-park attached to a hotel or a cinema, but never one next to a station, airport, government building, or an office block.

[Glenni 1,444]

Again, it's all relative. Several boring structures like parking garages have gotten neon lights or other things added to it.

Be that an art project. A beautifucation attempt. or a mix of both. You can see it quite often here.

[mcdrye 104]

I could just do two STEX versions, one with neon (and maybe a choice of colour), and one without the neon.

[Glenni 1,444]

yeah that would work

[nofunk 1,933]

It reminds me of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel entrance. (It works nicely as a car park as well, of course.) I love it!

The neon is very cool, and I don't think it's particularly unrealistic, but if you were to release one with and one without, I would probably use the one without the neon in my cities.

Can't wait to see this on the STEX!

[allez l'om 1]

it's perfect with the neons!!!

[art128 4,618]

Wow, it's looking awesome, excellent work on it my friend, the light are sublimes !

[BurroDiablo 222]

That is pure awesome in a can.

[SimFox 802]

I think it looks good with neons! And I would go for first version - this amount of neon tubes will definitely give illumination to the scene around it. At the end you should remember that you are making this to express your self and follow your heart.

As for what material to use , when I said self-illumination I meant in Arch&Design material, not in Max standard one. but even if you use max standard one you can still get pretty much same result. You should, probably, remember that 100% isn't really all... you can assign output map to the self-illumination slot and crunk up output there as much as you you heart desires.

But that suggestion is purely academic since and even then to those on Max version prior to 9 when Arch&Design material had been introduced.. And still even then Architectural material was a better choice.

[autoVino 26]

Looks good, but I liked it more when the red neon was a bit denser. But who knows, with the changed lighting this version could look better.

[mightygoose 92]

i agree i preferred it with the first amount of neons, and honestly, the yellow lines, it now feels watered down for me, i do love the parking sign though

[Andreas Roth 607]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

I wonder why you're rendering the parking sign as a prop though.quote>

Because people can remove it then if they don't like it. I. e. you wouldn't find a "PARKING" sign in a German city (not sure about other languages, such as French or Spanish). One could even render different signs, and use the same prop ID for them, so you can either have no sign, an English sign, or a German one. You just have to put them into different DAT files, such as the signs for your Regal Theater.

@mightygoose: Well, ask ten people what they think about it, and you will get ten different opinions. It's hardly possible to satisfy anyone, unfortuantely.

[SimFox 802]

Originally posted by: Andreas Roth

@mightygoose: Well, ask ten people what they think about it, and you will get ten different opinions. It's hardly possible to satisfy anyone, unfortuantely.

quote>

Exactly, that's why artist should work to satisfy himself...

ps it did come out a bit funny...

PSS and so is PS... so i probalby should stop...

[mcdrye 104]

Ingame testing What should I do about the lighter pavement texture? Is there a proper way of matching the ingame texture to the rendered one? I still need to redo the LODs though as you can see, in the first pic, a car being severed in half as it enters hehe.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

For color matching you can just open the texture in photoshop, open a screenshot from the game in photoshop, and then tweak your texture, do a render, copy and paste the render into your screenshot file, and then compare them that way. Then you just tweak it until it looks right. It doesn't take as much time as you might think. Afterwards you have the matched texture that you can use in future projects.

I've "matched" that texture, but I did it for Gmax's lighting rig and not the one I'm using in 3ds Max, so it doesn't perfectly match anymore.

The LODs will be very tricky. They may need to be almost skin tight for toll area.

Looking great!

[mcdrye 104]

Heyhey sorry for disappearing, but I'm here

I've exported the Underground Car Park several times but I can't seem to eliminate LOD problems. If I have the LOD tight, the entrance area tends to either go dark as though it is in shadow (created by the game not rendering) or it disappears underground when placed in the game. I assumed this was the LOD extending below Z=0 but that isn't it. Any ideas?

Also below is a quick side project, pretty much ready for release. It's based on the street entrances to the gigantic Bank station on the London Underground, which is under the Bank of England, the heart of the historic City of London area. What do you reckon?

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Wow, such fantastically superfluous detail! That's why you can get away with those sexy perspective shots and I can't Very very nice.

As for the car park... good luck with those LODs. Worst case scenario is that it looks great in game, but makes the cars look funny so I'm not really worried about that. My priority would be to make the building looks as good as possible.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Fantastic details!

About the LODs, if it were me, I would just use a more generic LOD and wouldn't do the pathing. I can't imagine the LOD acrobatics it would take to get everything to work right.

[mcdrye 104]

@Jasoncw: Yeh I gave up on the pathing but instead did it so that cars entering the lot didnt disappear under a boxy LOD straight away but at least made it past the gate.

If everyone is fine with the cars disappearing then I will go for a looser LOD?

[MTT9 187]

Great work! Ican't wait to use all these bats.

In my opinion, a bat which looks as fine as yours is good enough.

[Dark_Jedi06 13]

I absolutely ADORE that small tube station entrance...I could think of quite a few places that such a small and elegant prop could be invaluable.

Amazing work!

[Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ 273]

Great work! The detail is spectacular and should look really great in Simcity 4. Hmmm... are you going to add neon to it?

[allez l'om 1]

it is getting a very good start!!!