AEX BATs

[T Wrecks 10,210]

You're really improving, but one thing your textures really need is a less uniform colour. Especially the roof textures benefit greatly if you trace all the edges with a fuzzy darker outline - check the building towards the right in SimHotToDDy's post #1627100, right where the blue arrow points to. You can even do the same (albeit I'd make the effect somewhat weaker) to your vertical surfaces, i.e. walls. On rooftops, however, it's much more important because it adds depth and definition and makes all the individual elements (parapet walls, roof surface, roof junk) look more attached to each other and less loosely arranged and stacked on top of each other.

As for the flag, I always like it when a building can be used as widely as possible. With regard to this particular BAT, I would prefer a ploppable/landmark version with flags (for those who want to recreate a setting involving this particular building), and an RCI growable without flags (for all those who like the building for its general shape and look, but don't care that much about its real-life counterpart and instead prefer everything to blend into any imaginary background they chose for their region). Just a suggestion, of course... and not entirely without self-interest, I must admit.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this little gem, and it's very encouraging to see how quickly you are getting better and better. Keep up the great work!

[simcity4fan12 13]

Here's an update, how's it look now?

Low quality render. The wall looked to pink, so I made it more grey, but the change wasn't made in this pic. The change is the roof and that blank top peice how does it look?

Here's some of the Red River Bank Building, I'm just about done with it.

How's it looking? It's a RL building in Alexandria BTW, in case I forgot to mention. Stay tuned for more updates and maybe one for the NYBT BAT Thread with my NY BATs.

@io_bg-Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it.

@TWrecks- Thanks! Do you think when I update the Capital One Bank(called it Guaranty Bank, its former title, on the STEX) should I just update the current uploaded file, or should I re-upload it and delete the old one? Your advice has been helpful! I like your idea about the flags. So there will be one with and one without them.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Low quality, out of date renders really don't do me any good, but I find peace in the fact that you can see that the walls are too pink ( He is learning I tell ya!). I still think the roof could be darker and more varied like has been said before. If you give me a screen shot of your top view port (as big as you can make it), I'll use you as an excuse to make a little textureing tutorial.

As for the second building, I think you need to add more details to the facade and, again, work with your textures some more. Your roof in particular is a very odd color Everything that has been said about variation and contrast applies (for every BAT), so use each as a learning "stepping stone" between projects.

About the UVW maps:

Your texture's bitmap has a certain ratio of height and width (I'll hijack your picture) For example:

It is taller than it is wide, aka, "portrait". It has a height: with ratio of about 1: 0.78

Now lets say this was a texture and I applied it to a square surface:

It has the dimensions of the object, but the height : width ratio of the bitmap is no longer the same (1:1) resulting in that ungodly horizontal stretch.

This is what I see happening in a lot of your textures. The bit map is fit "skin tight" over the object, so if the height : with ratio of the object is very different than the bitmap's ratio, you end up with a warped image.

How do you fix this? If you already applied a UVW map, then simply increase ( in our case) the height so that the ratio is closer to what it should be. Additionally, you can reduce the width, but this will cause the texture to "tile" which is not always desirable.

Hope this makes sense,

-Todd

[simcity4fan12 13]

@SimHoTToDDy- Thanks for those tips, I think I got it right this time...or closer at least. Check it out-

High Quality Preview. Here's the Red River Bank-

About the facade on the Red River Bank- What I have is just about exactly what you see in RL. It's very undetailed. I still gotta add maybe one or two things, like there's a particular detail on one row of window frames I have to add, and the part that has the sign on it, but excluding the sign. I believe this was built in 1971, or maybe the late 80s or early 90s. I'm not sure, I've could have sworn I saw something somewhere saying this was built in 1971. It was once the tallest building out side of Downtown, untill it was surpassed in 2007 by the 6 story 2 Centre Court located right next to it. The Red River Bank Building is 5 stories by the way.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

I think you did get it! Looks much better. What ever you did to the main wall mapping, I think you should change it back. It almost looks like you caused the problem on that part that you just fixed (so well) on the top part!

Either way, much better.

[simcity4fan12 13]

All right, I think V2 is ready to render. Here's a HQ Preview, do ya'll think I'm done?

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

It seems to be done to me.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I think Todd's advice is 100% spot on.

Also, I think the roof still needs to be darker.

The Red River Bank Building is coming along. Do you have some photos to post of it?

[simcity4fan12 13]

Here's one RL photo I could find of the building. It looks darker becuase the sun is shining on the other side of it.

Also, here's the next Gmax-BAT I will make- Two Centre Court in Alexandria LA(you can see the Red River Bank peeking out behind it). I'm still using sketchup for bigger and more complicated BATs ya know... Most of Gmax still confuses and perplexes me.

Sorry, this is one of the only pics of it I could find. It's been complete since 2007(still being built in the pic). It's one of the tallest buildings built in Alex in a while.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

The roof on Capital One Bank Building needs a little more tweaking I think, but I say its almost done. Also, what is your floor height and how does it look with a 133% vertical scale? When I photoshopped it into a SC4 pic, it seemed short compared to everything else. You may not need the full 133%, but the windows should look a little taller based on the RL pictures on the other page.

[simcity4fan12 13]

Hmm, so should I scale up the Capital One Bank? The floor heights should be correct. I even compared them to a average height person model that always comes with the new scene in Sketchup, everything seems to be scaled right. I'm going to mess around with the roof a bit.

[Legosim 14]

has an LA state flag on top, awesome!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Well, the perspective in SC4 really destroys any good vertical scale that you put into a building, so you have to exaggerate it to make it look how it should. For example, the standard door height I use is 3 meters, that's over 9 feet! No its not realistic in the real world, but it looks correct in SC4, and that is the part that counts.

By the way, things usually look great at a normal perspective when you model, like I said, its when you get into the SC4 view that things get ugly.

[simcity4fan12 13]

Yeah, I'm scaling it up now. How do you scale vertically only?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Click

[simcity4fan12 13]

Well, I haven't posted here in a while(well, a week or 2 at the most I beleive), and I finally rendered the Capital One Bank Building. Here's a scale test. Do I still need to scale it up?

It's a lot editor Image. I'm going to render a version without the flags tonight, or maybe just re-render this one first incase it's still to small.

I quit on the Red River Bank. The textures look horrible, and many certain things about gmax still confuse me and mainly annoy me, so I'm only saving gmax for certain BATs.(That was kinda the plan anyway, use gmax completely for certain models and still use sketchup also). The River Bank was over scaled, it's 5 stories tall, but when it was rendered it was as tall as a 10 story building. So I'm going to just re-make it in sketchup soon.

I started on a famous Water Tower in Alex today. It's an old, old one, it looks kinda like a smoke stack from a steam boat. But it's a water tower. When I was younger, I always thought it was a smokestack. There's a smoke stack in Downtown though, more near the hospital area. I'll show some pics later. How's the scale of the Capital One Bank above? I'm still calling it the Guaranty Bank, since It's what it was called one it was first built, and I'm excluding the Capital One Logo. Or, I'm not sure, I liked the Hibernia logo way better on it, maybe I should do that. I'm not to sure yet, what do you all think?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Did you re-size that picture at all? Your building looks thinner rather than taller just by comparing your last picture to any of the renders. Its hard for me to compare it to anything if it isn't the right size . You should be comparing buildings of the same style and function, in your case you have a simple apartment compared to a relatively ornate office tower. After you do your vertical scale, how tall is one of your floors? It should be at least 4m, but perhaps more since this is an office.

[simcity4fan12 13]

I scaled it up(not the pic, the entire model), but it made it thiner, so I'm fixing it right now. I didn't really notice until I imported the old 3ds. file. I think it's scaled up fine now, I just need to get its width back.

EDIT: I re-scaled it- Here's a comparison with the old one. Maybe I scaled it up to much? It looks fine in the widith now.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

No, I think the height looks good (it looks like a little more than 4m, which is not unrealistic). I think if you play with the roof texture some more you will be just about done. You should try for something like what T Wrecks mentioned. If you need help making it, just give me a PM and I'll try walking you though in GIMP (if you don't have it yet, get it!!!).

I kinda feel I'm skipping out on the other BAT threads because I'm giving this BAT so much attention, but for some reason I'm really compelled to assist you. It looks like you are learning though

[simcity4fan12 13]

Well, I changed the roof textures completely, how's it look now? I really hope that this is okay for now. I reaaaaaaaaaaaallly want this in the game NOW!!!!

[simcity4fan12 13]

Well, thanks to SimHoTToDDy, I changed the main roof texture. Thanks SimHoTToDDy! But I don't think I applied it correctly...what do you think? And should the penthouse roof be the same? Or should it stay as is?



Here's my recent Alex BAT- The Alexandria Historic Water Tower(proper title?). What you see is pretty much exactly what it looks like. Google Earth's Street view recently updated for Downtown Alex, but some streets still aren't available, like the one that will show the base of the water tower. But honestly, that's what it looks like from Google Earth, and this one image I saw of it, and how I see it when I pass it going down the Highway. It sits on a grass lot near one of the fire stations.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Yes, I think you should make the penthouse have the same texture. Its really hard to tell if it is arranged correctly due to the amount of stuff on your roof, but it looks fine from here. I might make it less green/ more blue and bump up the contrast a little bit, but otherwise it looks great up there. This is a smaller quibble, but I think the glass color, especially in the large upper windows, could use a little variation.

Looks like you are off to a good start on the water tower as well, will be waiting to see how that turns out

Cheers,

-Todd

[simcity4fan12 13]

Thanks Todd! I'm going to edit the penthouse roof and export it tonight.

Here's the second tallest building in Alex, Alexandria Tower(still in the sketchup phase).

Here's some RL pics for comparison.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2w2es0h&s=4

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=16koz2g&s=4

Here's a photo that's a postcard or something that has the Water Tower in it-

The colors in it and the bricks on the tower aren't really accurate to what they are now. It appears to have a ladder on the side when I don't see that currently in RL or does it have that antenae thing on it either.

[simcity4fan12 13]

Lately I've been talking to myself.  Helloooooooooooooooooooo!?  Anyway...here's some updates-

I added a ladder to the water tower. I'm not sure if that's accurate though, I wish I can find better pics. If There is a ladder, what should I do to the top? I'm not really sure what would someone do up there...

A small amount of progress on the Alexandria Art Museum.

Here's Two Centre Court in the making-

Here's one that was lost. I'm glad I found it-

It's a BAT of my imagination, The Kait Inn, a hotel. The symbol thing in between the words is supposed to look like and "L" since, the name comes from my sister- Kaitlin.

Here's another BAT of my imagination- It's inspired a little bit by a small building I saw in a photo in New York. I beleive it was 3 New York Plaza.

The only thing inspired from that building is only it's size and shape.

Big update. More of Alexandria Tower coming soon. Comments and advice welcome!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

oh, I see you already uploaded that building. I was going to suggest scaling the building so that it fit better on the lot. It looks like you could easily get it down to a 2x1.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I love you buildings just keep up the good work.

[simcity4fan12 13]

@Jasoncw- If I scaled it that way, it will look a little too skinny which is inaccurate to the real building.

@Aaron Graham- Thanks, will do.

Here's an update on the Water Tower. I took some photos of it when I went to Downtown to get some better accuracy on it.

It's pretty much done. Unless someone comes in here saying the textures need work. IMO, they look fine. I'm a little annoyed about how the ladder barely shows, the long pipe next to it shows better.

BTW- I'm going to render a version of the Guaranty Bank without the flags and update the lot to the original..agian. I should be able to render it tonight if time permits.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

What kind of material is that pink texture supposed to represent? If it is some sort of painted plaster I guess I couldn't complain, it just looks kinda cheesy. I love how the body looks though. If you want to make the ladder show up batter, try darkening their texture darker and the rungs thicker, never be constrained to realism when it costs you the visibility of important parts of the model.

[simcity4fan12 13]

I have a big update on Alexandria Tower-

(^I don't know why that this zoom 5 view was farther out)

^A W2W side like in real life.

Obviously it looks bad... I haven't added some details yet, like the small plants and the tree(or trees) that go in the front of the low-rise part. I'm gonna darken the mullions and apparently I gotta re-texture 2 small parts. Also, one of the dirt areas near the pointed part of the tower dissapeared and I have to re-add it. I know why though, I forgot to check that in Sketchup...

[simcity4fan12 13]

I darkened the glass to Alexandria Tower, but now I feel like I should brighten it compared to most street level pics. I thought it would look better darker from a view like in Simcity's. In google earth(without going in street view) the glass is really dark from the satelite view. I'm not sure which way the glass should look in Simcity.

I started over on the Red River Bank in gmax again...here's the result so far.

I haven't made the base yet and I'm still working on the windows. Here's the night transition so far.

Comments and advice are welcome. And I would like an opinion about the Alexandria Tower's glass darkness and brightness especially, please.