nybt-forum-threads NYBT BAT Thread

[Jumpthefence 74]

Originally posted by: SimHoTToDDy
112 Mott Street looks fantastic, good details, good saturation, good roof texture. You might want to add some flashing to the red brick building, but otherwise I think that one looks great.quote>

There is flashing (so that's the technical term for it... I called in "faded stuff hiding under my wall tops". Shows you what I know) on both buildings. It's not apparent on the front of the brick one because of some detailing, but it's visible on the right hand wall.

 

For 109, try making the tops of the walls (flashing) a dark gray like in 112, and try making the walls thinner (.3m is usually good). Also try adding more detail to the roof, the stair "towers" look really boring, like a black box.quote>

-More contrasting flashing. Thought so.

-Reducing parapet (that's the wall thing that keeps you from falling off the roof when you're standing near the edge, right? You can probably tell I've never finished an architecture book) to .25 meters. It's more convenient when things are rounded to .125m for me.

-More roof entry stair detail. I was considering it, but now it looks so bad that I have to.

You need to spend more time on the textures, making them less bright and more interesting. Quite frankly I don't think the bright white mortar on the red building is convincing. Roof needs just as much work as 109, plus additional work on the roof texture.quote>

-Would you suggest I essentially eliminate, darken, or do something else to fix the mortar?
-All white-ish textures have actually been fixed/darkened to some extent. Sort of. I've been playing around with them. This includes the roof texture, but I just feel like starting over with that. Besides, the roof textures look a lot darker [than I have them] on Google Earth.

Originally posted by: T Wrecks
I second every word Todd said.quote>

Well, what about "-Todd"? Is your name Todd too?


All joking aside, I really appreciate the help of some of Simtrop's best "Grimy City" BATers.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

I do like all the buidlings, particlulary the MTA recreation project buidling. I saw your NYC Ess police van. I love it.=)

[Jumpthefence 74]

Oh look, page flip!

Francis90b: I wouldn't call them "cute". Just my opinion.

Although I have been known to call these sort of neighborhoods "charming"

or "unique"

or "hard-working"

...

or something else.

[Francis90b 748]

Well, i don't know really well the difference between cute and charming or anything. Just to say something with grace and subtle beauty. Hope my thoughts are more clear now.

[Hanson784 165]

Great work jumpthefence! Nice to see some Chinatown BAT's. I made 67 Mott Street a few years back and also made the   246 Canal Street.

112 Mott St looks done, the only thing I would do is make the black window frames darker on the corner building.

For 109 Mott St don't forget to make the pediment and window sills.

129 Mott, I thing the tan building is missing a pediment also, I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right building in Streetview. I agree the textres are too bright on the roof, try using the a gray texture or darken it in Photshop.

Also, the textures on the building seem a bit bright. You can try getting textures right from Google Streetview or the "user images." Using photorealistic textures works for me when I make smal and medium sizes buildings.

Hope that helps and looking forward to the release.

[Triforceseek 2]

Gwail, instead of mta, can you try batting NYC taxi's ? i'm not fond of the ones ingame and i'm positive no one else is

[Gwail 52]

JTF, it's coming out beautiful, especially when you concern the notes above. Why don't you let to convince you to use GIMP, it's powerful and absolutely free .

Aaron, Merijn (Tag_one) from BSC was making the NYC street light mod a while ago. I've contacted him at the end of the year, but unfortunately he experienced a HDD crash and lost almost all of his work. He still wants to make it, maybe I will help him (if I learn how to use T'21), but first I have to iron all of my RL business and there is plenty of, so far.

Thanks for all comments about the LGA bus depot, I'm glad that something moved on here. Hanson, how about your Flatiron? Don't torture me .

Originally posted by: Triforceseek

Gwail, instead of mta, can you try batting NYC taxi's ? i'm not fond of the ones ingame and i'm positive no one else is quote>

I can only do them "apart from" the MTA stuff . However, I'm pretty sure you will be content if you try one of these:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1709

www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm

www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm

[Triforceseek 2]

those are fine i can work with them, but if you can find time in between project, can you attempt nyc taxis that are exactly like the one in new york, you're really good at that.

[Jumpthefence 74]

Alright, I did some general darkening of 129 Mott Street:

Before

After

I didn't know what to do with the mortar for the left building, so I made it a darker grey so it would basically blend in with the rest of the facade and structure. I also played around with the wall color. My problem is that now it's not saturated like the real building. I could give it a pinkish-reddish hue like its real counterpart, but that would be a tad weird. It's not a huge problem; I wouldn't worry much if I were to upload it at this moment, but don't exactly know what to do. Opinions?

Oh, and anything else you'd like to say would be helpful.

I'm still working on 109 Mott Street with the suggestions given to me. If all goes to plan, I can post another picture tomorrow of what I've done.

See y'all later.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks goo to me.

[allez l'om 1]

Darken version looks truly better. I love the new Chinatown's buildings you made.

[io_bg 249]

It definitely looks better, but I think it still needs work, it somehow looks "plastic".

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

You are on the right track, but it still needs some work, especially the roof (texture / roof junk details, parapet walls are too thick, flashing is too bright). I played with the colors on your front walls in photoshop and think it might work if you aimed for something like this:

Of course it will look better when it is rendered, but if you try to get the hue/ brightness, and saturation to look something like that, I think the result will be closer to the RL building (I looked at it when I made this).

I also made the partition between the two buildings half as thick, the double thick line going though the middle is not very convincing. You want the walls to be proportional with the building and not look like huge stone blocks or something. The walls themselves are probably only a few bricks thick.

I won't let you upload these until they are done (mostly because I really like them)

-Todd

[Jumpthefence 74]

Todd:

Oh... I see my problem with the parapets now...

Alright, I will certainly work on that. What do you think of using the "Boolean" function to slim them down? At this point, it seems like the easiest way to cut off some. That is, unless you have some other way. I have a feeling there are other ways to do this in Gmax, but I just figured out the Boolean function Thursday and am willing to run more tests with it.

Also, it looks like you darkened the parapet tops. Would you suggest I do that? I assume so.

Also, thank you very much for giving me an idea for what colors I should be shooting for on the facades. I tried and I made it either too purple, too red, too pink, too dark, too light, too contrasting, et cetera, but you seem to have it pretty close. I didn't think it was natural for bricks to be that color. Oh, and the white building is made of what? If you can make a guess, it would probably be helpful. I was previously guessing plaster. You may know 'cause you architects know stuff. The material looks pink, but I don't know why.

Yes, I really like these buildings too. (I can write somewhat hidden text too! Whee!)

Aaron:

It shouldn't be goo...

I thought it was pretty sturdy!

Are you prejudiced against amoebas?

French Guy...Whose name I don't know. Are you Ghislain Deschamps? My French pen-pal?:

I was actually going to remake those. The textures were pretty bright compared to the work I'm doing now. They'll be on the STEX whenever the heck I feel like remaking them.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Well, after having a little fit, I think it's time for me to come clean and come back. I actually was simcity4fan12, but to make sure everyone knows, I'll emphasize it...in pretty colors!!!

Im Simcity4fan12

I realize that I really don't want to quit. This is kinda funny, I can't make up my mind on impulses. To explain myself, I'll put it in simple reasoning: I had a bad couple of days, or day, I'm off my medicine for my depression which does stuff to me when I don't take it(like...think for example.). So I'm good now, and I don't have anything that could bother me or make my depression worse at this point, so I should be good.... So I would like to apologize for being stupid on the internet and hope all is forgiven so I can return to the team I started and get back to work here. So...............................can I come back?

And to explain something about this new account, I started a new account, had my old one deleted, so I can make a fresh new start with new BATs that I prefered. But now I don't really care and would like to comeback. I also don't want my depression to interfere with my hobbies(like BATing) again so...............To sum it all up, Bad days, I'm off my medication, wasn't thinking. Hopefully we can forgive and forget, eh? Duckies for everyone!

@Gwail: OK, I need to put my BATs back up...but should I just release the unmodded versions first and update them later with your modding Gwail, or do you still have my old creations with the modding done and could send them to me? Oh and I still got that flag for 130 Liberty Street. If you want, I could send it to you. And great work on the MTA Bus station! I can't waitz to havez.

@JTF: Seems like you are having a sugar rush by your posts...Those little buildings are..........G-RR-REAT!...no refrence to a Kellogs Tiger...no...not at all... But I can't wait to have them in my cities.

I kinda don't have all of my NYBT BATs in progress anymore except 55 Water Street and 14 Wall Street. But I did start on a new one and plan to start on one more and keep it at that until I finish-

Far from completion. For those who don't know, it's a building located at 160-170 Water Street in the financial District. It's about 24 stories tall, but is large, very large. Low quality render by the way, so the mullions look kinda funky. The final lot will probably be 4x5 or 5x5.

Anyway, I guess me posting here again ya'll will be cool with me being back here. Just a bad couple of days that made me a little uneasy is all. Oh, and one more time-

I'm Simcity4fan12

[Triforceseek 2]

YAY This is GREAT ?! Although im not on the bat team i'd like to say , Welcome back !!

[Triforceseek 2]

Sgt Pepper (SimCity4fan12)just a favore for me , can you make Home Insurance Plaza, 85 West Street, AT&T Building all plobbable buildings i never get the building i want when i try having them grow

[TheOlympics 546]

Great progress guys and Triforceseek get the Extra Cheats Modd it in cludes building plop which allows you to grow all ploppables.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Jumpthefence: To know the best course of action for that wall, I need to be sure what kind of object it is. If it is just a simple piece of geometry (extruded spline, box) you can either change one of the values (width, height, depth, extrude amount), or use an "edit mesh" modifier and move the verticies. Even more simple, you could just use the scale tool ( the % you enter is given by: {size you want it/ size it is now}*100%. ex: it is .5m now and you want it to be .3m; {.3/.5}*100% = 60%). Unless you want to do something fun like punch a hole or take out a notch in an object, I'd avoid using Boolean and stick with the above, especially  edit mesh.

And yes, I think you should make the flashing darker. The white building is just painted brick (damn near every building in the area looks like brick). Its pretty clear in google street view. Oh, and I'm not officially an architect... yet, but I appreciate the complement

[Triforceseek 2]

where do i find the " extra cheats modd " can someone send me a link or something, i'm not familiar with what that is !?@#$ o_O

[TheOlympics 546]

Triforceseek: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21118

[madhatter106 3,903]

Originally posted by: Sgt Pepper

I realize that I really don't want to quit. quote>

It was only a matter of time.  I must admit, my guess was off a few days, but I was just waiting for the "I have returned" post.  Are you sure you're not Cher?

[Jumpthefence 74]

Originally posted by: SimHoTToDDy

Jumpthefence: To know the best course of action for that wall, I need to be sure what kind of object it is. If it is just a simple piece of geometry (extruded spline, box) you can either change one of the values (width, height, depth, extrude amount), or use an "edit mesh" modifier and move the verticies. Even more simple, you could just use the scale tool ( the % you enter is given by: {size you want it/ size it is now}*100%. ex: it is .5m now and you want it to be .3m; {.3/.5}*100% = 60%). Unless you want to do something fun like punch a hole or take out a notch in an object, I'd avoid using Boolean and stick with the above, especially  edit mesh.quote>

It's an extruded spline like most of the walls on the building. The scale tool seems like it'll work, but that just means I have a long day of math ahead of me. "Fun Fun Fun!" as my algebra teacher would say.

The white building is just painted brick (damn near every building in the area looks like brick)quote>

So it's not plaster! Thought so...

Its pretty clear in google street view.quote>

It's not! Or I'm just an idiot. I'm going to blame Google.

Oh, and I'm not officially an architect... yet, but I appreciate the complementquote>

Tomato, tomahto. You know more than I do about architecture (that's what I assume, at least) so in my mind you're an "architect". And I don't know if saying you know stuff is an overwhelming compliment. Then again, it probably feels good that someone asked for your help... I'm not good with compliments. How 'bout this: Your shoes look awesome.

Here's a picture from yesterday.

Really, the only questions I have are:

-Is the brick color/texture right? I took it right off the actual google street view images, but I fiddled with it, so it could be a little off.

-Do the parapets (in blue) look good? I was merely messing around, so I didn't save, and I can do whatever to them. They were .25m thick by the way.

Postscript: I can write pretty text too.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Hey Sgt Pepper, I'm glad that you came around.  Now you can enjoy BATing and ST again. 

Best wishes for your BATing and also for your depression.

jumpthefence:  I usually make my flashing black, because I think that the contrast looks good.  In real life, flashing is made out of metal but it used to also be made out of ceramic tiles.  So black or dark grey or a silver grey would work, green would work for copper if it's an expensive building (which this one isn't, lol) sometimes they're a red clay color but I don't think that would work in the game very well.  But I'd definitely go for a black or dark grey.

For the bricks (and textures in general I think), you can take a screenshot from the game, and save the file.  Then you can take screenshots of your preview renders, and paste them into that screenshot, and you can erase the black matting around the building, and you can directly compare your building to the Maxis buildings, like what Todd did in his image above.  From there you just have to try to compare the colors as best as possible, and make tweaks to the textures and do preview renders and paste it back into the screenshot over and over again until everything is tweaked just right.  This will take a long time, but once you do it enough you'll develop a good eye for the colors for the future.

gwail:  The new building is looking good so far. 

[Triforceseek 2]

Thank dethrow, i got the buildings i wanted and some more on the way ;] ...

[Jumpthefence 74]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

 jumpthefence:  I usually make my flashing black, because I think that the contrast looks good.  In real life, flashing is made out of metal but it used to also be made out of ceramic tiles.  So black or dark grey or a silver grey would work, green would work for copper if it's an expensive building (which this one isn't, lol) sometimes they're a red clay color but I don't think that would work in the game very well.  But I'd definitely go for a black or dark grey.quote>

I'm confused!

Originally from: Wikipedia.org/flashing_(weatherproofing)

Flashing refers to thin continuous pieces of sheet metal or other impervious material installed to prevent the passage of water into a structure from an angle or joint.quote>

Okay, that explains why I was screwing up.

I thought flashing was... the faded leaky texture and general discoloration at the seams of the building.

...Is that common knowledge I should know? What flashing is? Oh...

...You can tell I'm not an architect. Don't rub salt in the wound.

Well, I'm just going to continue what I was doing with the building. Making flashing doesn't sound difficult (now that I know what the heck it is). Parapets are fixed, and I'm happy with the textures. I'll post a picture this afternoon. Hopefully.

Have a good day y'all, and learn some vocabulary so you don't make mistakes!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

oh sorry, lol

Well, now that you know that flashing is "metal or other impervious material" you know that different types of metal products have different colors, and that non metallic impervious materials (like ceramic tiles, etc.) have different colors. The flashing usually ends up being black, or a silvery metal color (I don't think a silvery metal color would look very good in the game for most cases). Ceramic tiles are also usually glazed black, but they could also be a red-brown clay color, but I don't think that would work well in the game. Copper can also be used as flashing, so green would also work, but copper is expensive and used over other metals for aesthetic purposes on expensive buildings.

"Window frames" is generally used as a generic non technical term, but all of the different parts of the window have different names. tbh I forget all of the terms myself, but I think the frame is the outermost piece and encloses the entire window. The sash is the framework for smaller chunks in the window. So your average residential window has two sashes which hold glass, one on top and one on the bottom and you have move them. The smaller elements within the window all have different names, but here we generically call those mullions. So on a modern office building, all of those lines that divide up the facade are called mullions.

If you go to my blog in my signature, in the one texturing tutorial, the black parts in the facade are called spandrels. In modern office buildings, I think the opaque parts in between the floors are also called spandrels. In general, spandrels are infill areas in between things.

I think google and wikipedia will also give you definitions of those.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

@Triforceseek- Well, Gwail has to handle the modding on my buildings since I can't mod at all. But I use the extra cheats plugin mostly for my ploppables so far. So I'm glad someone linked that to you until the real ploppables with the modding can be done.

@Madhatter106- No I am not cher yet. I be postive I'm sticking around. By the way, your Madhatting BATing is fantastic. Your small shops and stuff really bring an interesting atmosphere to my towns.

@jumpthefence- Yes we can all type in pretty text. IT'S REALLY FUN!!! By the way, your stupid signature made me lose the game you jerk! I was once a pro... Oh and nice BATs. Looking better and better!

@Jasoncw- Thanks for the kind words! It might confuse people still that I'm actually simcity4fan12...Oh well, I think I needed a new name anyway.

Any suggestions on that BAT I posted? Some that aren't obvious to me? And I'm contemplating on the 4th BAT I want to be working on for NYBT... Can someone pick it for me out of this little list(look up the buildings on www.emporis.com, unfortunately I'm too lazy at the momment to post pictures and links )-

919 Third Avenue

One Chase Manhattan Plaza

HSBC Bank Building

Associated Press Building From the Rockefeller Center(it's connected to Radio City Music Hall)

So which one of those do you think I should do? I'm running out of ideas people! lol

EDIT: Just noticed how repetetive my smileys look...

[Triforceseek 2]

919 third avenure, becuase the other 3 are already on the stex somewhere >.>

[Jumpthefence 74]

Originally posted by: Sgt Pepper

 @jumpthefence- Yes we can all type in pretty text. IT'S REALLY FUN!!! By the way, your stupid signature made me lose the game you jerk! I was once a pro... Oh and nice BATs. Looking better and better.quote>

1. Chuck Norris can't write pretty text! Nothing Chuck Norris does is pretty.

2. I have super skills at not losing the game! Forget that I'm losing right now... but I can look at my signature without thinking about it! I'm starting to wonder if the words "I lost the game" turns off some switches in my brain. Someone once told me that they lost the game, and my mind was just blocking it. It's difficult to explain, but it's a cool experience.

Oh, and my signature isn't stupid just because you hate it! You're just prejudged against the game... which you just lost. Again.

I'm so evil.

3. My BATs are getting better... why, let's bring one out right now!

Yay! It's "done"!

Jason: I used some graphite/lead colored flashing textures incorporated onto the wall textures. Thanks for the tutorial on your blog! Though I didn't use it more than once today, I bet it could come in handy later.

Oh, and thanks for clearing up some architecture terminology for me. 

Todd: I have to admit, the thinner parapets look a lot better. They're not a horrible monstrosity like they previously were. As for the brick texture, just taking it off of Google Street View seems to have worked. I couldn't really find any other details to put on the roof access, so I put some soda cans and trash bags around it. It's better. This more faded, but still pretty colorful-ish building (is there some smarter-sounding architectural term for that?) looks pretty good.

Have a good Friday y'all! My vacation went by fast... Oh well. I'm going to watch the Olympics now.