nybt-forum-threads NYBT BAT Thread

[halo1dragon 10]

i like your work darknono

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Looking good so far Darknono35! And thanks. Could we see a preview render of the Woolworth Building? It would be easier to tell if anything needs improvement from one of those, but from what I see I think it looks great so far!

[SimFox 802]

Darknono, why do you refuse to show proper preview render of the building? Showing the viewport captures at the zoom level that would never be seen in game, plus at the angle that would never be see in game is pointless. So is it just to gather the round of applauds? Well, that would be good model for 3D game, one where you can go around , up and down...

Speaking of a roof texture... well what could be said about it.. it (in the viewport) of a good color overall. But that doesn't mean that it would look the same with Rig lighting - again the issue of showing not what have to be show! Apart from that - the color there is very little to be said about this texture - it is neither customized no it is tailored. As such it hardly something to be really proudly (well the whole phrasing of the question somewhat suggest this attitude) displayed. What would have been great if you would go and make tailored dirt/water marks on it.

Speaking of the rest... well all that texture (again) detail under/vertically between windows, I'm afraid, will all disappear already at zoom5 of game view. Still I agree that it is probably best choice of technique to realize such details, yet I think it would take some special texture manipulation to ensure it will not all go in grey mess at game view.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks good. Are you still working on the World Financial Plaza Buildings??

[Sgt Pepper 864]

This is just some overall progress on 22 Cortlandt Street. I think I'm done with the front windows and I'm just going to copy the shades and place them on the other sides and maybe change them around a bit. But before(or after) that, I might work on the roof and base some more(nothing has changed to the base or roof since).

EDIT: Sorry it's not a HQ render(sorry Todd) I'll start doing more HQ previews when I can get my new graphics card and replacement fan for my computer.

[SimFox 802]

Sgt Pep. I have to disappoint you, getting new graphics card will not help with your renders a bit. Fan, if you're speaking about one for CPU may help in a way if you could with it on to overclock your CPU. Rendering is totally CPU work. What is worst, as far as I know renderer in GMAX BAT is not multithreaded. meaning it will not utilize more than one CPU core. Any way HQ preview apart from looking nicer don't really do much. In fact it fakes. What I mean is your building will look nicer in HQ preview than in final export! The reason is that for that kind preview anti aliasing is enabled. But it will be turned off for final export.

As for the building, it looks pretty good I would only suggest to add blinds to all of the windows and use, for instance, window texture that comes with BAT, just reduce it opacity somewhat so that the blinds would still be seen through. for greater effect you may try instead of fixed opacity to use same very map (may be totally desaturated and inverted)

Roof has clear tiling visible... given the texture you may consider to stretch it to cover the entire roof in one go, or to populate roof with some junk to hide tiling.

with "wall" texture you may, on the other hand try to increase tiling. The size of the blocks at the moment is just too huge. Also seem lines seem to be going across building it absolutely random places.

[GeometryMath Algebra 614]

how to make sketchup models illuminated

[allez l'om 1]

It looks really good. Perfect to be incorporate in a downtown.

[GeometryMath Algebra 614]

nobody is replying me!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Sgt Pep. I have to disappoint you, getting new graphics card will not help with your renders a bit. Fan, if you're speaking about one for CPU may help in a way if you could with it on to overclock your CPU. Rendering is totally CPU work. What is worst, as far as I know renderer in GMAX BAT is not multithreaded. meaning it will not utilize more than one CPU core. Any way HQ preview apart from looking nicer don't really do much. In fact it fakes. What I mean is your building will look nicer in HQ preview than in final export! The reason is that for that kind preview anti aliasing is enabled. But it will be turned off for final export.

As for the building, it looks pretty good I would only suggest to add blinds to all of the windows and use, for instance, window texture that comes with BAT, just reduce it opacity somewhat so that the blinds would still be seen through. for greater effect you may try instead of fixed opacity to use same very map (may be totally desaturated and inverted)

Roof has clear tiling visible... given the texture you may consider to stretch it to cover the entire roof in one go, or to populate roof with some junk to hide tiling.

with "wall" texture you may, on the other hand try to increase tiling. The size of the blocks at the moment is just too huge. Also seem lines seem to be going across building it absolutely random places.
quote>

Oh your not dissapointing me Simfox, don't worry about that. I need the new graphics card anyway because I'm having some bad graphic issues on my computer(that's mostly noticeable on games) and the old other fan in my computer burnt out or something(just stopped turning). You must be right about the HQ previews that fake since an old BAT I did had a slightly different look in a preview then came out different in a final export.

About your points, the roof texture wasn't final, I just stuck it there for no reason honestly. I just didn't want too much solid color geometry in there...

As for the wall texture, I tried re-sizing the blocks, and I also changed the glass texture to the Maxis one(like you said, the one that came with BAT) but I think it looks extremely weird on this building...

Here it is with the original glass texture...and fixed wall texture. Don't mind the roof texture...it went missing.

And here it is with the Maxis one. I think the old one I had looked better, but it was possibly to dark, I could try brightening up the old glass texture and edit it some more, I liked it waaaaaaaaaaay better than this one.

About adding shades to all the windows, I purposely left some windows without shades since the real building does so-

Some areas have no shaes at all and other pictures show that better than this one. I could add some more shades...maybe not too much. In fact, thisone has some dark grey shades I haven't noticed before.

@Geometry- That depends, if it's a textured box model, then it wouldn't really matter to put night lights on it since you really couldn't. All you could do really is just put omni lights around it....and please don't post something like "nobody is replying to me!" because we will reply to you soon and we aren't here ALL the time(even though I'm here alot) so you just have to be patient and wait for a reply.

@allez I'om- Thank you very much! Thanks for stopping by as well.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks good. I think the wall texture need to be more like the image, but I could be worng about that. I love the window texture.

[Evillions 552]

Does anybody uses 3dsmax here? I need to know how to make nightlighting for my BATs.

P.S. I use 3dsmax 2010.

[halo1dragon 10]

awesome sgt

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Evillions- I hope Simfox can help you on that because Simfox knows everything about 3dsmax, there are also some other users that uses 3ds max that can help you.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Evillions: You make them in 3dsmax the same way you would in gmax, only with more bells and whistles if you choose. It also depends whether or not you want to use trunite or not (I would advise doing it). Read the how-to section of the BAT4MAX thread, if you have any other questions it would be more polite to the NYBT if you put them in your BAT thread.

Brandon: It may not look as good, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the concept of a "window texture" for your model. While the saturated contrasting blotches don't quite work, I think it would be worth wile to make it work. After all, offices have distinct colors depending on the occupant, the decoration, and the contents therein. Representing each as black behind the curtain seems unfair.

Here's something you can try: make your window texture line up 1 to 1 with the facade so that yo can dictate exactly what covers each window. From there I would change the hue of the blotches to something more palatable then olive drab and yellow (perhaps highly desaturated greens and blues) and then overlay all of those on a black background and reduce its opacity so that it stands out less on the facade. THEN you can add even more abstract, vague, subtle quasi-reflections on to of them (low opacity overlay of course) One want's these to be subtle variations, not not an overly obvious pattern which is why you were so offended by the original result I think.

In addition, I think the columns are a little too thick (the picture makes them seem as wide as one window). I would agree that the yellowy texture you have now should be adjusted as well, it doesn't match the real building at all plus the seams don't seem to line up with any real logic (check reference photos, create 1:1 bitmaps if you need to).

JTF: Its an interesting building so far. To me, the tanks don't look convincing, they just seem to be giant concrete silos. The other issue I have is with the scale of the small building on the left. Did you not scale that up yet? It also looks like it has no real windows, you may be basing this on a reference, but it seems odd to me. The doors look wide and the floors look short. I like the shed on the other side though. The ground plane that you have might be a visual issue when you go to LOT this though, how well do you think it will line up with your base textures? You will need some kind of transition if you want it to look believable.

I think that is all for now

[Jumpthefence 74]

Hey, Todd's back! But I think you all already realized that...

Todd: I'll get around to that industrial building at some point, but it's fictional and for a City Journal that will never be made, so I don't have extreme motivation for that one. As for scaling, no, I have not scaled it up 133% yet. I rarely do until I render, and even then I might not scale it up the full 133%. It's usually closer to 120% or in some (rare) cases I won't even scale at all.

Sgt Pepper: I can't really make constructive comments on it at this point, the building looks pretty good. If course, it needs a roof texture, and the base's texture with the rectangles looks a tad uneven but that's just me. Otherwise, keep up the good work!

Darknono35: Could we see a preview render? It's difficult to get a sense of scale with a perspective view, as units shrink with distance. It's looking pretty good.

Now, the monotonous skyscraper! (The good thing about townhouses is that they're especially unique, but not being one to jump ship, I'll want to get this done before it's back to the townhouses)

So, am I doing this wrong? Actually, that's a rhetorical question; what am I doing wrong? There are a number of things I have issues with:

1. Why are the vertical parts of the fenestration (I think the architectural term is a mullion?) so thin? I made them around .55 meters wide, plus the depth of .25, while the windows themselves are 2.25 meters wide. Those are the measurements I got, be my guest to measure them yourself. Unfortunately, they don't come across as defined in the renders as I was hoping. Ideas?

2. Why is the base so dang tall? According to my measurements, it's 250% taller than the rest of the building's levels. Hell of a lobby...

3. I have a window texture on that gets as close as I can to faking reflections. Should I add more contrast? How am I doing?

Otherwise, there's still a good bit of work to be done here. And yes, I know the windows have more variations. Yes, I know the right side isn't done. Yes, I know the base isn't done. Yeah, the roof isn't done either. Expect more updates soon.

Tomorrow's adgenda for me includes both working on 10 Hanover Square, as well as rendering my Two Bridges buildings. I hope to upload those before I go on my Fourth of July trip, but that looks unlikely.

'K C ya L8r Bye!

[Ke|is 3,334]

One Penn Plaza is available

[SimFox 802]

To my eye this:

 looks far better than this :

just look on the right there are black holes, not windows. It may look "natural" with the black background, but try to imagine it in the environment, city environment! Glass would reflect something and Maxis texture does a good job faking those reflection. Building with it really comes to life. Building without it... well it just conventional... But simple fact that you, or anyone else simply used to make it this way doesn't mean that this is how it should be made. Look at best Maxis buildings. Notice how windows are NEVER EVER flat color, or black holes! So, why do you think you should made them such?
 

[Francis90b 748]

I fully agree with SimFox considerations...other than this it is coming along nicely!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Originally posted by: SimFox

just look on the right there are black holes, not windows. It may look "natural" with the black background, but try to imagine it in the environment, city environment! Glass would reflect something and Maxis texture does a good job faking those reflection. Building with it really comes to life. Building without it... well it just conventional... But simple fact that you, or anyone else simply used to make it this way doesn't mean that this is how it should be made. Look at best Maxis buildings. Notice how windows are NEVER EVER flat color, or black holes! So, why do you think you should made them such?
 

quote>

Wrong there(bold). The texture I'm using is not(ooh italic and bold) a flat color-

The same texture from earlier. There is some reflective detail throughout, its still a tadd dark. I tried brightening it up in gmax. But it may not be the best glass texture at the moment, but I don't want to use the Maxis Glass Texture for this one, I don't like how the maxis glass it looks on this particular BAT. Well, I must be blind compared to your eye. It just doesn't seem like the real one, even if I try to keep in mind blending it with the Maxis buildings, but even they didn't use the same Glass texture on all of their buildings, some have a completely different glass texture(like van proojien trading or whatever it's called).

@Todd- Thanks for the suggestions there, but I'm really confused...I don't know how to do some of the stuff you said in a image edtiting thing...like overlay and all that...I've been forgetting to re-install GIMP as well.

@JTF- The rectangle tiles or the window rectangles? Some may look weird because of the low quality renders I've been posting but I could double check.And 10 Hanover Square is coming along!

1. It could be just the render, you might have to make them wider. And the white lines between that divide the widows(the facade white lines that connect to the base) need to be wider.

2. You might have to lower the lobby a bit but it is pretty tall. Maybe, have it 150% taller than the rest of the building's levels.

3. Well, so far I seem horrible at faking reflections at this point but maybe some more contrast would be fine.

And the shape of the building isn't accurate, but if it's easier on you to make it rectangular, that's fine-

It has a slight trapazoid like shape, it's kinda hard to tell, but it does. Haha, I see the plane on 77 Water. 

Here's a look on it from most of it's facade.

I was posting these pics as a reference and I hope they can help.

@kelistmac- Great to see it finally up! That was a surprise actually, I didn't know you and Heblem were working together on it, but it turned out great!

[halo1dragon 10]

i like it

[Jumpthefence 74]

Alright, it's been about three and a half hours since Sgt Pepper posted, about 5 since I posted, and I'm already bored. How about posting another BAT!?

Brandon: I was referring to cardboard-box-y colored texture on the base. Admittedly, I have not closely looked at the building you are BATing (the real-life version, that is), so I can't tell you if the rectangles are supposed to be equally sized. But if they are, I'll leave it up to you to adjust that.

1. I tried a few things to make the mullions wider, and this is what I've decided on. How does it look? shows the mullions before I adjusted them, and shows afterwards; I scaled them laterally about 125%. Should I do more? Less?

2. I'll figure that out in the near future. The base isn't on perfectly flat ground, and rises up as much as 3 meters (my estimate) on the south side. I think I'll keep it at ten meters; as strange as it looks, it's the dimensions as far as I can tell.

3. I'll figure that out. Let me add some window variation, and I'll figure it out.

The trapezoid shape of the building is a bit odd, but you were right. The north side is 13 units wide, and the south is 15. It's been adjusted accordingly, and the sides are slanted at about 3.2 degrees. Although it looks pretty odd from this angle, because it tapers in the distance.

Translation: Woah, man! I can liek see yo trippy buildings, and it's shrinkin' over there! Trippin'! BTW, it needz moar cowbell!

All jokes aside, my only concern is whether I need to get a larger lighting rig to compensate for that weird lighting. (See ) But that's just a small issue at the moment, I can fix it later if I have to.

I'll see everyone in the morning, but it's getting late for me.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Well I'm back with more work once again on 22 Cortlandt-

I editied the wall and glass textures some more. I think I got the wall texture color to match up with the photograph. I edited the glass texture once again, making it less yellow...I really don't want to use the Maxis Glass-Digital Camo look. I also started adding basic roof detail shapes. And holy crap, the roof texture came back by itself. No where near finishing anything... Whoo glass texture stress getting to me...

JTF- Woah bro...awesome.

1.The pinkish purple happy face pointing at the wider mullions- That seems just about the right size. Maybe a little more.

2. Seems intresting...I'll have to see with what more you do.

3. I hope you figure it out better than how I'm doing with 22 Cortlandt...

4.(OMIG0$H Yes there's a 4 now!!!!111one!!!!!two!!!) Where is this thing to measure with in Gmax?!?!?!? I've been BATing for a while and never knew Gmax had it...Sketchup came with one and that helped me alot in the past but where is it in all these Gmax tools?

[SimFox 802]

Textures have this effect. The are the most traitorous. You may think there it is , done... then look away and turn back and it is not... Unlike modeling texture making and application is virtually open ended process. There is ALWAYS possibility to get it "better". At some point you just have to say - it's done, or you'll be improving on it till the end of you natural life (that wouldn't be all that natural anymore... To help you in limiting scope of work It is important clearly state/verbalize your objectives. For instance to write done what glass should look like, try to deconstruct effect. problem with your texture is not that it is too dark... but that it hasn't got enough variations to really look like a glass. By all means don't use Maxis glass texture but use one that has similar quality.

And when you speak about real one... what exactly do you mean? Those pictures of the real building? Pictures taken from ground up? Pictures taken very possibly with polarization filter? you have to understand that it is entirely different (and probably by design) look. NOT natural one...

As for the wall texture, As far as i can tell the main issue is saturation. Real building (well photographs of it) seem to have just a hint of hue in it, Your texture on the other hand is quite intensely colored. Beware of "sunset" photos... lighting introduce HUGE amount of coloring, plus photographers often tend exaggerate color for an effect.

Looking at the map of the location I can't help the feeling that the slight tapering of one of the facades is although true to life, more or less, is none-the-less a bit pointless for the purposes of the game. All it will do is make building look odd in square greed of the game and make it difficult to lot. I believe is one bit of realism that could be easily sacrificed. You would be much better of by following with better details and proportions. For instance the vertical panels of windows do extrude above the level of wall denoted by pillars rather then being flash with them. Also the opening at the base - ones on the sides are way to wide in your model

[Sgt Pepper 864]

"And when you speak about real one... what exactly do you mean? Those pictures of the real building? Pictures taken from ground up? Pictures taken very possibly with polarization filter? you have to understand that it is entirely different (and probably by design) look. NOT natural one... "

Well SimFox, I've seen pictures that aren't ground up of the building and the glass is still pretty damn dark.

It's just a dark glassed building. This photo obviously isn't a ground up photo...

I did some editing to the wall texture and lowered the saturation.

[Heblem 600]

some suggestions>

That purple thing, try to make it smaller

Your roof looks slighty different from what i see in the image, hope that image helps you out in doing the roof..

[Amthaak 1,501]

"It's getting better all the time"... I agree with Heblem , the "water tank" is not very well proportionate. The top should be smaller. I think it will be a very great improvement if you really concentrate your batting work on all the details of the roof. After all, that is the first thing we see with SC4 perspective, right?!

[SimFox 802]

I think the wall is just about perfect now... But about glass... I guess we would have to agree to disagree - nothing wrong with that.. I could go on and explain to you how that shot had been made and why it is dark there, but there isn't really any point. until you'll get yourself dSLR with good manual controls it would be difficult to grasp anyway...

[Sgt Pepper 864]

SimFox- Now that I really think about it, I'm understanding your points on the glass better, and I'm changing it up to try to match up with what your saying. So I changed it to the Maxis Digital Camo glass-

With some more work under you supervision, it will work. 

Heblem- Oh thanks for that! I've been forgetting to pay more attention to the roof.

Amthaak- Thanks and I'm going to see what I can do with the roof some more. After all its one of the most important things in SC4 Perspective.  Thanks for your tips!

I'm going to try redoing the roof, since it isn't really "deep" enough into that top part of the building and probably re-work and add some more things. I'm sure ya'll knew the roof was definately not finished. I wouldn't just leave solid color boxes with out good textures or detail, now would I?

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Sgt Pepper- Looks Good how you have change the wall texture to be mor like the image. The window texture is looking a lot better I have to say, the water is looking great as while its have change in size and that better than before.