hkabat-forum-threads Amthaak BATS Thread

[Francis90b 748]

Happy birthday!Hope your recent problem won't stop you

[Amthaak 1,501]

Hi Francis: Thanks a lot! I have no more problem, only uncertainty, but health is good, so nothing will stop me!!!

[Amthaak 1,501]

Just a small confirmation of the polygons counter: 1 802 640 !

[Amthaak 1,501]

To Jasoncw:

In Francis Bat thread , you said:"Remember that most buildings are not just flat walls. The surface of the building moves in and out a little bit." Do you do it by texturing, or batting? Do you know any thread where it is illustrated?

[jacqulina 162]

you are very welcome my friend

[grbac80 5]

I hope this will all get sorted out. It would be a pitty not to have that building around.

[Amthaak 1,501]

grbac80: believe me ... nothing will stop now. BTW I 'll release very soon nightlight... (suspense!)

Thank u all, you make me stronger, every word you write to me

[Francis90b 748]

Amthaak, you can actually use either ways to add details to your buildings.Jason wrote a small tutorial about detailing with texturing, and probably this may be really useful.Also, you can do this by actually BATing things.Remember that in GMAX don't render well some small details, so you have to exagerate them from time to time.Long ago i've started a small thread about detailing, and maybe you can find something interesting there, even if there isn't too much.Also, considering the suggestion Cockatoo gave you, i remember that Don miguel did a tutorial about how to model a maxis like tree.Maybe the method explained there would be helpful.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Dear Francis, thanks a lot for these links, the last one is very interesting... I'll make some test for sure.

As promissed , I started to work a little on nightlight...

[Amthaak 1,501]

Hi Francis, I just make a tree! the render is good in S and E view (not too bad for a first trial)

Hi Gn, looks like an oak!

[jacqulina 162]

very nice night lighting .

great tree looks quite real

[grbac80 5]

That's just beautiful Amthaak. How about some lights in from the pool, is that possible? Just an idea.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Ah,! Dear grbac80! i am spending my time in thewilderness. The Bat is so big , that Ihave to be very careful each time I am checking the nightlight, I have for that to render at 4 instead of 5, and if I forgot I have again this crazy saturation coming back in the render, making foolish things, like lights every where, and then I have to merge again everything in a new scene. Just to give you an example . I started at 2PM working on the version6 and I am trying now to work on the version 9

For the light in front the swiming pool, can you be to be a little more precise (as there are 2 swiming pools). anyway, thanx a lot for your support!

[wagner 5]

Hi! Thank you very much for the detailed tutorial, it helped me a lot. Sorry for my delay, but unfortunately I had to reinstall everything on my computer, and I had some troubles configuring the wireless net. Again, thanks for the tutorial, and I just want to add that your newest creations are also marvelous indeed - quite as usual. )

[delija21 295]

That's just spectacular my friend...as for the lights in the pool, try putting it in both pools. i think it would look nice

[Amthaak 1,501]

Wagner: No problem, if you have more questions, don't hesitate, if I can answer, it will be with pleasure.

delija21: Dear friend,In fact both have already lights, I'll reenforce the light (1.5 instead of 1). Thanks a lot for comments and support. Have a good WE

Here a pic a made before the last rendering crash ( that gives me a lot of frustration....) I have to work on the light without textures applied in order to limit these rendering crashes ( again...!)

Personnally, I like the "reflexion in the swimming pool

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Excellent night-lighting!

Unfortunately I've had no luck converting this thing into Max. It's MASSIVE! Soooo many polygons - my computer can barely function with this thing loaded in Gmax, let alone actually work on exporting it. I honestly think that it would be quicker for you to just build this model from scratch again in Max... but you don't want to do that do you?

The only way I can see this being completed now is by reducing the poly count in Gmax to get the model to a point where it is exportable. If I remove all of the flora, your poly count drops from 1.8 million to somewhere around 800,000. If you use the low poly tree modelling method, that's one million ploys gone already. If you have a decent computer that might just get you over the line (but like I said before you may have to go as low as 350,000 before it will export.)

Make sure you never start another project in Gmax again! Once this is out of the way you can start on that HK hotel, can't wait to see what you can do with that.

btw, how on earth did you get those night-time reflections in that pool? I had no idea Gmax could do that.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Dear Cockatoo! Thank you very much for having tried! I had few hope of success. I prefer to start max with a completly new project. Like you I get so much frustration with Gmax, specially yesterday. Anyway, I will follow you're advice by reducing the quantity of polygons. However, I am surprise with the low amount of polygons you mentioned (350.000). To give you examples, the railstation I upload to the Stex was 1.074.706, Brickell 500, 672.260 and Dalian WTC was 714.012. So, I'll try a new record...

Remenber what Churchill said: "I did it because I didn't know that it was impossible!"

For the reflexion on the pool, is simple: I use spotlight  with a blue color, and I enable the surface of the pool with the texture I use for the night windows light with a very low amount of strengh (0.2). Here is an example of texture I do for the night windows...! But don't tell anybody, it's a secret!

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Ah, I thought it'd must have been something like that, really clever.

[grbac80 5]

Well I was thinking about the lights from the pool, like from the floor of the pool for example. But if that is impossible(), this already is superb.

[Amthaak 1,501]

What about that...?

[Amthaak 1,501]

Do you like my new trees...?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

They look pretty good, but there are some issues that still need to be addressed I think.

The perspective looks off on both of them (the oak especially). They appear perpendicular to the screen and the viewer (as if you were on the ground looking straight at it), as opposed to above it looking down. The solution would be to edit the texture to see less "under the tree" and more of the leaves "on top of the tree".

HERE are some big fluffy oak trees to give you an idea of what you should see (although in SC4 you can see the trunk a lot more), or just look at some of the other examples in game or on the STEX.

You might also want to desaturate some, and darken a little to match the maxis trees and other custom ones (like Simfox's painfully realistic chestnuts). The willows are not as bad in that respect.

Anyway, not bad, plus the loots look amazing. Your tower is coming along pretty well too, the lights on the left tower looks sides ways and odd though. BTW, I use the same method, it works very well, almost to the point of faking a modeled interior.

[grbac80 5]

Well I'm not an expert so I can't say too much, all I can say is that I like it.

[nofunk 1,933]

The lights on the condos look great!! Also, I agree with SimHoTToDDy on the trees, but you're off to a great start on them!

[Amthaak 1,501]

Here is the comment made by cockatoo about the NDEX_Custom_Nightmaps: "Wow, these are really great. Only took me about a month to learn how to get them to function. If anyone else is having problems with these nightmaps not showing up in the parameters menu as well as removing all the default ones, visit this thread and Cogeo explains how to fix the problem....... https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=49&threadid=75610 10/10 for when they do work though, really awesome!". I am in this case.... sometimes, when I add my own map, it works, sometime it doesn't. The link in red doesn't work anymore . Can somebody give me the new link or explain me how it works. 

[jacqulina 162]

wow very nice night lighting there my friend,lovely little farm,and the trees are progressing well.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Okay. This is another really stupid problem with the Gmax BAT, I'll explain.

For some reason or another, having any thumbs.db files present in any of the directories where you store your nightmaps (C:gmax/gamepacks/BAT/Maps/Nightwindows/Whatever...) causes them to malfunction and not show up in the BAT.

To remove any thumbs.db files (which are hidden windows files by default) you first need to set your computer to display hidden files.

Go to the start menu and click control panel. Then go into folder options, you'll get a little pop-up. Click the view tab, you'll get a list of stuff. Find the option that says 'Show hidden files and folders', click that on and then un-check the box underneath it that says 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)'. You can un-do this later on if you want.

Go to C:gmax/gamepacks/BAT/Maps/Nightwindows and set all of your folders containing nightmaps not to display thumbnails in windows. Select either tiles, icons, list or details - not thumbnails or filmstrip. Now go through each folder again and delete any thumbs.db files you can see. Don't worry, all these files do is make thumbnails show up in windows, deleting them isn't dangerous.

Now once you have gotten rid of all the thumbs.db's your nightmaps should work good as new. Remember never to view those folders with thumbnails of filmstrip selected again or else you'll have to do this all over.

[SimFox 802]

A lot of development here!

Moving things to MAX. It may be a challenge... Some of the file formats have maximum number of polygons/Verteciew etc. that may be in a file. 3ds, for instance is limited to 30 000 faces. So one thing to ease the transition would be to break the entire complex into separate elements. Export them each in a separate file and then re-assemble together in Max. I wouldn't go into details of the export process as I have never performed it myself, but the logic of what I've said will hold, for sure. Particularly it is important as you may have many "copies" of same object, say palms. It is I bet enough to transfer one...

And depending on how they were done it may be really faster to recreate them in Max.

And although the polycount as such isn't really an issue with rendering, the memory requirements to hold it all may become such an issue but there are quite a few reasons to get around that. The best one would be to get yourself a 64bit environment (both Windows and Max)

About trees...

It seems to me that you are using method similar to RPC by Archvision. It has some limitations. Main one be that you are locked to one fixed view. And if that view isn't what you need... well then there isn't really much that could be done. Also you tree will look exactly same in every rotation...

Color wise... well these are too nuclear at the moment. But here is again the limitation of the method... you can't just select new one... you have to edit basic texture in Photoshop.

here is an example of your oak:

before

after

and here are the settings I used:

[art128 4,618]

nice trees there my friend ! also, the night light looks excellent !