AJ's "Eagleland Project" BAT things

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

Hi everyone, you probably know my screen name as "BlackDragonAJ89". However, you can call me either AJ or Arthur, since those are shorter and easier...

Anyway, I've been playing the Sim City games for a very long time (since I was , and I've always enjoyed making cities. Well I have the Sim City 4 Deluxe game, and it's great and all, but the buildings are kind of... well, bland. They all look like they came from Southern California! Not that I hate Maxis' buildings, they have some good ones, but come on, do you guys really like Wren Insurance, the Weegee of the Sim City games, appearing all over the place?

So I'm making these buildings, which will range from cute little houses and stores, to big huge factories, skyscrapers, and snazzy apartment buildings. Note that I am NOT the best artist, nor the best at anything, but I will be always willing to listen to any suggestions.

Anyway, to give you a quick overview of how the project is divided with these "building sets", here's the categories:

Cheapo: Basically R$ and CS$ buildings. They're for the poor, but they aren't going to super grungy, after all, not every low income family I've met or every mom and pop store I've been too is a slob. However, they aren't going to be any fancy like the others.

Generic Eagleland: Your garden variety, stereotypical/theme park version 1950s America R$$, CS$$, CO$$, and a few R$$$ buildings. We'll expect cute homes, stores, offices, and other things. They will be rather colorful, and will have some decor.

Trinity: This is middle wealth and up (R$$, R$$$, CS$$, CS$$$, CO$$, CO$$$) buildings built in a modernism style, all with shades of blue. These can be allowed to grow if you have the building style control set to Houson 1980.

Legendary: This is middle wealth and up (R$$, R$$$, CS$$, CS$$$, CO$$, CO$$$) buildings built in a classical gothic style similar to the buildings of the 1920s and 40s New York/Boston with some modern twists, all with a main color of purple and complentary colors of green, yellow, orange, and dark green. If you've got the style control set to 1940 New York, they will grow.

Corrupted: The last batch is is middle wealth and up (R$$, R$$$, CS$$, CS$$$, CO$$, CO$$$), and is inspired by the works of the Gilded Age America and Europe, along with a few modern window schemes, set to a tone of  black as the main color and either red or gray as it's complementary colors (and sometimes purple, green, and gold). It's designed to be more a nightmare fuel type set, and can be allowed to grow if you have the style control of Chicago 1890.

Of course, I will also be making government buildings, starting with parks and plazas, to help add more flavor to game.

Please note that while I am going for fantasical buildings here, I am studying and researching real life buildings, from my own hometown to other parts of the North America and Europe, as well as some Asian styles as well. Note that I have a set of goals for each building set and their "building teirs" (example: house, mansion, townhouse, small apartment, etc. sort of thing). I will also try to add more store/shops to the game as well.

Finally, I should warn you that many of these building names and some of their designs are shout outs to various video games, movies, and TV shows (well, probably more to video games), so don't be surprised when you see a building with the name like "Ness' House" or "Octacon's Game Stop" or happen to spot a building that looks like it came from Warfang or Corneria.

Anyway, here's the snapshots of what's currently being done:

Completed buildings (needs lighting) and some completed base textures:

In case you're wondering, the names are:

1st row: Shotgun House, Flynn's Mini Mart, Old Folks Mini Mart

2nd row: Cute Cottage, LipLicker Lane, Ness' House, The Minch's, Twoson Street

3rd row: Dilbert Rowe Office, Steamline Mini Mart

4th row: Matt's House, Little Purple Office

5th row: Convexity Lane, Little Hatchling Office

Of course, the other side is some base textures that will be used.

Here's a building that's under construction; A Trinity house, called "Double Decker", as based on some box shapped homes:

I am planning on making some of my own props, but I plan on using the trees by SimFox and the SFBT trees as well...

If you have any questions or comments, don't be afraid to ask! Hopefully the first set of houses and the parks expansion pak can be done...

[Jasoncw 11,949]

It's nice to see you started your thread.

I think all of the buildings need more work until they're ready. It would probably be easier to focus on one at a time, and then after that one is ready, you could go through the rest. Is there any one in particular you want to focus on first?

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

I don't know really what more I could do to them other than desaturate the textures more. I mean these are mostly small buildings at the moment, all of them either low wealth or medium wealth, so I don't think I could carry the detail any more. I probably should add porch slabs to the houses without the porches though.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

There's nothing super major to be done, but there's enough that it would be worthwhile to focus on one of them.

I made some posts about color in the NYCBAT thread, if you want to read them. You'll probably be adjusting everything (hue saturation and value). There are also some texturing tutorials in my signature.

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

Okay, I read through the texture tutorial and desaturated the textures some more. They automatically update themselves on the buildings, so I don't have so much trouble redoing them and fixing them. I'll go back though and make sure that they are aligned and fit properly, since I use Spline modeling.

Anyway, I'm currently focusing on getting the little R$$ houses of the Trinity kit done (in which it only has four of them). Here's the Double Decker house (on the left) and the other one I got done today Dave's Place (yeah, kind of the cheesy name system like back in 3000) which is on the right.

Anyway, I want to know what you think of them and see if they suffer from any flaws. Note that Double Decker is supposed to be two rectangular boxes stacked on top of each other with a back porch on it. The texturing pattern on Dave's Place (the siding) is all aligned properly. I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to light up the living room (the one part with the big windows) using real time lighting.

I also have a quick question; can I make props with GMAX? Or do I have to use 3DS Max?

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I made a quick mock up to show the direction that the colors could go in (mine isn't super good, but you can see where it's going).  I focused on the one to the left.  I've never worked with houses before, and I didn't have a screenshot handy to compare to, but you can get a screenshot from the game, which you can then photoshop your preview renders into, in order to compare the colors easier.

I also made the door less wide, and you could also probably make the chimney top a little more subtle.

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

Rather than double post, I'll just edit this one.

I've got some work accomplished. First off, all the Trinity houses have been modeled.

I also got another Legendary house built up (the Waltons is its name). Since this isn't a modernism building, I put more detail on it and such to make it look more down to earth (and yes, it's supposed to be purple).

I'm also working on more of the Cheapo Shops, since most of them are pretty easy to tackle. Here's the Greasy Spoon:

I should note that I am expirementing with the window textures, hence the funny circles on the windows. Got to go back and try to figure things a little more... ^^;

I'm also making props for these things, in which it's incredibly easy to do. If I can figure out how to make the props work in the Lot Editor (and get that stupid texture range programed and configured, considering I've been waiting on help on that for over a month now), I could get these tested in the game.

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

Why I know that double posting is wrong and everything else, however, I want to let people know that I am still working on this project.

A lot of work was done over the past two weeks, as this collection of buildings will show:

I built up some commercial storage units, although they're just "palette swaps" of one design.

Here I have some more houses, part of the Legendary selection as I was talking about. Unlike the Trinity buildings, these are a little more of an older look and just are mostly eye catching because of their color scheme.

Now here's some of those old, dark houses. I figured that they really didn't need a ton of decor since they're just middle class homes, although I do plan on reworking the third one (going from left to right) a bit better.

Anyway, I've been having a glitchy problem though with GMAX. If you look at the some of the houses, the windows and door frames aren't there, even though I actually modeled them, as I will show in this picture here of the latest set of buildings done:

If anyone could help me explain what the issue is with GMAX, I'd gladly like that.

[simcity4fan12 13]

The ones that are red seem to be extremely red. It needs to be toned down a bit, and maybe add some dirt and grime to it or something to make it have a wear and tear look of some sorts to make it look older. You model these very well, but you need to edit your textures some. Hope this helps you.

I'm not to sure about the error you're having with the missing door frames and such. It might be a texturing issue...perhaps. Maybe you should try retexturing them.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

In order for splines to render, they need to have UVW Maps on them.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Very nice concept. What, no Monotoli Building?

[BlackDragonAJ89 21]

simcity4fan12: Yeah, I'll see what I can do about the textures. They are supposed to be a fantasy-like, but I am trying to strike for something that could be plausible in real life too, so I'll see what I can do to fix up the red so it isn't so... I can't really think what to say. I'll probably "roughen" and desaturate a bit more with the red tones. And thanks.

Jasoncw: Crap! I can't believe I didn't do that. =/ Oh well, it will be an easy fix now. Thank you for the help. =)

LivingInThePast: Yeah, it's all interesting, even if some of the buildings wind up being sort of goofy in the process.

Oh and the Monotoli building? That will come eventually as a landmark, as well as some other video game landmarks, like Peach's Castle, Cynder's Tower, and the Empire Porky Building.

Anyway, since these are almost ready for being put into the lot editor and ran through the plugin manager, I was wonder how the growth stage values work, since I want to make these little houses at growth stage 2. Also, after I make my props and get them set up in the plugin manager, how do I get them to work in the Lot Editor?

Anyway, I appreciate all the advice and pointers.

UPDATE: I wanted to add a nice big thanks to Jasoncw for telling me what the problem was with the window frames. Here's just a picture of the houses that had the frames problems that are now fixed.