BL's BATs - Now Using 3ds max!

[Vahr 341]

Work returns....

And before anyone starts again on the dirt/grime thing, again, I'm basing these off of an overpass very near my house, and its been at least 4 years since they've painted it and its still grime free. Anyways, the grime would also clash with the clean look of the RHW.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It looks great!

[SimFox 802]

I have been wondering for a long time and I guess this is a good place to as as any, why do we stick with 15 m height for elevated pieces? Even taking into account 1,33 scaling it makes 11,3m in "real numbers" a bit too tall wouldn't you say. Most elevated overpasses and some such would be of about 5-7m in height. With scaling it would amount to about 9 meters in game. Wouldn't you say it would make everything look far more believable? And if to start such a project why not to make it right?

Speaking about shown models they are a good start. However the are few issues that you may take another look at.

1. colors - everything is incredibly yellow, like it's really, really old photo or has been on purpose "sepiated" in photoshop.

2. the surface of the road - carrier . It is paper thin. And it look a bit odd from the side to see that razor edge.

3. number of carrying beams and columns - it is way way over the top given their thickness. Also with beam there is no need for those that aren't naturally seen. Beams are also oversizes in Z (vertical) direction. What is their height? What is diameter of the support columns?

As for texturing (apart from yellowness) I think it's quite fine but it does look lime many different textures stuck together in a row. The grime is always at the left edge and disappears abruptly at the "new" bit. You really should even/randomize it out. And, generally for such a clearly unit piece you should probably make a single customized texture running the entire length of the unit. And that include the single grim. So you better start with clean texture and add grim to it afterwards.

[Vahr 341]

The heights were chosen based on maxis elevated highway. We do admit that its numerically too tall, and hence why we have a 7.5m network planned.

1. Not my choice; I merely imported the regular ERHW model and textures into 3ds. Though I believe they appear very yellow in 3ds due to the fact that we have to apply color correction to s3d model textures for true3d models on transit networks, as the game applies a blue mask and doesn't apply dimming.

2. 1m of concrete under the road surface; only visible parts (the sides) were modeled due to true3d constraints (again, not my choice) But remember you will never see the edge.

3. Won't see any of the inside ones; I was at the same time checking to see if this beam shape would cause mental ray errors when copied multiple times. This is the 6th shape I've tried, and it finally works. All the other ones cause errors after I clone it once and move it to the opposite side (ie "screendoor" transparency, random transparent squares forming on other geometry, etc) They're oversized in the Z direction (numerically) because the other height for substructures results in very little of the structure seen. Dia of columns: 1m.

Texturing: Again, outside of my control, and not feasible given the situation. We can't spend that much time and IID slots just to make the walls look a tad better.

---

On a more technical note, does anyone have any idea why mental ray is doing this? It happens quite often, actually, and its only ever in orthographic view (which means the SC4 views get the same issue)

Parts go missing, transparent, screendoor style, "black noise," and even this.

(Area of interest: surface and left bottom lip of substructure):

Are there any specific no's when modeling something that will be rendered in mental ray in orthographic projection?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I was thinking the exact same thing as SimFox about the height, but I usually don't comment on network stuff, and I don't want all my comments to be "is there a shorter version in the works?". But I'd definitely like to see a properly tall network. I'm glad that it's finally being planned.

About the technical stuff, the bottom picture, the bottom left lip looks like there's coplanar geometry. If two surfaces are right on top of each other (or are really close to it), mental ray will have trouble deciding which one is in front and should be rendered. So for you, it looks like there's a grey object overlapping the blue object.

Do the tan stripes on the road correspond to anything?

I don't know about the first picture.

[Vahr 341]

Jasoncw: Hmm, alright, I'll keep that in mind in the future. Never knew mr could be so picky... but I suppose that's the way things are. Floating point integer precision differences? And yes, the tan stripes area not supposed to be there; they're transparent holes in the top plane, so it shows the substructure. Thanks for the help!

Progress on the modding (T21) side...

Now to tackle Orthogonal x Diagonal, and then time to model the diagonals...

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Looks nice BL, but how will it look on slopes? I guess horrible (as usually when you have T21ed props on slopes)

[Tarkus 6,932]

The models are looking great!

Originally posted by: mrtnrln

Looks nice BL, but how will it look on slopes? I guess horrible (as usually when you have T21ed props on slopes)quote>

There's always the option of using buddybud's S3D Prop techniques as well (as seen here), which could provide a solution.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[Vahr 341]

Yeah, they don't look too great on slopes. Though seeing as most people use ERHW on flat ground, its not as much of an issue.

Anyways, modding progression.

[DCMetro34 576]

Looks great so far, awesome job! I like the textures....pretty realistic.  

DC 

[Nego16 26]

I have to agree. Those models look fantastic, and they're realistic.  I hope to see more development soon.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Wow!!!1 look really good.

[MechaKnight 1]

These look great! Keep it up

[MechaKnight 1]

These look great! Keep it up

[MechaKnight 1]

These look great! Keep it up

[Vahr 341]

*blows dust off*

Just showing what work I have recently done that's most likely going to be released...

High mast lighting, lot based and T21's for RHW-6C/8C

A new ERHW support cosmetic mod. Might revisit the full cosmetic mod at a later time

Variable Message Signs

And some sort of elevated pedestrian overpass set. Modeled a cable stayed overpass for crossing 3 tile wide gaps (ie for RHW-4's with a median, RHW-6C/8C, etc). Probably going to be modular

Not sure yet how I wanna model the attachment point on the towers for the cables... and thinking the towers might be a little too thin. Thoughts?

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

I remember seing some of those photos in your CJ Nice work on everything!