Ed's BAT thread

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Sad news, everybody, the CSC is dead. I kind of burned myself out BAT-wise after spending so long getting that stupid Costello roof texture to work. Besides that, the computer I originally did those houses on has since fried, and so there`s no way I can access, edit, or relase future versions of them. Besides, starrdarcy and beebs are currently working on recent suburban houses, so I've decided to change my angle.

This has a broader name in case I develop project-ADD and decide to jump around from project to project, but right now I'm trying to piece together some houses I want for a CJ I'm planning.

So far I've got this bungalow in the works...it'll be released as both an R$ and R$$. I'm making some new houses because I really dislike New York style R$ homes...this one'll allow for some great mixed-wealth areas. I've got Scarborough, Toronto in mind.

[Gn_leugim 853]

sorry to ear that =1 but glad you could be back =)

[danielcote 9]

Hmm rising from the ashes isn't easy but once you do you know what you've done is right! I can't wait!

[edmonton_stinks 5]

gn_leugim: Thanks! It's great to be back.

danielcote: I guess not, but hopefully I produce enough useful buildings that I will know that.

Update: That bungalow's modeled and textured now, except the front door. I haven't decided what colour I want it to be, but I'm guessing bright red is not it.

[Ferrariguy1000 43]

nice start there. I hope you do good on the journey of mastering BAT. good luck.

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Ferrariguy1000: Thanks.

House is fully modeled now and ready for lotting. How's it look?

Comments are appreciated, constructive criticism especially. This means no "UR HOUSE SUX U DESERVE 2 DIE LOL" and also no "Good job for a first effort." This isn't a first effort, and I'm trying to make sure it looks exactly right.

Thanks for viewing!

[nihonkaranws 88]

Looks good. But more detail is needed - wall texture, opaque windows, darker roof texture, window frames - before you can consider it complete. The smaller windows also look too high up.

[spa 968]

Not bad. This definitely has Scarberia written all over it! I have two suggestions to follow on what Nihonkaranws has already offered.

1. The roof texture works, but it doesn't on the left and right sides. It should be consistently oriented.

2. The front window is big and blank. Some variation/random pattern to make it feel like it's reflecting the outside or that there is a room behind it full of furniture, would do wonders, especially since it's so big.

I don't know what you have planned for the back, but I think a small deck could work really well on this type of place.

[Gn_leugim 853]

I have to agree with what has being said.. you need more details on textures and on modeling..

[edmonton_stinks 5]

nihonkaranws: The windows may look a little too high, but this is based off a real life house. I could try moving them if you think it would improve the house. Thanks for the input!

spa: Haha, Scarberia. Yep, it should fit into that environment as well as just about all of Calgary's 50s and 60s suburbs, from nicer areas like Wildwood and Varsity to not so nice areas like Bowness and Marlborough. I took your advice and modified the roof texture, as well as adding a deck.

Gn_leugim: What should I model more precisely? The textures I am working on.

Okay, so still some issues here...

 

The back now has a deck! I really like the deck, but I don't like how it sticks up so that you can see it from the front of the house. So, the question is: Is it really that distracting, or is it something where I can just leave it?

Also, I've received some comments on how the front window is too big to have such a boring texture. In my previous houses I never really made anything with a window this big. How would I go about texturing it so as to make it look reflective, or like there's a house full of furniture on the other side?

Comments and constructive criticism greatly appreciated, especially answers to my questions.

Thanks for visiting!

[mntoes 270]

  Try moving the windows down just a bit so the top of the frames are visible. This is something I often do to overcome the effect of the in-game camera angle that SC4 uses.

  I like the deck very much, that is just right .(again it is visable because of SC4's camera angle.) Best advice, don't change that it's the best part of the model IMHO. For the large window increase the opacity and place some objects visable though the window.(Curtains or furniture..etc). These don't have to be too detailed as the small detail will not show through the window so a basic shape will do.

   The texture on the roof is somewhat odd. If you look at the roof tiles the front and back tiles are larger left to right but at the sides they are larger top to bottom. To rectify this you may need to adjust the UVW gizmo for the side pieces so that the tiles run the in the same direction ie larger left to right. (assuming that the front,back and side pieces are modeled seperate. Also consider adding guttering and ridge tiles to the house. The front door could use a window and yes I even go as far as to model the letter box (UK houses) and door handles. With practice you can get all of these details to show-up on your model  the secret for this is in the texturing if there is a good contrast in the textures then they will show. 

Please understand this is only constructive advice. I like the model and with a bit more refinement it will look great.

Hope that helps, nice work so  far.

regards

Mntoes.

PS click the link below and take a look at my thread to get the idea of what I mean (although there are far better Batters than me), whilst you're at it take a look at Gn_leugim's thread as well.

[art128 4,618]

looks great

[edmonton_stinks 5]

mntoes: Thanks for your incredibly useful reply! I took your advice, as you'll see below. Hopefully it looks as you'd hoped.

art128: Thanks for the support!

So, quite a few changes since last time, but they may only be noticeable to some. I

retextured the windows

decreased opacity

added a floor texture to make the house look inhabited

nightlighted

and...that's about it. Most of the changes are window-related, since the rest of the house seems fine. Here are some hastily put together render shots.

Comments and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated!

[Francis90b 748]

Very nice, but i think that's a bit underscaled, and roof and the deck look a bit too yellow.

[jacqulina 162]

good progress

[Gn_leugim 853]

---

try to not just pic up a texture and apply it to the model without working it around.. you can find some tutorials about this subject on Omnibus (and not only)

for example, the roof need to be less saturated, less bright, and less yellow. you can make that on InfraRed or in PhotoShop

[mntoes 270]

That's better.  As for the colours do a draft render and test it in-game to see how it fits in and tweek as you see fit.

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Okay, so a lot of people don't seem to like the roof. I don't wish to change the colour, however, because the roof is that same golden colour on the real-life house. I tried to perfect the colour so that it was yellow, but not bright yellow. It's kind of an earth tone.

Now, I have a question. I want to make a lot of colour variations on this house and future houses that I'll be making. How do I go about:

-Exporting houses that all have the same name, even though they were made and exported at different times?

-Condensing all those houses into a single .dat file for the purposes of uploading?

If anyone can answer these questions, that would be great.

[Gn_leugim 853]

if you export from the same file twice or more, you will get the same ID for the model, and therefore you only will replace one model by other.. if you wish to make several models from the same .gmax do the following:

export the model once;

save the file after exporting;

open "file", "file Properties";

select the "custom" tab;

among the properties select "Model ID";

change the ID value on the "value" string above.. pay attention to the changes you made, you have 3 values, you should only change the last one. I recommend you to just add a number to it.. like:

"xxxxxxxx-yyyyyyyy-1234000" changes to "xxxxxxxx-yyyyyyyy-1235000". the four zeros at the end are to keep;

re texture/ recolour and re export.

like this you should have two separated .sc4model files.

about the .dat files, you can use the sc4tool to pack them up

[edmonton_stinks 5]

gn_leugim: Thanks! I really appreciate the help.

I spent a few hours working on colour variation #1, and came up with this.

The house is green, but with a brown rock texture on the front. Paint kind of skewered the image quality, but it still looks fairly close to the real thing. I also plan on doing brick, half-brick-half-white, a red with brick, possibly blue, and whatever else I think looks good. In the real-life neighbourhoods a large majority of these houses are white and variations on white, so I'm trying to make the SC4 versions a bit less boring and dull.

[spa 968]

That looks quite good. You were successful in adding some spice to that front window and it looks good at night. After your pm I started to write a detailed tutorial, but I just haven't finished it yet! Sorry. There is only one thing wrong, your back deck is lit up like a Christmas Tree as is your front porch. What you need to do is nudge your floor up so that it's level with nothing else. Essentially the top of the floor should be at its own level on the z axis. Then move your light down so that the light and the target light are on the floor and nothing else. Finally, adjust the light's attentuation parameters so that it doesn't shine beyond the floor. In short do this:

This is how I do all my lighting. It's the best way I have found so far.

[edmonton_stinks 5]

spa: I don't quite understand what you mean with the lights. I'll just wait for the tutorial.

So obviously I have quite a lot to figure out in terms of nightlights, but for now here's a red house.

It has bricks around the front door to avoid being boring...this colour variation is one I see on the bus every morning. Sorry I've been so short on updates...I'll try to make more colour variations, then make more houses and apply the various colours. Then I'll have a set of a few houses with multiple colours that should help to contribute to the game rather unobtrusively, which is my goal at the moment.

Thanks!

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Sorry for the double post, but I did a ton of BAT work today and made a bunch more colour variations. Besides, I figure a day is long enough that it shouldn't count.

That's 8 total colours. They should be ready for export and upload, except for one minor imperfection.

As you can see, my nightlights have the unfortunate effect of making my back deck and front porch glow. I use the method published by gn_leugim on the omnibus. I could switch to the Maxis nightlights, but where's the fun in that? Thoughts?

Thanks for viewing!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Lacking any first-hand BAT experience, I'm afraid I won't be able to help you concerning that night lighting problem. I think I have seen a solution posted recently, but I can't remember where. Btw, in case you haven't noticed yet, the chimney also glows.

I like the variety of colours you are going to provide us with, but I think almost all of them could be desaturated a bit, most notably the red and green. Apart from this minor issue, everything's looking mighty fine!

[Gn_leugim 853]

the main problem about your window is that it is to big.. my method only work at to some point.. in this case, you could try to add some frames to the windows, so they won't have such open space, and reduce the light multiplier, so it won't glow so much. to avoid the chimneys to glow, set the far attenuation in such way that light won't get to the chimney

[edmonton_stinks 5]

T Wrecks: You're right, it does glow. Thanks for the feedback!

Gn_leugim: I tried messing around with the attenuation but then it wouldn't light up the floor anymore. Thanks for the help, though.

Okay, so this nightlighting thing is giving me a monster headache. I'm on break from school which gives me a lot of time to play around with the nightlighting stuff and see if I can get it to work, but so far, nothing. If I use an omni light, the inside of the house looks great but the chimney, front steps and back deck all glow like a flashlight on a mirror. However, if I change anything at all, I can't get the light to show up at all.

I wanted to download Bixel's Trunight tutorial, but that only works on BAT4Max and I use gmax, so that leaves me with the choice of trying to get BAT4Max, or figuring out a way to fix my problem with what I have. I would much rather finish this on gmax since that's what I have already and I've been working on these houses for a really long time.

Anyone have any ideas? There was a really helpful post from Spa earlier, but I couldn't figure it out and ended up changing it so that the lights didn't show up anywhere, let alone faintly. Any nightlighting experts out there, I could really use your help.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

There's a checkbox called "Cast Shadows" which you should check. I think it's nearby intensity, or somewhere around there.

[Gn_leugim 853]

yes.. if you don't check "cast shadows" you will have light all over the place.. you need to check it so objects are "opaque" to light

[Francis90b 748]

The first four variations of your bungalow are amazing, here's my two cents for the last four:

-red, black roof:the 5th variation in your picture.You may try to fade the red a bit

-blue white, green and white, red and white.You may try to dark a bit your white texture, and add some dirt to it.

Great BAT, i really want to download it!

[patfirefghtr 159]

Hey Ed the bungalow is looking pretty good there and the color varations is pretty sweet too!!!