hkabat-forum-threads Amthaak BATS Thread

[alj 38]

The details look great!

The canopy/marquee with the "Peninsula" signage looks as if it was made out of granite. Is it what you have intended?

[Amthaak 1,501]

Alj: not really, it was supposed to be metallic (well, thanx to advise that it's not very convincing...!)

[tcx 170]

Nice pics of your model, the details are great.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

OMG, now THAT is what I'm talking about. 

[Amthaak 1,501]

I knew you 'll like it...!

[Simbourgeois 139]

Cher Amthaak,

C'est vraiment magnifique!!! I'll arleady reserve a place for this in my city!

I can't, just can't wait for this to be finished... but you take your time, my friend, I have to learn to be patient

Bien cordialement,

Simbourgeois

Maire de Belleville

[Amthaak 1,501]

  I would really appreciate if somebody has any idea of how is the top of the old building (any pic should be OK...!)! Thanks a lot, merci beaucoup, muito obrigado, muchas gracias, fei chang gan xie, Vielen Dank, hvala ti, grazie mille, kiitos paljon, terima kasih banyak, arigato, mange takk...

It' s quite urgent....!

[tcx 170]

I found these ones

[Amthaak 1,501]

Thanks a lot , that's really great!

[tcx 170]

Glad to help, I also found this one but couldn't post the pic here, so here's the link to it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozwilde/2161951229/

[Amthaak 1,501]

...! Before exploding my computer, can somebody tell me how to avoid this kind of pb!

PS: I have 3 Gb ram, the attempt to save the current scene didn't work, fortunatly I saved 1 mn before crash!

I was working on that:

[Amthaak 1,501]

Well, well, well, I need re orientation, I am at this stage , already at 68 Mb and quite far from the end and I still have the "out of memory" pb, How can I allowed more RAM to avoid this. If no solution, I'm afraid that I will have to try something less "heavy"...

[Vlasky 1,803]

this looks amazing. sorry to hear about memory pb! don't know about that stuff, and sorry I can't hepl you. hope somebody who can posts here.

[mightygoose 92]

easiest way would be to use bump maps and textures to represent those decoraations, the level of detail you have made is useless in simcity unless you are rendering the whole lot in HD even then many details will be lost, render a fron view of the decoration with non directional lighting, like when you first open max then use that to make your texture and bump map.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Wow, that level of detail will never be seen in the game, but the fact that you're modelling it anyway... wow. Dedication.

I'm not completely sure how to fix your memory problem, I'm sure someone will be able to help though, It could be as simple as allocating a bigger number somewhere. I know you like to work very high poly, but for the time being (if the memory issue can't be solved), you might want to cut down a little on the fine details, or better yet, make two scenes. A slightly simplified scene for exporting to SC4 (excluding fine details that won't be seen in game anyway) and an extravagant scene with all the detailing for you to show here and blow us all away with close ups.

[HONG KONG 74]

Originally posted by: Amthaak

  I would really appreciate if somebody has any idea of how is the top of the old building (any pic should be OK...!)quote>

[psander5 195]

Wow, those details are incredible! Too good for SimCity, as has already been said, but it makes me smile to see it! I would take mightygoose and Cockatoo's advice and cut down on the polys. Judging by these photos above, ^ If you were to continue at the same level of detail throughout the building you would need an industry computer to manage it all!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah, that piece looks very nice, but for SimCity it might as well just be a textured box. 

For memory, there are a few options in the render scene dialogue window, in the processing tab (next to the Indirect Illumination" tab).  They're right at the top, and you can look up each one in Help or in google to see what each one does.

Also, any other programs that you have open will also be using memory, so closing them will help.

If you search google you can find tips for reducing memory usage.

I forgot if I said this yet, but it's nice to see a historic asian building.  Most of the buildingss that have been done so far haven't been historic.  And you're doing a nice job so far, I'm looking forward to seeing it textured. 

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Any chance that we might see a pre-1990's version without the hideous modern tower attached? From HONG KONG's beautiful pictures it looks like it would only be a matter of copying a few walls (it would make me really happy )

Your work is truly outstanding, I really did not expect you to add so much detail to the smallest of things

Looking forward to more,

-Todd

[Francis90b 748]

Looking wonderful! I really appreciate your dedication in modelling every detail of it. I'd like an older, towerless version too.

[HONG KONG 74]

This pic was taken in 1961, if you wanted to build the historical version.

[mightygoose 92]

i would like to third the original towerless version.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Hi guys! thanks a lot for your support, but tonight I'm really down, I just spent 4 hours trying to work on this "F...." bat and I just got crash after crash , couldn't work more than 10 minutes, couldn't open thefile after crash and so on , better go to bed , it will be clear tomorrow!

If i can solve this problem , certainly the option to build the old version is a very good idea, I agree with you guys that this new tower with the 2 green plates on the top is quite awful. A special great thank to Hong Kong, where did you get all this pics ?

BTW here after the last error message I got ( remind me the worst hours batting with Gmax...!)

Any Idea..?

Box vs Bat...!

[Simbourgeois 139]

Yes, yes, yes, the old one!!! It will fit so nicely in my city  

Hope that you will overcome all the hurdles! Bon courage!

Bien cordialement,

Simbourgeois

Maire de Belleville

[gottago 24]

Really sorry to see all the program-related trouble you're having on this project--the model is really excellent. But just looking at your last pic you can see that you're maxing out your system's ability to handle your geometry--the last balk/error is most like related to the program running at or near it's processing limits, creating instability. When you open Max the next time, run it alone without any other programs, and open your task manager and set the process's priority to high.

You don't say what OS you're using, XP and Vista handle RAM differently, but if it's Vista, first thing to do is to turn off Aero and your sidebar. Then navigate to "performance options" and in the "visual effects" tab, choose "adjust for best performance." In the "advanced" tab, choose adjust best performance for programs, and then open the virtual memory window and see how much of your hard drive Vista is allocating for virtual RAM. It is usually about 4500MB, but if you have a lot of free space on your HDD then make it much higher, preferably on a separate HDD or partition other than the one that Max is installed on. Also defragment your HDDs to increase the performance of the virtual RAM. Vista uses tons of RAM by default (easily 1/3 to 1/2) so this will help a lot, especially with high-RAM-use programs like photoshop and MAX.

Another thing to try is a built-in Vista program called Ready Boost which will allow you to configure a USB stick to be used as virtual RAM--cheap and easy way to get instant RAM and it should do a lot to make your system run with more stability, though not faster.

It would also help to go through what you've already done and simplify wherever possible. For example, just looking at your last pic above, you have really dense gridding for simple planar/box geometry, which is really not needed and can be greatly reduced.

Hope this helps!

PS: I also prefer the old version--the huge addition is pretty banal and quite literally overshadows the beauty and detail of the original and draws attention away from it. It would end up looking like another big tower in game, which would be a pity for such an exceptional BAT.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whoa, I hope you get these problems sorted out. What a bummer, and how annoying that must have been! Sheesh.

As for the debate new vs. old, I could fancy the old version for Chi/NY tilesets and the new one for Houston/Euro.

[psander5 195]

I think I prefer the old too In SimCity's perspective those green helipads might look like googly eyes, and make the building look a bit cartoonish. Both versions though, I think are worthy of completion. Provided of course you van sort out your technical issues.

I wish you luck!

As for your box vs. BAT picture, I think its clear that BAT wins with a knockout. I think you should try a re-match though in SimCity4's zoom 5 perspective. I think that if you adjust the colours to match, it will be a much closer bout second time around

[mightygoose 92]

about the box versus bat, tryreducing the saturation of the texture and at least halve the strength of the bump map.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Hi my friends! Things are getting better, because I delete all the rectangular windows and replace them by 7 big rectangular ones (one for each side). I also delete all the corniche central parts (the Batted ones). The result is that it reduced by 20 mB the size of the scene. It seems in another hand that my computer configuration is not adapted with this task (Dear Gottago, I don't have vista , only XP 32 bit version...but thanks a lot for your time dedicated to my case).

I will certainly move (very fast) to a 64 bits OS and install max 2008 64 version. I hope that I will not have to re done everything. But if I have to redone it . I WILL DO IT! (c'est ça l'Rock!)

I note that everybody agrees on the old Bat, which , in term of batting is really more challenging than the big tower.

In this case, if somebody have more pics (the rear side in particulary), I will be very happy ...!

(Dear Hong Kong, I am counting on you... )

Dear T Wrecks thanks to come back! Lets go step by step.... First the old bat, second... well maybe only the big tower , what do you think?

Thanks again everybody !

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Oh, I'Ve never been away at all  - it's just that everything there was to be said was already said by others, so I just kept my mouth shut for a change and enjoyed your progress shots in silence. 

First the old one sounds good, definitely. About the new version, we shall see... in any case, BATs for the older tilesets are still less represented than modern stuff, or at least that's my impression.