Tutorial: How to B.A.T. a sign?

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Tutorial: How to B.A.T. a sign?

I've been asked frequently to make sings for some people. Since I don't have the time to make all those signs, maybe this tutorial will help some people.

 

Requirements

You require the following programs for this tutorial:

• gMax with the B.A.T. installed
• the SC4 Plug-in Manager (comes with the B.A.T.)
• SC4 Lot Editor
• MS Paint, Inkscape, Photoshop or any other image editing program

Preperations

 

Before starting to make your own signs, I suggest you should look for Real Life pictures of real signs on the Internet to make sure that everything looks realistic. Even if you do make completely Self-designed sign, it's always good to look how it's done in Real Life, and maybe find some inspiration.

It's also good to know how wide the roads are (this is required for making portal sign models. One tile is 16m by 16m. A street is only 8m wide, the roads and avenues are 12m wide. Highways have their specific widths:

Also keep in mind that the elevated versions of all these networks are 15m high.

 

Step 1: Basic B.A.T.ing

 

First thing's first, you'll need to learn how the tools from gMax work. Some basic of the tools have straigt-forward functions (Select, move, rotate, scale), and some other are more difficult to understand. Experimenting with those tools can give you knowledge of their functions. But for now, we are going to use the basic tools.

My first tip is to use only basic geometry. You can make stunning signs while you only use boxes and cyllinders, like this example:

Now let's make our own sign. Signs can be defined in three categories:

• Roadside signs: these signs are placed next to the road.
• Arm sings: these signs are partially overhanging the road.
• Portal signs: these signs are fully overhanging the road.

In this example I make a simple portal sign for the RHW-4. Notice that I only used boxes

 

Of course, this is a simple model, but if you are more experienced, you can put more detail in your model.

O.K., what did I do here? Let's begin with how I made the boxes at the bottom.

• Go to the 'Create' tab at the side toolbar
• Select 'Box'
• Go to the 'Keyboard Entry' dropdown list that has just appeared on the side toolbar
• Type in the following values
  • x: 0,0
  • y: 0,0
  • z: 0,0
  • Length: 1,0
  • Width: 1,0
  • Heigth: 0,5
• Click on the 'Create' button
• A box is created
• Go to the 'Edit' menu
• Click on 'Clone'
• Click on O.K. in the Clone message window
• The box is cloned on the exact same position
• Right-click on the 'Move' tool at the main toolbar
• A type-in transform display appears. I use this often to move, rotate and scale objects precisely
• Type in the relative position of x: -14,0
• The cloned box moves 14 meters

Now for the side supports:

 

• Follow the excact same steps as stated in the previous box creation, except the values typed in the 'Keyboard Entry' list:
  • x: 0,0
  • y: 0,0
  • z: 0,0
  • Length: 0,5
  • Width: 0,5
  • Heigth: 7,0

... the overhead support:

 

• Go to the 'Create' tab at the side toolbar
• Select 'Box'
• Go to the 'Keyboard Entry' dropdown list that has just appeared on the side toolbar
• Type in the following values
  • x: -7,0
  • y: 0,0
  • z: 6,7
  • Length: 0,5
  • Width: 14,0
  • Heigth: 0,3
• Click on the 'Create' button
• A box is created. Do nothing else.

... the sign itself

• Go to the 'Create' tab at the side toolbar
• Select 'Box'
• Go to the 'Keyboard Entry' dropdown list that has just appeared on the side toolbar
• Type in the following values
  • x: -8,0
  • y: 0,35
  • z: 6,0
  • Length: 0,1
  • Width: 7,0
  • Heigth: 3,0
• Click on the 'Create' button
• A box is created. Do nothing else.

... and the sign supports that connect the sign to the portal support structure 

• Go to the 'Create' tab at the side toolbar
• Select 'Box'
• Go to the 'Keyboard Entry' dropdown list that has just appeared on the side toolbar
• Type in the following values:
  • x: -5,0
  • y: 0,3
  • z: 6,0
  • Length: 0,1
  • Width: 0,1
  • Heigth: 3,0
• Click on the 'Create' button
• A box is created
• Clone the box
• Move it with x:-1,0.
• Repeat the last two steps until the next box is placed beside the sign. Delete that last box.

NOTE: this is just an example. You don't have to type the excact same numbers as given in this tutorial. Be creative and try something out. Experimenting is one way to learn how the program works, and a good one for me.

Now the basic model is complete, but it still looks funky. It's time to apply some materials:

• Go to the 'Material Editor'. You can find the button on the main toolbar
• Click on 'New'
• Select 'Standard' and click on 'O.K.'
• You've just created a standard material
• You can edit the colors if you want to by double clicking on them
• Click on the button beside the diffuse color
• Select bitmap
• Go to gMax/gamepacks/BAT/Textures. Here you'll find the textures that come with the BAT. You may search on the Internet to search for more textures
• Select a material (I used 'MaxisRoofPipes.jpg')
• Apply the material on the boxes. You can just drag and drop them onto the boxes, or you can select the boxes and then hit 'Apply' on the Material Editor window
• If you want to let the material show on the editing viewports (and not just only when you render your object), click on the white and blue checked box on the Material Editor window
• If you want more materials, repeat the previous steps

After applying materials, my model now looks like this:

 

Note that the sign still doesn't have a material. That's the following step:

• Go to the 'Material Editor' again.
• Click on 'New'
• Select 'Multi-Material' and click on 'O.K.'
• You've just created a multi-material. Multi materials can have more than one material.
• Edit the first material for the rest of the sign (the back, the sides). You can edit the material by double clicking on it.
• Edit the second material for the actual sign. Here's where you need a image editing program, to make your sign. It's good to keep a scale (like 1 meter = 100 pixels). You may find useful images on the Internet, or you can start making your own.
• Apply the material on the sign
• Select the sign if you haven't selected it yet
• Go to the 'Modify' tab on the side toolbar
• Select 'Material  from the 'Modifier List'.
• Set 'Material ID' to 1
• Select 'Mesh Select' from the 'Modifier List'.
• Select the front polygon of the sign
• Select 'Material' from the 'Modifier List'.
• Set 'Material ID' to 2
• Your 'Modify' should look like this:

 

And there you have the final result:

Did I told you to save your scene often? If not, I suggest you to do it now. After that we are making this model B.A.T.-ready:

• Go to the 'Utility' tab at the side toolbar
• Select 'B.A.T'
• Go to the 'Parameters' dropdown list that has just appeared on the side toolbar
• Click on 'Re-Fit LOD's'. The LOD's tell the B.A.T. what to render and what not. It also makes a simplyfied model for the game to optimize processing times
• Your model shoud look like this:

 

• Double-click on 'All' to hide the LOD's
• Go to the 'Preview' dropdown list. You might be curious how the model will look in the game
• Click on 'Day' to see the preview of your model during daytime:

• Now you are ready to render your model. Go to the 'Export' dropdown list and hit 'Export'. The render will take a while, since it renders your model from all views and all five zoom levels.
• After the rendering has finished, exit gMax.

Now we are going to make it functional in the game:

• Open the SC4 Plug-in Manager
• Find your model
• Drag it to 'Props', like this:

 

• Set 'Is Ground Model' in the 'Common' tab to 'True'
• Set 'AppearanceZoomFlag' in the 'Advanced' tab to 'Zoom 1,2,3,4,5'
• Set 'Previewable' in the 'Advanced' tab to 'True'
• Set 'Query as Main Building' in the 'Advanced' tab to 'True'
• Hit O.K.
• Your model can now be used in the game
• Close the SC4 Plug-in Manager
• Open the SC4 LOT Editor
• Select a LOT, like the Open Grass field Lot.
• Go to the props tab.
• Click on 'Add Prop'
• Select your model
• Place it on the Lot in the right direction (you can rotate your model with 'PageUp' and 'PageDown')
• Your LOT may look like this:

• Save your LOT and exit the LOT Editor
• Open SimCity 4, and play a City
• If you used the Open Grass Field LOT, go to the parks menu
• Presto! There's your sign, right in the parks menu. Have fun!

You can repeat this method over and over again to create a vast range of signs.

That's it for today! In a following tutorial I'll teach you more advanced techniques.

Have fun making signs, and keep experimenting!

Best,

Maarten

  Edited September 13, 2022 by Samerton  
Fixed images

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Top post updated. Place reserved for follow-up tutorial.

[riiga 233]

Thanks Maarten for this tutorial!

[Lugnuts25000 4]

How do you HD BAT?

[MandelSoft 2,769]

IYou can render a HD BAT when you have edited B.A.T.-scripts by SimFox installed on your computer. You can find at the bottom of this post on SC4Devotion:

https://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7430.msg238749#msg238749

[Ryan B 35]

Maarten, great tutorial! Even I learned something!

I can't wait to see what your follow-up(s) entail.

[JohnSmithWasHere 0]

I don't have the BAT selection under utilities??

What do I do?

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

Originally posted by: JohnSmithWasHere

I don't have the BAT selection under utilities??

What do I do?quote>

You need to get the BAT plugin. It is avalible for donwload here

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

This is a very nice beginners tutorial! The only thing I want to point out is the co-planer objects in that 2nd pic of the new sign. I know it doesn't have much effect in gmax due to the quality of the renderer, but It is a bad habit I think and will cause bad results if ever someone goes into 3dsmax with MR.

I think it is important for new users to see that they can make complex things from very simple shapes, little tutorials like this are very helpful in helping folks realize that. I rarely use anything more complex then a box or other simple shape (with exceptions of some attached splines), but even the complicated bits can be achieved by using those simple shapes.

Nicely done,

-Todd

[Gilikov1994 4]

Hej Maarten,

Op het begin lukt het niet om die box te maken zeg maar van die : Length, Width en Heigth. Ik heb bij Length 1,0 - Width 1,0 en bij Heigth 0,5 ingevuld en dan op create geklikt maar hij doet t niet, ik krijg geen box maar een x en y as. Mail me asjeblieft terug op een private message. 

Bedankt voor je begrip 
                                                                                                                      

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Tutorial: Sign Layouts Do's and Don'ts

It's been a long time since I posted my tutorial How to B.A.T. a sign? Today, after six months I continue this tutorial. This time we are going to take a look at existing sign layouts and their strong points and weaknesses. Wit this  you can prevent errors in your own system or replications of existing systems. But first, what kind of signs are there?

The different kinds of signs

Roadside signs:

These signs are placed next to a road. Their common use is describing simple road situations. These signs are commonly used in rural areas. These signs have several functional layouts:

Distance signs: gives the distances to places you're heading for.

"Fork"-signs: usually they announce an oncoming exit

Exit sign: no further explaination required

Situation description sign: describe the layout of the next intersection and the heading of the roads leaving the intersection

Grouped Direction sign: gives the heading of the following directions

Service signs: these signs are used to reduce the number of targets on the rest of the signs. Therefore, all other signs can be smaller

Other announcement signs (example here is an annoucement of an exit)

Pole/Arm Signs:

These signs are mounted on pole, sometimes with an arm partialy hanging over the road. Usally these signs are used in urban envoirments, where there's not enough room to place a roadside sign. The fuction these signs can have are the same as roadside signs.

Here is an example of a pole sign. As you can see, there's not enough room at the left or right

And here's an example of an arm sign:

Portal/overhead Signs:

Portal signs completely hang over the road. Usually it's used in urban environements and on motorways. Portal signs are quite expensive, but nontheless they are widely used. Some portal signs:

Australia:

Belgium:

France:

Germany:

The Netherlands:

Spain:

UK:

USA:

Fonts

There are some fonts specially designed for signs. Here's a list of them with links

• Roadgeek 2005 contains imitations of Highway Gothic, Clearview, DIN 1451 (German fonttype) and Transport plus arrow and symbol font.
• ANWB (NL)
• Autobahnen (D)
• Caractères (F)
• ClearviewHwy (US)
• DIN 1451 (D)
• DIN 1451 Breitschrift (D)
• Alte DIN 1451 (D)
• Drogowskaz (PL)
• SNV (CH/B)
• Tiresias Signfont (NL/Almelo)
• Transport/Motorway (GB)
• Tratex (S)

Colors

Signs have a quite limited range of colors. These basic colors are:

• Black
• White
• Red
• Yellow
• Green
• Blue

Some countries also use:

• Orange
• Purple
• Brown

There is a rule, known as the rule of tincture, that light colors, the 'metals', shouldn't touch darker colors, the 'colors' (this may sound redundant, but there is a slight difference in context). The metals are white, light grey, yellow, while the colors are black, dark grey, red, green, blue, purple and brown. Orange is kind of strange, because sometimes it's used as a metal and sometimes as a color. The rule of tincture makes the sign more readable by increasing the contrast on the sign. Also there are a few more rules regarding colors.

• Motorway signs must have a blue or a green background.
• Avoid red as background color of the sign. Using red as background color of a route shield is fine.
• Using dark and less saturated colors make the sign look better. The left sign has bright colors. The right one uses darker and less saturated colors. Now which one looks better?

    

The "Don'ts"

1. Too many targets/routeshields on one sign:

A large number of targets / routeshields reduce the readablitity of the signs. Remember you'll be passing these signs at velocities higher than 60 mph / 100 kph, so you have to read it quickly. The trick with signs is giving not more information than required.

2. Redundancy:

Redundancy not only decreases the readability of the signs, it's also inefficient and waste of money and material.

3. Strange arrows:

This looks downright ugly and it makes the sign less clear. Good sign designs are as simple as possible.

4. Inconsistency

Systems have certain rules. When you're not keeping those specific rules, you get inconsistency. Not only is inconstency ugly, but it's also harder to understand the system. In this example, one E-number is placed on top of the sign, while the others are fully intergrated.

5. Messy signs

No further explaination required.

Well, I hope you've learned something about signs today! I hope I can post another tutorial soon.

Best,

Maarten

[~Yoshi~ 0]

Haha, funny to see how worse signs can be XD.

That odd arrow.. Omg

[Slashback 136]

Luckily, the signs in denmark aren't that confusing;D

[TekindusT 3,809]

That's a very interesting post, mrtnrln! I can assure you that around Madrid, the majority highway signs are the way the one you've posted in the "don'ts", driving there can be a nightmare specially if you aren't from Madrid!

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Thanks for the comments. Just a update notice: I completely forgot to tell about the colors on signs! It's corrected now.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Tutorial: Advanced sign B.A.T.-ing

In the first post I showed some of the basics of BAT-ing signs. This time I show you some more tricks that I use quite often.

So what are we going to do today? Well, we are going to make a BAT of this sign:

In case you are wondering: where is this sign from. Well, the original design is made by Snelwegfreak from Wegenforum.nl (a dutch roadgeek website), and his signage system won the Signage Designing Competition 2009 at Wegenforum.nl. I have changed it a bit, so it would fit in my imaginary country Bundesrepublik Schellingen.

Let's get started!

So we have our sign printing here. Now we going to create an appropriate model for this sign. Open the BAT and do the following:

• Go to the Create-Tab (1) and select Cylinder (2)
• Open the Keyboard Entry-submenu (3) and set the Radius to 0.05 and the Height to 0.75 (4)
• Hit Create (5)
• Repeat (1) to (4), but now change the Y-value to 0.5.
• Hit Create again
• Repeat (1) to (3), but now you set the Radius to 0.04 and the Height to 0.9
• Hit Create again
• Rotate the object 35 degrees in the X-axis
• Repeat (1) to (3), but now you set the Radius to 0.04 and the Height to 0.5 and the Z-value to 0.5
• Hit Create again
• Rotate the object 90 degrees in the X-axis

You may now have this:

 

Group all of the objects by selecting them all and click on Group\Group on the menu bar. Name your group something like "SupportStructureSegment01". Now all of these objects are acting as one unit. This is only one segment of our support structure. We can make more of these excactly like this one pretty quick by using the   Array button. You'll get the following screen:

The Array option copies your object # times at a given distance (incremental or total), rotation or scale. You don't have to know what everything does on the screen for now. Just fill in for Move Z (Incremental) 0.75 and for the Count 9. Hit OK. Look what Array did:

Now we open the two topmost groups by selecting them and by clicking on Group\Open on the menu bar. Now delete the cylinders that I marked in red and set the height of the cylinder that I marked in yellow to 0.9. The topmost green cylinder at the front should also have changed height. Set the height of this cylinder to 0.8:

You now have this:

Close the open groups (by selecting them and click on Group\Close) and make a group of the whole support structure. Name it something like "SupportStructure01". Clone the entire group (Edit\Clone) and move it 1.5 in the X direction. Clone the group again and move it 1.5 in the opposite direction. Now the supports are finished (except for the textures):

Now let's continue with the sign. I've divided the sign into two parts: one for the large main sign and one for the little one on top of the main sign. We start with the main sign.

• Go to the Create-Tab (1), select Shapes (2) and select Rectangle (3)
• Open the Keyboard Entry-submenu (4). I know that the sign is 422 pixels wide, 455 pixels high and the sign has a corner radius of 5 pixels. Therefore, I set the Length to 4.55, the Width to 4.22 and the Corner Radius to 0.05. Furthermore, I set Y value to -0.1 and the Z value to 5.0 (5)
• Hit Create (6)
• Rotate the just created Rectangle 90 degrees in the Y axis.
• OPTIONAL: Name the Rectangle "Sign01"

Now you have just a completely transparent rectangle, invisible when you render the object.

Let's get to the more advanced modelling stuff.

• Select the rectange
• Open the Modify-Tab (1)
• Add the Extrude-modifier from the drop-down list (2)
• Set the Amount to 0,05 (3)

Well, now it starts to look like something! Now for the small sign. We clone the large sign and go to the Modify-Tab. We set the Length to 0,58 and the Width to 1,29 (because the image size of the small sign is 129x58). Now we select the  Align button. Click on the large sign. Now you get the following screen:

• Select in Align Position the Z axis.
• Set Current Object to Minimum and Target Object to Maximum.
• Hit Apply
• Select in Align Position the X axis.
• Set Current Object to Maximum.
• Hit OK.

 

That went pretty well, right? Now let's connect the sign to the supports.

• Go to Create, select Geometry and then select Box
• Open the Keyboard Entry-submenu and set the Y value to 0,075, the Z value to 3, Length and Height to 0,05 and Width to 4.0
• Hit Create
• OPTIONAL: Name the box "Attachment01"
• Select the box and click on Array.
• Set Move Z to 0.75 and Count to 6 and click OK.
• Go to Create again and select Box
• Open the Keyboard Entry-submenu and set the X value to 1.25, the Z value to 6,75, Length and Width to 0,05 and Height to 1.0
• Hit Create
• In the Keyboard Entry-submenu, set the X value to 1.75 and hit Create again

The model itself is finished now. It's now time for texturing! Open the  Material Editor. You'll get the following screen:

 

We start with texturing the supports:

• Click on New and select Standard. A new standard material is created.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "SupportMtl"
• Click on the Diffuse Color to change the color of the material. I suggest you should use a shade of grey.
• Raise the Specular Level to 50.
• Select the supports and drag the material to the supports.
• Click on Assign to Selection
• Now the supports all have the same textures.

Next up are the attachements.

• Click on New and select Standard.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "AttachmentMtl"
• Click on the Diffuse Color to change the color of the material. I suggest you should use a dark shade of grey.
• Select the attachements and drag the material to the attachements .
• Click on Assign to Selection.

The signs are a bit harder:

• Click on New and select Multi-Material. A multi-material is created.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "SignLargeMtl"
• Click on the top material. This will be the sign back.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "SignBackMtl"
• Click on the Diffuse Color to change the color of the material. I suggest you should use a light shade of grey.
• Go to the drop down list with the material names and go back to SignMtl.
• Click on the bottom material. This will be the sign printing.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "SignPrintingMtl"
• Click on the Diffuse Color to change the color of the material. I suggest you should use a color that is roughly the same as your sign back.
• Then click on the button next to the diffuse color.
• Select Bitmap in the following menu and select the bitmap of the large sign.
• Drag the material to the large sign.
• Select the sign.
• Go to the Modify Tab and select Mesh Select from the drop-down list.
• Select the front polygon.
• Select Material from the drop-down list.
• Set Material ID to 2.
• Copy the material for the small sign.
• OPTIONAL: Name the material "SignSmallMtl"
• Click on the bottom material and click on the button next to the diffuse color (which should have an M of material).
• Click on the Bitmap button the select the bitmap of the small sign.
• Drag the material to the small sign.
• Select the sign.
• Go to the Modify Tab and select Mesh Select from the drop-down list.
• Select the front polygon.
• Select Material from the drop-down list.
• Set Material ID to 2.
• You're done!

Unfortunatly, I can't show the end result of the sign I made for this tutorial, because gMax crashed, and I didn't saved my scene. So here is an important notice:

SAVE OFTEN!

Then you don't lose all your work if gMax crashes. Well, I do have a picture how the end result might look:

  

 

The previous tutorial showed you how to make the sign functional.

That's it for today!

Best,

Maarten

[Slashback 136]

This is great, i think i'll start BATting my own signs soon...

[Red Lightning 7]

thanks for that great tutorial!

[Hiandby4 1]

Very good tutorials I've always loved your work but in your first tutorial with the last picture (here's the pic). I'm wondering how did you get actual bat to stretch all the way across the road when on the right hand side of the picture the blue box ,that represents the bat, only reaches half way.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

The sign itself is a prop (all the blue boxes are). Props can be placed to about half way over the edge of the LOT. The actual building (a grey box) is invisible.

[Hiandby4 1]

Yes but I still don't get how you got the prop all the way over the road but in the picture it seems that it only goes half way across the road because as you said props can only be placed about half way over the edge of the lot but the actual sign is completely out of the lot and my question is how did you do that. Thank you.

  

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Thats because my prop is rendered off-center. The prop bounding box however is still placed in the center of the gMax scene (namely at the x,y,z-co-ordinates: 0, 0, 0). So the prop is displayed all the way over the roadway, while it's technically only halfway over the road.

[Hiandby4 1]

 Oh wow because I've always wondered how people did that. Also, could you tell me how you rendered it off centre.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Simple: place your model off center in gMax.

[Hiandby4 1]

So you mean off center from the intersection of the two black lines. Wow I never knew that. Thankyou

P.S. Are you going to keep going with more tutorials because I would like to see more.

 

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Well, that depends on the time that I have. I have several projects running and I can't do them all at once.

[Slashback 136]

^ You should consider putting this on the Omnibus...

[WC_EEND 9]

Thanks for posting the tutorial here! Now that I see how it's done, it can't be that hard. I'll have a go at it, just ou of curiousity. One more question though, can you use photos directly as textures?