McDRye tries BAT again..

[mntoes 270]

I can only echo the comments made. This work is amazing. Thanks for giving your time to our community .

[mightygoose 92]

well in a discussion with tarkus and Dusktrooper about doing Batted Sunken highways last year i was left with the impression it is possible to have below grade automata pathing, in the same way it is done on various underpass lots...

[Francis90b 748]

Seeing the cars going down to the parking would be great, but your BAT is really superb anyway.

[cogeo 960]

The only BAT with (visible) automata below ground level I know, is a GLR (or subway?) station by NOB. Maybe you should contact him personally.

The easiest way to attach SC4Path files to lot tiles is SC4Tool; only remember to set the rep count for both the Transit Switch Traffic Capacity and Transit Switch Entry Cost properties to 0 (SC4Tool erroneously sets it to 1, so you should it fix it in the Reader, after you are done). Another point is orientation: the "North" in the SC4Path files points to the side of the lot facing the road, if the purple arrow points "up" (towards the opposite direction). Rotating the arrow rotates the meaning of the paths by the same angle (always a multiple of 90° ).

[mcdrye 104]

Update, I've changed the elevator shaft roof (not sure what else I could do here?) and added a very slight reflection on the concrete walls

And also here is something I love that I've just learned how to do properly:

Light Emitting Geometry = Neon

I don't plan to release as is, just excited that I can do it hehe. Can't wait to incorporate neon into future BATs

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Progress on the parking garage is looking great, and so do your neon experiments.

[Evillions 552]

If possilbe, can you make it a elevated version of it? It would go great with airports!

[Ferrariguy1000 43]

It would look cool if your neon lights were on top of that center cylindrical elevator thing on the parking garage

[Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ 273]

Very nice with the neon. I hope to see some of your neon BATs on the STEX soon

[Gn_leugim 853]

nice bating there neons look great

[Glenni 1,444]

Mind telling how you did that neon? did you use the exclude list?

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work great neons

[patfirefghtr 160]

McDRye that neon test shots is stunning!!! Any plans to make some neon poles?? LoL Anywho I really like the parking garage there!!! I will be back in for more for sure...

[SimFox 802]

:-)

nice to see the new elevator entrance. I think it look much more fitting to the overall structure.

Glenni - neons are made with self-illumination.... No need for any kind of exclusion... This is possible with any version of Max.

[mcdrye 104]

To make the neon was easy, I didn't use self-illumination SimFox, I used the Architectural material, allowing me to use a much larger luminance value of around 8000cd/m2, which looks much more realistic as you can see the light hitting other geometry. This illustrates it perfectly:

Then, just choose your diffuse colour and apply it to your desired geometry. For the day scenes just lower the luminance. Make sure you are using Final Gather and mental ray though so you can render the light coming from the material hitting surrounding objects.

Heres a great tutorial www.freeitsolutions.com/3ds/viewTutorial.aspx

[Francis90b 748]

Wow!I'm shocked!Hope to see more neons!

[grbac80 5]

This neon thing looks great. I can already see clubs and plazas with it.

[mcdrye 104]

Update! I've been working on nitelighting. Heres my progress::

I couldn't resist putting neon in there, but I could remove it if the majority don't like it

I also still need to light up the entrance area. Whadda ya reckon?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

lol, actually, I think the neon works well. The garage kind of looked like a futuristic modern thing in the first place and the neon adds to that. Maybe you should try out a variety of colors though.

Now I want to make something with neon.

[autoVino 26]

In practice, this isn't the place to put neon but I think the red adds a good artistic touch to it, I'd keep it.

[Andreas Roth 607]

It's definitely unique - and since I rarely use the night view, I wouldn't bother, even if it might not be perfectly realistic. One thing you might want to consider: Not everywhere, yellow lines are used, so maybe you could use white markings on the spiral as well, like the markings you used at the entrance gate. Or maybe make a slightly alternative version (which could have a different nightlighting as well?) and put both in your download.

[grbac80 5]

I like the neon version. You could make like warning stop sign or smth at the entrance when you will be lighting up that area.

[art128 4,618]

Wow -- The Neons looks quite good ! excellent searching work !

[Glenni 1,444]

i still don't get where you get these ideas that this is futuristic though...

i mean, come on people, if anything that garage looks like it's from the 70's, 60s even. And then the neons were installed later on from the looks of things

[vershner 11]

I'm not keen on the neon in that BAT. I'm sure it will look great on others, like hotels and shops, but it looks out-of-place on a car-park.

[mightygoose 92]

actually i think the neons have a great "well we tried to make it look nicer" feel to them.. typical UK council.

[patfirefghtr 160]

WOW simply put just wow in how the neon is turning out there McDRye!!!

[MTT9 187]

I love your BATs man and the neon is really cool.

Just a little thing to make it even more realistic...

the toll barriers (is that how you call them?) aren't place right.

As you can see in the image, they should be place in orther to let some space for the car going out of the garage.

I hope this doesn't bother... just want to help you.

I look foward for more!

[Cockatoo 2,256]

OMG, mcdrye, thanks so much for pointing us to that tutorial. I am making something that would greatly benefit from neon lighting along the sides, you just saved many hours of effort!

Your works here are fantastic by the way, the parking garage is unique, never seen anything quite like it before.

[mcdrye 104]

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 game